A demon's heart didn't bend, not even when death was already holding its throat.
The air on the mountain tasted like iron, sharp enough to sting the inside of Aria's nose. Every breath scraped her lungs like broken glass, but she didn't let her face twist even once. Her white robes were barely robes anymore, hanging in torn strips soaked with blood that had already started to dry.
The wind pressed the cloth tight against her body, exposing wounds that looked less like cuts and more like something had tried to tear her apart with bare hands. Blood pooled at her feet, warm at first, then slowly cooling against the stone. She stood in the middle of it like she was rooted there, as if pain wasn't worth acknowledging.
All around her, people formed a wide circle.
Weapons were raised, but no one stepped forward.
Their faces were twisted with hatred, the kind that had been fermenting for years. Some looked like they wanted to rush her, yet their feet stayed frozen. Others leaned against comrades, still injured from the battle, hands shaking around their blades. A few stared at her with something else mixed into their anger, something close to awe.
They had surrounded her for hours.
And still, none of them dared approach.
Her silence unsettled them more than any threat ever could.
The sun sank lower, spilling its dying light across the mountainside until the rocks glowed like heated metal. The whole world turned gold and red, like it was being burned alive. Only then did Aria finally lift her head.
Her hair was tangled and heavy with blood, clinging to her cheek. She didn't look at the blades aimed at her throat. She looked at the sky, like the people around her didn't matter at all.
"Heh."
The laugh was quiet, thin, almost lazy, but it rolled across the tense air like a slap.
Her eyes weren't afraid.
They were old.
Tired in a way no human eyes should ever be.
As the last sunlight kissed the horizon, memories she had buried for centuries rose without permission. She saw a different world, one that didn't belong to her anymore. Ink-stained desks. Worn notebooks. Sleepless nights writing stories under weak candlelight, dreaming of futures that never came.
That life had ended the moment fate threw her into this world.
Five hundred years of cultivation followed.
Five hundred years of blood.
Of betrayal.
Of survival.
Faces flashed through her mind like sparks dying in the wind. Enemies. Allies. People who once knelt, then later dared to stand above her. She remembered everything clearly.
Yet her heart didn't tighten.
She didn't regret anything.
A demon's path didn't allow regret.
If you looked back too often, you died.
Aria lowered her gaze slightly, her fingers tightening as if she could still feel the weight of something hidden deep within her body.
The Chronos Cauldron.
The artifact she had refined with her own blood and soul. The gamble she had placed on a legend most people mocked. If it truly held the power she believed it did, then death here wouldn't silence her.
She would return.
And she would return the same.
The thought barely settled before the world finally moved.
Shouts erupted, sharp and panicked, like the crowd had been holding its breath too long and finally snapped. Spiritual light flared from dozens of weapons at once, and the mountain air trembled as if it couldn't withstand the pressure.
Then everything exploded.
Light swallowed Aria's body, swallowed the circle of blood at her feet, swallowed the sky itself. For a moment, the mountainside turned white.
When the glow faded—
The stone was empty.
Aria was gone.
*
Rain fell over Mt. Philanos like a silver curtain, soft but endless, blurring the outlines of trees and cliffs. Wind pushed the droplets sideways, and the cold seeped into everything it touched.
At the foot of the mountain, Harthwyne Village was still awake.
Lanterns lined the uneven roads like fireflies trapped in glass. Warm light leaked through open doorways, and the village hummed with quiet voices beneath the steady rainfall.
The brightest place in the village was the ancestral hall.
Inside, incense smoke curled upward in slow spirals, wrapping around rows of wooden tablets carved with names honored for generations. The clan head knelt before them, his voice hoarse from prayer. Behind him, elders in white robes lowered their foreheads in unison, their movements practiced like ritual breathing.
When the ceremony ended, they stepped outside into the cold air.
For a moment, relief flickered in their eyes.
Then the tension returned.
"Tomorrow is the Awakening Ceremony," one elder murmured.
Another nodded. "This year will decide too much."
Their voices stayed low, but their words carried weight. The Awakening wasn't just tradition. It decided which families rose, which ones fell, and which children would be treated as treasures… or trash.
As they spoke, one name kept surfacing again and again.
"Alexander."
"The girl is talented."
"She might become our next pillar."
"But what about Guinvere? The rival village has been boasting for months."
Even the clan head paused at the hall's doorway, staring across the village lights with a quiet heaviness in his eyes. Tomorrow felt less like a ceremony and more like a battlefield.
Yet in a small house not far away, another girl stood before an open window, letting the rain brush her face.
Her body was young.
But her eyes weren't.
They were calm, clear, and far too deep for a fifteen-year-old.
She lifted her pale hand slowly, as if confirming reality with her own fingers.
"The Chronos Cauldron worked," she muttered.
Her fist clenched.
She was alive again.
For a long moment, she simply stood there, breathing in the scent of wet earth and fresh wood. The rain tapped steadily against the window frame, patient and endless, like time itself.
Her lips curved faintly.
"So the legends weren't lies after all."
The cauldron was gone, consumed completely after a single use. But that didn't matter. It had done what it was created for.
And what mattered far more than the artifact was what she had brought back with her.
Five hundred years of memory.
Techniques.
Secrets.
Methods stolen from sects that no longer existed.
Opportunities hidden behind events that hadn't happened yet.
Her mind was a sealed library, and she alone held the key.
Aria exhaled slowly, her gaze sharpening.
"But strength comes first."
Without cultivation, knowledge was nothing more than a story told to the dead.
The Awakening Ceremony was tomorrow.
The first step.
A soft creak interrupted her thoughts.
The door opened, and a thin boy stepped inside, hesitating like he wasn't sure he was allowed to breathe in the room. His clothes were plain, his posture slightly hunched, and his expression carried the nervousness of someone who had spent his life trying not to be a burden.
"Big Sister…" he asked quietly. "Why are you standing in the rain?"
Aria turned her head.
Her gaze landed on Ryan, her fraternal twin.
For a moment, the past and present overlapped so clearly it almost felt like a hallucination. She had watched this boy grow into a man. She had watched resentment rot inside him like poison. She had watched him smile at her one day and stab her the next.
But the Ryan in front of her now was still young.
Still timid.
Still convinced the world had already decided he wasn't worth much.
He stepped closer and gently pushed the window shut. His hands were careful, almost apologetic, as if even touching the frame might offend someone.
"Tomorrow is the Awakening Ceremony," he whispered. "If Aunt and Uncle knew you weren't resting… they would worry."
Aria's lips curved slightly.
Worry?
That word almost made her laugh.
Ryan still believed their aunt and uncle cared. He still believed kindness was real, that effort would earn love, that the clan's smiles weren't tied to talent.
He didn't understand that affection in this world was a transaction.
Aria looked at him quietly, her expression unreadable.
Then she spoke.
"Go."
The single word froze him.
Ryan stared at her, confused. Something felt different about his sister tonight. Her eyes were sharper, heavier, like something ancient was hiding behind them.
Not the coldness of a moody girl.
The coldness of someone who had already buried countless lives.
"I…" Ryan swallowed. "I will see you tomorrow, Sister."
He backed away and closed the door carefully, as if he was afraid of making noise.
The room fell silent again.
Aria stood alone, listening to the rain strike the roof and windows. Outside, the village continued to glow softly, unaware of what had returned to its walls. The people slept peacefully, thinking tomorrow's ceremony would decide their futures.
They didn't know a devil who once shook the continent had come back wearing the skin of a girl.
Aria closed her eyes, breathing slowly.
She had been reborn.
And this time, she wouldn't walk behind fate.
She would walk ahead of it.