Destiny in Cinders

"Sigh... Madam Huai passed away."

"Really?! I recall that she was still strong and healthy before the snow calamity—"

"That's exactly it! Damn it, those cursed fiend followers... They kept causing trouble and forced the old lady out of her home!"

"Wasn't it because of the sudden temperature drop? I recall that she fell a little ill around that time."

"Sigh... Old people are fine if they don't get sick. Once they do, however, it gets bad. She survived the snow calamity, but not long enough to see spring again."

All sorts of chatter about Madam Huai could be heard on the streets. Most people found it a huge shame that she had passed, though it didn't seem odd to them given her age and recent events. It was already quite fortunate that she survived the snow calamity and the True Fiend Cult's assault. Though her passing was unexpected, it wasn't out of the ordinary.

Some of those people had benefited greatly from Madam Huai's help or were cared for by her since their childhood. All of them felt greatly pained by her passing. They took the initiative to seek out Jing Xuan, the organizer of the funeral. Though they didn't have much money to offer, they offered their labor to contribute to the funeral. Those that couldn't help were more than welcome to simply attend.

People had quite different opinions about Jing Xuan's funeral arrangements. Some believed him to be a grateful yet powerful man who fought mercilessly against the True Fiend Cult. He was precisely the kind of poster child that was popular in the northwestern border.

There were also those that found him annoying for stepping up to steal the limelight as if he had some close ties to Madam Huai even though he was a newcomer from Dustdawn. They felt like the funeral should've been organized by those whom Madam Huai had helped for a long time instead.

Some people on the street said, "Good things really do happen to good people. I heard that Madam Huai survived the snow calamity because of some precious medication Young Master Jing brought from his hometown."

"It's not like that saved her or anything! Sheesh, how pointless."

"Hey, what's that you're spouting?! What kind of medication is able to save someone from dying of old age? Are you crazy?"

"Yeah! That kid did his best for the old lady. He went out of his way to do something he didn't need to! He's a generous and kind person!"

In either case, the reputation of Jing Xuan the foreigner got more and more widespread in Keensight.

"I didn't think that everyone would remember all of it so well." While Madam Huai's soul could only wake up occasionally, she did see quite a few people grieve for her as her coffin was paraded along the streets until it reached the cemetery. When the coffin was properly interred into the ground, this marked the end of Madam Huai's corporeal life. "I thought my journey would come to an end and that I had to tie up loose ends before that happened. It seems like there's still much I can do."

After the funeral, Madam Huai's soul felt another wave of fatigue. However, she seemed to be in a much better state than before. The dragonjade did actually seem capable of sustaining souls. This reminded An Jing about how he got Huo Qing to study the Soul Domination Mantra.

If the dragonjade was connected with the Nether Soul Nourishment Formation, it could probably serve as a true nether residence that could house souls until the limits of their soulspan. Apart from that, An Jing had some other theories about nether residences.

During one of Ming Guangchen's recent short trips back, he taught An Jing the Minor Yang Sword Art and also explained the circumstances between the five Dustdawn Sects. Centuries ago, Grand Chen was incredibly imperialistic and had a strong policy encouraging conquest. Its armies constantly shrank the vague buffer zone between the northern frontier and Dustdawn. The entire North Han Circuit was part of the new post-conquest imperial territory and the An clan had its roots there as well.

The region north of Grand Chen's borders was the territory of the only upper sect among the five Dustdawn Sects, the Grandnight Sect of Voidgod Mountain. They were allied with Grand Chen publicly but were actually resisting Grand Chen's infiltration in the shadows.

Oddly, Grand Chen eventually stopped their expansion completely after they took the North Han Circuit and Chiye Region, pulling back all their forces. Right after that, Emperor Tianyou abdicated and passed away. Even though that wasn't enough to shake the empire to the core, people could tell odd times were upon the empire. The various sects and factions across different regions that used to not stir up trouble began to itch for action. The alliance of Dustdawn factions also began to relax from the decreased pressure.

The Brightmirror Sect had been the strongest of the four intermediate sects of Dustdawn in the past thousand years; even the Poolsea Sect of Floodfloat Mountain, which had a Pure Yang transcendent too, couldn't compete with the Brightmirror Sect. It was to the point that even the Grandnight Sect was wary of them.

After all, three thousand years ago, one of the Grandnight Sect's two transcendents joined King Qi of Grand Chen to discuss the dao with the Deific Fey of Taiyuan. Once the fey deity returned to the mountain to enter seclusion, the deity failed the nine tribulations and experienced a dao collapse, unable to even leave a legacy for others. King Qi ended up heavily wounded for a hundred years and lost all hope of progress. Transcendent Grand Haze of the Grandnight Sect also entered seclusion and never left it, passing away in the same year as the Deific Fey of Taiyuan.

Losing a Pure Yang transcendent didn't just cost the Grandnight Sect its respect among the five Dustdawn Sects, it also caused the alliance to grow even more lax. Whitemarsh Mountain, the sect of the Deific Fey of Taiyuan that had wanted to unite the entire Taiyuan Region, fell to the lower rung of the intermediate sects as a result of losing their leader.

Consequently, the Taiyuan Region descended into a chaotic land ravaged by fiends and fey due to the True Fiend Cult's actions. All those events had led to Ming Guangchen eventually becoming a drugslave of the fiend cult, followed by his eventual rescue by the five Dustdawn Sects.

In the present day, while the Brightmirror Sect wasn't as strong as the Grandnight Sect, they did circumvent the Grandnight Sect to connect with Grand Chen and sects from other major regions. They even started a branch sect on a different mountain in Taiyuan. Yet, the Brightmirror Sect's triumph was nearing its end. Once the transcendent grand elder inevitably perished from his own dao collapse, the sect would fall to the ranks of normal intermediate sects with four to five venerated of the Sanctification Realm.

The other factions had also been rather displeased by the Brightmirror Sect's sudden boom in the past millennium; the upper sects were unhappy that an upstart intermediate sect was baring fangs at them while the other intermediate sects couldn't bear to see the broke, inconsequential sect suddenly gaining prominence. That situation eventually led to the harassment of the Brightmirror Sect's promising venerated candidates.

An Jing believed that the Grandnight Sect was likely behind those incidents. The Nether Capture Soul Domination Divine Curse Mantra by the Sovereign Nether Divinity that he picked up from Lu Jin, clearly pointed back to them. This was a mantra that was used to control fiendgods of the nether, a signature of this sect, yet it seemed able to manipulate heavenly fiends as well. This connection greatly hinted at the Grandnight Sect's involvement.