Ying Zhen quietly made his decision. He simply continued on his soul path, ignoring what could have been. Of course, what is fated will always come to be even if it takes millennia. In this case, it should not be long anymore until the truth revealed itself. For the time being though, there was still a task ahead of Ying Zhen that held his whole attention.

For the longest time, the two of them walked ahead without the landscape around them changing. There were rolling hills beneath their feet, covered in grass with the tips enveloped in the faintest traces of rime.

Ying Zhen’s eyes narrowed, feeling that the most difficult part of his soul path should be up ahead. He hastened his steps, wanting to reach there sooner so he would have more time to tackle it. Surprisingly, the scene he had expected did not appear. Instead, he found a flat hilltop with a small camp erected at the side of the path they followed.

Ying Zhen stopped in his tracks and looked at that camp side, trying to find any similarity with something that had happened in his past. He couldn’t remember anything though. But then, his life had been a long one. Who knew if there was something buried in his mind that still caused him some grief deep down?

Since he couldn’t deny the possibility, he walked closer and finally sat down, trying to look at things from this perspective. He still couldn’t say for sure what was up with the camp side but he relaxed slightly.

Laryana followed him over and sat down on the other side of the fireplace that had long burned down. She looked at him questioningly, expecting that Ying Zhen would explain what this place was just like before.

In this case, the demon could only look at her with a wry smile. “To be honest, I don’t remember this place. I did travel a lot in my youth though so I might have stumbled upon it when I was younger.”

Laryana nodded. Seeing as nothing seemed to be happening, she couldn’t help but use the opportunity to ask further. Anyway, she was curious and maybe this would also help him with figuring something out. “You haven’t said much about the time when you were young. So far, the earliest on your soul path we have seen should have been Chun Hua’s wedding, shouldn’t it?”

Ying Zhen thought for a moment but then nodded. To be honest, Chun Hua’s wedding and the last battle with the gods had been the only two big instances appearing on his soul path that could be considered turning points in his life. The rest had been short episodes that filled him with some regret but it couldn’t be considered too deep. You could only speak of them as some kind of obsession if you put all of them together.

He looked around the camp side and his dark brows furrowed. “I pursued a career as a warrior because I believed it to be right and also because I suffered too much loss at the hands of the gods. Part of that life was traveling alone or with others on that same path. Only the smallest amount of time was spent being trained directly and most of that happened later.

“Whether you look at the gods or the demons, we all have our own abilities so it is difficult to train an army in an orderly fashion. If you tried to teach your men something, half of them might be unable to do it and even for the rest, there is no saying how well they can do just based on how which talents they were born with.” Saying so, he couldn’t help but glance back at Laryana’s face, trying to see if she had understood. He hadn’t forgotten that she wasn’t one of their people and also hadn’t been to the realm of the demons before so, of course, she might lack some common knowledge.

Laryana roughly understood what he was saying but seeing his gaze, she felt that she should better make sure. “I think I know what you mean. When our master created us, he gave me the ability to form illusions, while Nilam …” She thought about it but, in the end, he couldn’t think of it. What was Nilam’s ability? To be honest, she had never seen it. Nilam was only ever ferrying the souls down the Alessian, nothing else.

Ying Zhen watched her with interest. “Illusions?”

Laryana nodded and raised her hands. From one moment to the other, a beautiful, ethereal butterfly sprang to life, fluttering its wings and taking off from her palms toward the sky.

Ying Zhen followed it with his eyes before turning back to Laryana, smiling faintly. Why was he not surprised that this was the kind of illusion she would come up with? He kept that thought to himself and instead cleared his throat. “It is similar to that. I don’t know how it was for the High Gods like Heidan but for us, are limited in what we can do.

“Among the demons, there are actually many tribes. Each tribe has its own characteristics. It starts with how we look and which form we take and it ends with the magical abilities we have. For the lower gods, it is similar.”

Laryana was surprised to hear this. She had never met any of the High Gods apart from her master and Lady Xingula so she only knew them from her creator’s re-tellings. Originally, Heidan had wanted to take her along to Heaven once when he visited but he had finally given up on that thought. She didn’t know why but seeing as he had later failed to return from that place, maybe he had always suspected that this place was not as safe as it should be.

Her expression fell for a moment but she hurriedly pulled herself together. Now was not the time to think about these matters. She had promised to help Ying Zhen and she still wanted to find out the truth about her master’s demise and the demons’ skills. How could she let herself be distracted?

Since Ying Zhen had already brought up the different demon tribes, Laryana figured that now was a good opportunity to figure out how they were connected to her master and the Underworld. “Which tribe are you a part of then?” She didn’t know the first thing about the demons. Ying Zhen was the only one who could provide her with more information so she never thought it to be a problem to inquire further.

Ying Zhen looked at her and wondered if it would be wishful thinking to assume she was interested to know more about him as a person. Most likely, the answer was yes. Not that it mattered. He cleared his throat to get rid of those thoughts and then smiled faintly. “I am from the Yin tribe. We … to be honest, we are probably the closest to the High Gods still. Our figure is just like as you see although some of us can turn into an element to hide. Our abilities are also of an elemental nature.”

Laryana looked curious and Ying Zhen couldn’t help but get up and walk a few steps away. He raised his hands and they crackled with lightning first. As soon as the sound faded, flames leaped up and then froze into ice.

Laryana’s eyes widened and she got to her feet as well, walking over hurriedly to take a closer look.

Ying Zhen held back a smile. To be honest, he was simply showing off. Even though his abilities could be considered top-notch among the Yin tribe, it really didn’t mean much. In fact, thinking about it more closely, he figured that he was in the process of picking up a stone only to smash his own foot. Who was he trying to impress here? A woman he couldn’t have and even one that had lived with the High God Heidan himself. What hadn’t she seen?

To his surprise, Laryana actually seemed interested. “Is there anything else you can do? Like, what about shadows?”

Ying Zhen raised his brows but then simply put away the frozen flames. His fingertips slowly turned darker, seeming to disappear in front of her eyes.

Laryana reached out to hold his hand but her fingers passed straight through. She stared at it in wonder and then raised her head to look at Ying Zhen’s face again. He looked like this wasn’t difficult for him at all. Clearly, it was an inherent ability.

She wasn’t a stranger to it. No, this was something that Heidan had been able to do as well. From one moment to the next, his body could turn into a wisp of shadow and disappear from sight. Sometimes, he had joked that he had to be the most fitting god to take over the Underworld if he was gifted with such an ability. To now see Ying Zhen able to do this … it made her heart beat faster.

Originally, she had thought it might be a coincidence that he looked like Heidan. Even though it was unlikely, there was such a possibility. But the longer she followed him, the more she thought that that couldn’t be it. There were simply too many similarities to casually gloss over it.

The first was their looks, then there was his ability to step on the path to the Underworld in a physical body. He could also manipulate the time on his soul path which no soul was able to do. And now, he could even turn his body into shadow like Heidan.

What was the connection between them? Just thinking of the possibilities, she wanted to weep with joy. After all, there were only two explanations: Either Ying Zhen was a direct descendant of Heidan’s, or some part of Heidan’s soul had survived the attack from Kaashuang and had been reborn. Either way, some part of her creator was still alive. Even if his own life was lost, he had not been completely lost to this world. To her who had been given life by Heidan, this was enough.

Heidan had been her family. From the moment she was created to the time Heidan left and never returned, he and Nilam had been the only ones to keep her company and she had spent a lot more time with Heidan himself. How often had they simply sat down to talk? He would tell her about the world outside, the realm of the gods, the humans down on earth that came to the Underworld as souls …

Laryana seemed to remember each of those moments clearly and Heidan’s face had been etched into her memory. She would never forget him and to think that he was gone pained not just her heart but her very soul. And even though she didn’t know the full truth of what had happened that day and how this demon in front of her related to her creator, she was at least sure that he carried something of Heidan’s. It couldn’t replace the family she had lost but it gave her hope.

Heidan had always seen the best in a situation. Even being exiled to the Underworld, only being allowed to return to Heaven when Kaashuang allowed him to, was something he had made his peace with. Sometimes, she had even thought that he was happier here than he had been in Heaven where he had to contend against his brother every day. If not for how lonely the Underworld was, she was certain that this place could have been his paradise.

Heidan had not shunned the shadows and instead felt quite at home among them. The darkness of this place did not disturb him. The bit of light in this place had been created after her so she could see what was around her and enjoy those specks of light. In a sense, he had simply done this for her amusement, not for his own comfort.

A man that could live like that … surely, just knowing that some part of him had lived on, he would also smile?