35: Chapter 35 She lived someone else's life and shed her own tears.

The moment the golden pillar of light engulfed her, her five senses shut down simultaneously.

There was no light, no sound, no temperature, and no gravity.

Even the outline of her body blurred; she reached out her hand, but could not see her fingers.

The darkness was not empty.

It had weight, density, a viscous, flowing quality, and carried a gaze possessing a certain intelligence.

It was as if she were being stared at from within by something.

Liu Yuyan's breathing faltered.

She had been a decision-maker for eleven years.

Besieged in board meetings, set up in merger cases, and carrying the entire Liu Group on her shoulders alone after her father's death.

Never once had her hands trembled.

Yet at this moment, in this boundless darkness, her hands were shaking.

A sigh came from the depths of the darkness.

It was very soft.

Aged and gentle, like something that had burned for a very, very long time, finally reaching its end.

The golden light arrived.

It was not an explosion, but a condensation.

The light squeezed out from the center of the darkness bit by bit, first a speck the size of a needle tip, then expanding, forming into a human shape.

Silver holy armor.

Thick and ancient, every piece of armor engraved with complex, scripture-like holy runes.

At the center of the breastplate, where the golden cross intersected, was an embedded gemstone—dim, nearly extinguished, yet still pulsating.

Golden hair hung down to her waist, its luster worn away by time and the fires of war.

Her left hand held a tower shield.

The cracks on the shield's surface were layered one upon another—deep, shallow, new, old—each one a death she had blocked for someone else.

Her right hand gripped a two-handed greatsword.

The blade was broad and thick, with traces of faint golden light lingering on its edge.

Liu Yuyan saw her face.

It was no longer young.

High cheekbones, lines at the corners of her eyes, and a jawline as sharp as if carved by a knife.

But those eyes—blue, deep to the core, like the sky on the coldest morning of December.

There was no hostility, no exhaustion.

Only a kind of indestructible calm, polished by a lifetime.

"Are you the new Kindling member?"

The voice was low, carrying the metallic resonance echoing through the gaps in her armor.

She looked at Liu Yuyan, her gaze filled with scrutiny, curiosity, and a faint trace of expectation.

"It seems... the World-Ending Calamity is coming again."

Liu Yuyan opened her mouth, wanting to say something.

She didn't have the chance.

Elena raised her hand, and a golden beam of light shot from her fingertip.

The golden beam struck Liu Yuyan in the chest.

—She was no longer Liu Yuyan.

She was Elena von Brightshield. Five years old.

The castle garden was large, and the roses were in bloom.

The old butler knelt before her, telling a story about a knight slaying a dragon.

Her father dismounted from his horse, still wearing his armor, and hoisted her high above his head.

Her mother stood under the veranda laughing, her skirt fluttering in the wind.

Someone was hawking bread in the market, and children were chasing pigeons by the fountain.

The sunlight was beautiful.

Then the sky tore open.

There was no warning.

A black rift tore open from the center of the firmament, like a giant hand splitting the blue sky in two.

Monstrous beasts poured out from the rift, obscuring the sun.

Her father put on his full armor.

Her mother shoved her into a wooden crate in the cellar.

"No matter what you hear, do not come out."

The gap in the wooden crate was only two fingers wide.

It was enough.

Enough for her to see the firelight.

Enough for her to see the knights being torn apart.

Enough for her to see blood flowing through the cracks in the stone floor into the cellar—it was warm.

Her father's sword broke, but he continued to hack with the broken blade.

A beast's claw pierced through his chest.

Her mother threw herself over him, collapsing onto her father's body.

Her lips were still moving, whispering toward the crate— "Live on."

Then she stopped moving.

Five-year-old Elena bit the back of her hand.

Her teeth sank into her flesh, blood and tears mixing together, not a sound escaping her.

The darkness inside the crate swallowed her whole.

When there was light again, several people stood amidst the ruins.

A knight in silver armor, a cultivator in grey-green robes, a wizard holding runes, and an Eastern sword cultivator with a sword on their back.

On their chests, they all wore the same totem—a flame cradling the stars.

The lead knight removed their helmet, knelt on one knee in the ruins, and punched their fist into the rubble.

"We are too late."

The wizard carried her out of the crate.

A total stranger, holding a strange, trembling little girl, crying even harder than she was.

"I'm sorry... I couldn't protect you."

At that moment, something returned to five-year-old Elena's eyes.

She joined the Kindling.

But she could not pass the test of the ancient tree.

The trauma in her heart held her back—that night in the crate watching her parents die had become an unremovable nail.

She was afraid.

Afraid that she couldn't protect anyone.

For ten years, she worked in logistics, moving supplies, distributing medicine, bandaging the wounded, doing everything she could.

She did not go to the battlefield. It wasn't that she didn't want to; it was that the ancient tree did not acknowledge her.

Until that day.

Monstrous beasts attacked the branch.

The official members were all away; only the elderly, the wounded, and the children remained in the base.

She stood at the warehouse entrance.

In her hands, there was no holy sword, no tower shield.

Only an iron rod pulled from the pile of rubble.

The beast's shadow cast over her, enveloping her entire body.

Her lips were trembling, her legs were shaking, but her feet did not move.

The old man behind her held the children close; a three-year-old boy looked up at her with large eyes.

They were exactly like the eyes she had when she looked out through the cracks in the crate at five years old.

"I am a member of the Kindling."

Her voice was very small.

"I am willing to become the fuel—to ignite the Kindling—to protect civilization!"

The golden light exploded.

It exploded from within her body. Silver-white armor condensed piece by piece.

The greatsword descended from the light, and she caught it.

Firmly, as if that sword had been waiting for her for ten years.

The beast was cut in two.

Not a single person behind her had fallen.

Liu Yuyan finished living through this memory.

It was not witnessing; it was becoming.

The weight of the iron rod still pressed into the web of her hand, and the pain of the holy light cauterizing the wounds still burned in her shoulder blades.

The scenes continued to advance, year after year.

Swinging the sword with someone behind her, blocking with the shield with someone behind her, bleeding with someone behind her.

She couldn't count how many beasts she had killed.

She couldn't count how many scars were on her body.

She could only count one thing—how many of the people she protected had lived.

Once, she dug a girl out of the ruins.

Half of her body was crushed under the rubble, but she was still breathing.

She moved the rubble aside, knelt in the pool of blood to stop the girl's bleeding, and the girl grabbed her wrist and said—

"Will you always be here?"

She said she would.

Then the World-Ending Calamity was blocked; she sealed her armor and faded into the mortal world.

She became an ordinary old woman again.

White hair, wrinkles.

Sitting in the sun in front of a house in some unknown town, clutching a copper-green badge in her hand.

No one knew what she had done.

—The illusion shattered.

Liu Yuyan opened her eyes.

Tears covered her entire face.

Elena stood before her.

Aged, with long silver hair, the holy runes on her armor dimmed, but those blue eyes looked at her, smiling.

"You saw it."

The voice was much softer.

"Fear, despair, anger—you endured it all."

"But you did not close your eyes."

She reached out, her fingertips touching Liu Yuyan's forehead.

"That is enough."

Elena von Brightshield's body began to glow.

Starting from her feet, the silver-white holy radiance climbed up along the patterns of her armor.

She turned into light; it was not shattering—it was blooming.

Eight points of light.

Golden ones.

Mercy, Humility, Honor, Sacrifice, Awe, Loyalty, Bravery, Justice.

The eight points of light swirled, flying toward Liu Yuyan, sinking into her chest one by one.

With each one that merged, her body shuddered once.

It was not pain, but something passed down from a thousand years ago, finding a new vessel.

---

Torch Base.

The golden pillar of light began to dissipate.

Liu Yuyan's body descended slowly from mid-air, her feet touching the stone steps.

She opened her eyes.

Deep within her pupils, a golden holy radiance flashed and vanished.

Lin Xiaoman stared at her, her breath hitching.

She couldn't say what had changed.

But this woman before her and the person who had walked up the stone steps ten minutes ago were no longer the same existence.