Upon the blighted ramparts they sat, Wang Lin and Dust Daoist, each clutching a flask of spirits. In solemn silence, they drank, their gazes occasionally lifting to behold the crimson heavens in the distance, a searing heat emanating from the lands beyond, whispering past them like the sighs of tormented wraiths.

“Dead,” Dust Daoist rasped, the word bitter as ash in his mouth. “The Third is gone… my Second Brother’s nascent soul, faded into the void.” He drained his flask, its emptiness echoing the hollowness within him. “The Three Dusts… now, only I remain.”

Wang Lin remained silent, swallowing the harsh liquor. At length, he murmured, “I should never have allowed you three to venture forth together.”

With a sudden, fierce turn, Dust Daoist fixed Wang Lin with eyes blazing with a raw, simmering hatred. Wang Lin returned the gaze, unwavering, his own depths unreadable. After an eternity of unspoken accusations, the fire in Dust Daoist’s eyes began to dim, replaced by a desolate weariness. “Ling’er, fetch more wine!” he commanded the girl who stood silently behind him, then turned his face once more toward the fiery horizon.

“We who tread the Path of Immortality defy the very heavens. To walk this road of no return is to court oblivion, to invite the dissipation of essence. This, I understand.” Dust Daoist gestured to the scattered, empty flasks around him, rattling a few that yielded only hollow sounds. “You did not force us to accompany you to the Demon Spirit Land. We went of our own volition. This, too, I understand.” Bitterness laced his words.

Wang Lin offered his own flask in silence. Dust Daoist seized it, gulping down a generous draught. Tears streamed down his weathered face as he mumbled, “I curse my lack of power, my inability to resurrect my brothers! I curse my impotence, my failure to avenge them! I have failed their departed souls!”

Ling’er returned from the city, her own eyes red-rimmed, and placed several fresh flasks beside Dust Daoist with a gentle hand.

Wang Lin seized a flask and emptied it in a single swallow. Resolution hardened his gaze. “Dust Daoist,” he stated, his voice ringing with purpose, “I bear responsibility for this tragedy. Had I not permitted all three of you to depart, this sorrow would not have befallen you. The Ancient Devil Taga took your brothers’ lives. I pledge to you, before long, you shall have the opportunity to slay Taga with your own hands, and avenge their deaths!”

Dust Daoist recoiled, his head snapping up, his expression a mixture of disbelief and desperate hope. “Is this truth?” he breathed.

“It is my oath.” Wang Lin set down the empty flask, rising to his feet. He gazed into the distance, his thoughts seemingly lost in a sea of memories. “Life and death… once understood, they lose their sting. Your brothers are gone. Mourn them. Let their spirits be honored. But we who walk the Path have long surrendered control of our own destinies. Across the vast expanse of stars, countless cultivators fall each day. How many are remembered? How many are mourned?”

“To embark upon this path is to embrace both our own mortality and that of others.” Wang Lin paused, a shadow crossing his face. “Once, I carried the ashes of a friend back to his village. There, I overheard a child’s ditty:”

*”The apricot tree, in bloom so white,*
*Do not give your daughter to a Daoist’s plight.*
*One brother climbs the mountain high,*
*The next returns to dust and die.*
*The grieving daughter wails in vain,*
*And makes the coffin her domain.*
*The apricot tree, in bloom so white,*
*Child, beware the Daoist’s sight.*
*How old am I? I cannot say,*
*For I possess no Daoist’s way.*
*The dog will bark, the cat will claw,*
*And send the Daoist back once more!”*

“A simple rhyme, yet it captures the sorrow and futility of our kind.” Wang Lin’s voice was subdued, laced with a profound melancholy. “Dust Daoist, understand… the less you feel, the less you suffer.”

With these words, Wang Lin turned and began to walk away, his figure radiating a sorrow and loneliness that dwarfed even that of Dust Daoist.

Dust Daoist watched him go, the echo of his words still ringing in his ears. As Wang Lin drew further away, he rose to his feet and cried out, “Have *you* truly understood?”

Wang Lin’s back stiffened. He halted, remaining silent for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he whispered, “I have not.” With that admission, laced with the bitter taste of unshakeable grief, Wang Lin transformed into a streak of light and soared into the heavens.

Time drifted onward. Since his departure from Dust Daoist, Wang Lin had remained seated beside the fiery maw of the volcano, his gaze locked upon the churning depths, his mind reliving the fleeting memories of bygone days.

He could not fathom the mysteries of life and death. And so, he was condemned to bear the burden of a thousand years of anguish and solitude… and would continue to bear it.

He struggled within the bonds of his sorrow, clinging to the dictates of his heart, his spirit a solitary beacon upon the desolate path of cultivation. Endless. Unending.

At the foot of the volcano, save for the hissing of the rising black smoke and the crackling symphony of the burning landscape, there reigned a profound silence.

Within that silence, Wang Lin sat motionless. Before him rested a coffin, wrought of shimmering crystal, its glow bathing the surrounding area in ethereal light. Within lay a woman, peaceful and serene, her skin luminous, as if she merely slumbered.

She possessed no peerless beauty, no captivating allure, yet in Wang Lin’s eyes, even the most exquisite of beings could never hope to rival the woman within the coffin.

“Wan’er…” Wang Lin’s hand gently caressed the crystal surface. Warmth filled his gaze. He looked upon the woman and, in his mind’s eye, he was once again upon the world of Vermillion Bird.

Life and death… Wang Lin could not truly understand.

In that moment, the very fabric of reality seemed to dissolve, leaving only he and the woman within the coffin.

Silently, he embraced the weight of his solitude, quietly regarding the companion of a thousand years. In that tranquil world, a flicker of warmth began to stir within the depths of his soul.

Though faint, the warmth permeated his being, a fragile illusion upon the distant shore. He knew it could vanish at any moment, yet he remained steadfast, gazing across the river of life and death.

A thousand years of cultivation, and yet, the woman in the coffin was the only anchor of Wang Lin’s heart. He brushed his hand across the crystal, forgetting all else, lost in the contemplation of her face. “When you awaken, we shall seek out a hidden paradise, a place where none can find us. And there, we shall live in peace.” A gentle smile graced his lips, a small, simple hope that constituted the entirety of his heart’s desire.

“Once, I did not understand,” he whispered. “Now… I do.” From his being emanated a profound sadness, an aching sense of loss.
In ages past, his understanding of the bond between Zhou Yi and Qing Shuang was but a hazy notion. Yet, after a thousand years of cultivation, after an eternity of solitude, Wang Lin finally comprehended.

It was a solace for the soul, a tenacious devotion laced with struggle, and above all, a defiant refusal to surrender!

“Wan’er,” he murmured, his gaze burning with celestial defiance. “Do you recall? I swore to you, even if the heavens decree your death, I shall wrest you back!”

Within this burning starfield, upon every cultivation star of the Vermillion Bird Sacred Sect, volcanoes were never scarce. These fiery peaks, under such peculiar conditions, frequently erupted with molten rage.

Each volcanic outburst sent tremors through the land, a deafening roar that shook the very heavens. Billowing black smoke choked the sky, and fiery rain cascaded down, painting a scene of apocalyptic ruin!

For the disciples of the Vermillion Bird Sacred Sect, volcanic eruptions were commonplace, but Wang Lin had witnessed few.

At this moment, within the volcano where he stood, a muffled rumble resonated, growing ever more intense. Yet, Wang Lin paid it no heed. His eyes remained fixed solely upon the coffin that held Li Muwan.

The volcanic tremors escalated until it sounded as if a monstrous beast roared within the mountain’s heart. A plume of black smoke erupted from the caldera, unfurling in a ring across the heavens, obscuring the crimson light from above and plunging the land into abyssal darkness.

Then, with a deafening roar, a crimson blaze shot skyward, a pillar of molten fury piercing the heavens!

From afar, the sight was awe-inspiring. Wang Lin sat beside the caldera, stones trembling and crumbling around him, some swept away by the erupting magma.

The molten river spewed upward mere feet from him, the intense heat and fiery torrent like a dragon emerging from the volcanic depths, its roar shaking the cosmos as it transformed into a rain of fire.

It seemed as though the world itself crumbled before Wang Lin, yet he could not bring himself to glance away. He gazed solely at the coffin, utterly indifferent to the cataclysm.

As the volcano raged, the earth writhed and cracked, the fissures swiftly filled with molten rock. With each shudder of the ground, with each eruption, molten rivers overflowed from the caldera, cascading down the mountain’s slopes like waves of wrath.

In moments, the entire volcano was submerged, the molten tide spreading inexorably outward.

At that instant, fire rained from the sky, while molten waves engulfed the land. The world was painted in shades of black and red, the black of choking smoke, the red of all-consuming fire.

“This is the power of Mountain Collapse,” Wang Lin whispered, “the eruption I have waited for these long days. Wan’er, bear witness with me, as I grasp the fourth form of Bai Fan’s celestial art… Mountain Collapse!”

Gazing up at the fiery rain, Wang Lin felt another eruption tremble within the volcano beneath him.

The tremors grew in intensity, shaking a distant peak. Before Wang Lin’s eyes, that distant volcano roared to life, spewing forth its own torrent of smoke and fire.

Slowly, Wang Lin closed his eyes. Images from the past flooded his mind, visions of Qing Shui, within the Realm of Slaughter, raising his right hand and unleashing the art of Mountain Collapse.

In truth, back in the Land of the Demon Spirit, Wang Lin had caught a fleeting glimpse of Mountain Collapse within a volcanic eruption, but it was a fragile sensation, lost in the throes of crisis.

Now, within this cultivation star of the Vermillion Bird Sacred Sect, where volcanoes were plentiful, and with his understanding of the fire element deepened, Wang Lin could finally grasp the celestial art of Mountain Collapse that Qing Shui had left in his mind.