Yoshika stepped back from the icy mirror fearfully. She suddenly found herself standing on top of the gate, overlooking the bloody battlefield. There were rats everywhere, glaring up at her with their glowing red eyes. To her horror, the corpses that they had been gnawing on began to rise, shambling to their feet and staring up at her with the same glowing red gaze.

The corpses had always been indistinct when she saw them—vague approximations of the people she had killed. Now, each face seemed to be all of them at once. She saw Yeong Jiwoo, the first person that Eui had killed. She saw the kindly traveller that Eui had betrayed in her desperation, his name long forgotten—it was too painful to remember. She saw the victims of her banditry, and the mage that she had slain before his token led her to the academy.

With mounting dread, she saw other faces as well. Yan Zhihao, Lee Jung, the nameless child she had abandoned to a life of misery, and countless others who she had wronged or failed. She didn’t understand it—she hadn’t killed Yan Zhihao, and she had no reason to believe that the others were even dead at all!

Yet there they were—her guilt, her failures, and her darkest moments rising up and advancing towards her with vengeance gleaming in their eyes. The rats swarmed over and around them, countless sets of beady red eyes and gnawing teeth, intent on consuming her. There had to be thousands of them—tens, or maybe even hundreds of thousands—all approaching her tiny little outpost.

It was almost laughable. Yoshika alone behind her tiny little gatehouse against an entire army. She heard a meow and glanced down to see Heian at her feet, staring up at her meaningfully with her bright blue eyes. Alright, not entirely alone. She heard the white cat speak to her again, Jia’s voice nearly unrecognizable with such a haughty tone.

“Our kin of shadow will assist, but this is your battle. It cannot save you, nor fight for you—only provide you with temporary shelter, or a place from which to strike. That is the role you gave it, after all.”

Yoshika turned and found herself behind the walls again, standing in the footsteps of the white cat, which sat facing her a few paces ahead.

“What about you? You’re part of me, right? Shouldn’t you help as well?”

“Hmph!”

The white cat turned its nose up at her and turned away, lifting its tail rudely into the air as it walked away from her—leaving more footprints in its wake as it disappeared into the snow. Yoshika regarded the footsteps wryly—she had already gained quite a bit from following them so far. Perhaps this was the prideful spirit’s way of helping. She didn’t really see how advancing in Steps of the Stalker would help her now.

Then again, she wasn’t entirely certain what was happening at all! Everything here was so abstract, and what she saw was just her conscious mind trying to make sense of everything—like a dream. Yoshika felt an overwhelming sense of dread for a moment as she glanced up at the sky—there were stars now, but thankfully no moon. She calmed down and tried to wrap her head around what was going on.

This was her soulscape—a visual representation of her soul, her domain, and herself. There was some kind of war happening in her soul, but between what? On the enemy side there were the rats—were they Eui’s spirit half? Did that not mean that they were part of her just as much as the white cat? If so, then why were they so antagonistic?

Was there something else influencing them? The demonic core, maybe? Perhaps the same influence was controlling the corpses—manifesting her own feelings of guilt and self-loathing against her. Even if that was the case, how was she supposed to fight it? On her side, there was just her and Heian—and maybe the white cat. How was she supposed to fight an entire army with just one person and a kitten?

Yoshika sensed that the enemy was at the gates. She felt it like a pressure on her mind—every blow to the walls of her little outpost seemed to chip away at something precious, deep within her.

“You are running out of time, child.”

Yoshika wanted to rage at the disembodied voice of the white cat. Time!? She didn’t have even the slightest clue how long she had been here, or how much longer she could last. The spirit was right, though—she had wasted too much time thinking. She had to fight, or she would lose herself.

She took a step forward and found herself face to face with one of the corpses. Yoshika wasn’t caught off guard, she was getting used to the strangeness of movement within her soulscape and had ended up exactly where she wanted to be. She struck out at the creature with her claws, instantly beheading it. Yoshika blinked in surprise—that was easier than she thought—

The headless corpse grabbed her by the shoulders, and she screamed in terror as the rats swarmed over, around, and out of it, crawling onto her and biting savagely. Each bite shook her to her core, and it felt like the very foundation of her being was being eroded.

She heard Heian meowing urgently, and looked down to see the kitten’s black form begin expanding until the darkness enveloped her entire field of vision. As it did, the rats on her disappeared, and she found herself alone in a dark void. A moment later, Heian’s bright blue eyes appeared in the void and the blackness receded until she was staring at the little kitten again, safely behind the walls of her outpost.

“Thanks, Heian. You saved me! Okay, fighting them directly didn’t work—now what?”

Heian padded around her, sniffing at the footprints that the white cat had left in the snow and mewling softly. Yoshika noticed that Heian didn’t leave any footprints of her own and frowned down at the path before her.

“These represent the Steps of the Stalker, don’t they? I mean, they’re literally the steps that I named the technique after. I don’t really see what training that technique is going to do for me right now.”

Heian nuzzled her ankle, urging her forward. Yoshika sighed, but she didn’t have any better ideas. She looked down at the next footprint and carefully strode forward to match—

She ended up back where she started, as if she’d never taken the step at all. Yoshika looked around in confusion and tried again, to the same result. She huffed irritably.

“I don’t have time for this! They’re going to break through those walls eventually, and then—”

Yoshika wasn’t really sure what would happen, then, but she didn’t think it would be good. The rats couldn’t climb over the walls, but she could feel them gnawing away steadily—slowly weakening them enough for the corpses to break through. Starting to panic, she tried to take another step and once again found herself back where she started.

“Why!? I don’t understand, what is this supposed to mean?”

She stared down angrily at the footprint. Why couldn’t she do it? It was just a—

Yoshika’s eyes widened as she came to a realization. It wasn’t just a step. Advancing her technique couldn’t possibly be as simple as just taking a step forward. It was a combination of training, study, self-reflection, meditation, and experience. The culmination of Yoshika’s hard work couldn’t be reduced to something as simple as taking a step forward. The step, like everything in this soulscape of hers, was metaphorical. If cultivation was as simple as just walking forward, then the world would be swarming with immortals—or maybe they’d all sit in caves forever until they ascended.

She realized her mistake. Just like she’d tried to treat her spirit-half’s footsteps as literal steps to follow, Yoshika had been thinking of this as a literal war between two distinct sides. It was a battle between her and her enemies, the rats were trying to consume her, the demonic core had influenced Eui’s spirit half into some kind of demonic spirit—that was how she had been seeing it.

She was completely wrong. This place was her. All of it was her. The snowy hills, the white cat, the bloody battlefield, the undead army, the demonic rats, the starry sky, the little outpost, even Heian. She wasn’t fighting some invading force trying to consume her soul—she was fighting herself. Yoshika realized that even if the tides had been reversed, even if she was the one with overwhelming force against the rat spirit’s pitiful rebellion, there was no winning this fight.

No matter which side won, she would lose. The ‘enemy’ force attacking her was just as crucial to who she was as the white cat, or the outpost she was defending, or even the very manifestation through which she was perceiving her soulscape. In a flash of inspiration, she realized just what the demonic core was and why demons were thought of as bloodthirsty monsters.

She had met a demon, and while Jianmo had been eccentric, short-tempered, and brutal, he didn’t strike her as unreasonable. Certainly not a mindless, bloodthirsty maniac. Yet, that was the picture that Elder Qin had painted—he had condemned her as being doomed to eventually fall to the hunger that overtook all demons. Until now, Yoshika hadn’t even thought to question why.

What was demonic hunger? Why did they prey on the souls of the innocent? How did a demonic core change a person so dramatically? Now that Yoshika had the answer, it seemed almost obvious in hindsight. She now knew exactly what would happen to her if she let the ‘demon’ break through her walls and consume her. She knew why ancient cultivators thought that a person who had succumbed to deviations was possessed by a demon.

Essence deviations were manifestations of a cultivator’s darkest thoughts and feelings. The essence, which was so easily influenced by human thought, would take form based on those dark emotions and rampage throughout the body. Some elements were more prone to such deviations than others, and Destruction was one of the worst. When a deviation occurred, three things could happen—the cultivator could overcome it, they could die, or they could stabilize the essence and form a demonic core.

A literal crystallization of one’s deepest fears, heaviest regrets, and of course—their darkest desires. When Yoshika had first experienced the deviation, she had been too weak to overcome her dark emotions, so she had instead formed them into a crystal and set them aside. She hadn’t understood at the time what she was even doing, because she lacked the ability to understand it.

Over time, she had continued to feed it, letting it grow stronger without even understanding what she was doing. It wasn’t protecting her from the backlash of the destruction element—it was just continuing to absorb the negative emotions that caused the backlash in the first place. She had inadvertently created another version of herself—one born entirely of her negative emotions. The demon.

She had tried to reject it, and now it wanted to consume her. Of course it did—it was born from her most primal, base desires. The desire to live at any cost, to inflict suffering on those who made her suffer, to destroy everything that made her unhappy. To the demon, she was an obstacle to those goals.

What was it that made her unhappy? Guilt, fear, anger, self-loathing? To an existence that knew only destruction, how would those problems be solved? If she didn’t care about other people, then she wouldn’t feel remorse over their deaths. If she hated the world and everyone in it, then she wouldn’t feel any shame. If everything else was destroyed, then she would have nothing to fear.

That was how a true demon, the way Qin understood them, was born. That was what was slowly happening to Yoshika now. The demon would eat away at her empathy and her compassion until there was nothing left but selfish desires—an unfeeling monster that fed on the lives of others. She understood now why the Qin were so particular about controlling their desires—why some basic practices were banned as demonic because of the potential for exploitation.

The capacity to become a monster existed in everyone. Yoshika had experienced it over and over, across both of her lives. The man who didn’t hesitate to assault his own fiancee because her only worth to him was as a political tool, the girl who doomed her best friend and lover in order to protect her own reputation, the girl who murdered innocent travellers to preserve her own life, the man who groomed orphaned children into slaves, the girl who abandoned a child to that fate to save herself, the thugs who gleefully argued over who would use that girl like a piece of meat first.

In both herself and in others, Yoshika had witnessed the potential for demons everywhere she looked. Now, she was on the precipice of becoming one of the monsters she feared. It seemed almost inevitable that it would happen, when she thought about it. Who would expect better of someone like her? Elder Qin hadn’t hesitated to tell her that he expected her to fail, and her own spirit didn’t have confidence in her either. Nobody believed in her—least of all herself.

Yoshika could feel the walls crumbling now. She wasn’t sure how long she’d spent meditating on the nature of demons and her own grim potential, but it didn’t really matter anymore. She realized that Heian had been keeping her hidden—protecting her from the demonic horde that had broken through.

“That’s enough, Heian. Thank you for protecting me, but I think I’m ready now.”

With a dutiful meow, the darkness receded into the form of a small black kitten that curled up at her feet and went to sleep—it had been working hard. Yoshika watched the horde of rats and corpses closing in on her—her demon. She didn’t know how to fight it, but now she knew that it was pointless to try. She couldn’t destroy her demon, and she couldn’t allow it to destroy her either.

For better or worse, those dark emotions were part of her—if she rejected them now, she’d become just as broken a person as if she let them overcome her. What would she do without the desire to live or the need to improve herself? She needed her desires, but she also needed her compassion. She needed her demon, and no matter how much it tried to fight her, it needed her as well.

The Grand Magus had suggested neutralizing the Destruction essence with Lightning—a very scientific idea, which made perfect sense given her understanding of mana theory. Her experience contradicted it, however—when her ki had deviated before, the deviation refused to be neutralized by her lightning element. Originally, she had thought it was because it wasn’t part of her, but now she knew better.

If anything, it was too much a part of her. The Destructive essence had become something far greater than just the energy that made up the world, it was her thoughts and feelings given form. In order to neutralize it, Yoshika would have to balance it out with something on the same level. She would need to give form to her other thoughts and feelings.

Yoshika knew her domain—there were three parts to it, and though she didn’t think that was the true totality of it, that was how she saw it for now. Unity, Hunger, and Shadow. Shadow was represented by Heian, the little panther spirit that had become a part of who she was. Hunger was represented by the demon—her bottomless desire for improvement, her zeal for life, and her envy of those who had the things she lacked. She had thought that Unity was represented by herself—by Yoshika, the inexorable bond between Jia and Eui—but that had been too shallow.

Unity was more than just two people hand-in-hand. It was more than the bond of friendship, or even lovers—however eternal—between just two people. Unity was the strength of cooperation, the compassion for friends, and the empathy to suffer another’s hardship as if it were your own. Unity was the strength to face challenges together, and succeed or fail together! Yoshika couldn’t face her demon alone, but she didn’t need to.

There was a bright flash overhead, followed by the crack of thunder. The advancing horde paused, glancing up at the sky. There were glowing thunderclouds above them, shining with an odd, purple light. Yoshika hadn’t been sure what to expect, but she was glad that she was at least able to summon lightning—she was still trying to figure out the rules of her soulscape.

Summoning lightning was only half of what she was trying to do, though. Now, she had to infuse that lightning with the emotions that she needed to balance out the demon. Compassion, empathy, love—she needed the lightning to represent Unity in its entirety.

She could just imagine the looks on the faces of her teachers if they knew what she was trying to do. Who in their right mind would combat an essence deviation by intentionally provoking another one? It seemed insane even to her, when she fully considered it, but she was committed, and she didn’t have any other ideas.

As the clouds rumbled dangerously, Yoshika silently gave thanks for the fact that she was experiencing this from within her soulscape—she couldn’t imagine that the bodily experience would be very pleasant. With a sense of urgency that Yoshika hadn’t felt from them before, the demonic horde surged forward, but they were interrupted by the first strike of lightning from the clouds above.

The bolt struck a few feet in front of Yoshika, and despite the blinding flash and deafening roar of thunder she felt nothing but comfort and joy from the blast. As she blinked the white spots out of her vision, the lightning bolt stayed, slowly resolving itself into the form of a person. A glowing purple silhouette of Hyeong Daesung turned and smiled at her, putting a hand on the back of his head and bowing awkwardly.

As Yoshika raised a hand to wave, another two bolts struck, taking the form of Seong Eunae and Takeda Rika. Yoshika was grinning ear to ear, but she didn’t have time to greet them as lightning began to fall like rain. Dozens of silhouettes, some more distinct than others, began to rally around her as the lightning bolts struck. Xin Wei and Guan Yi, Minami Yuuko and the faded image of her team, her classmates under Ienaga, and even Hayakawa Kaede all appeared.

There were others as well, more faded yet recognizable. Yoshika was surprised to see Yan Yue and even more surprised to see her brother, Yan Zhihao. She had worked together with him only once, briefly, and he had betrayed her in the end—yet she still felt compassion for him, and she regretted his death.

The next group was so faded as to be nearly invisible, more like ghosts or phantoms, yet Yoshika was brought to tears at the sight of them. Eui’s parents, the unnamed traveller who had shared his fire with Eui, and Jia’s adopted big sister Lee Jung were among the ghosts—those who were too distant in her memory, yet still held a place in her heart.

Now, Yoshika was not alone. She had her own army with which to face the demon. With her friends, family, and allies at her back, Yoshika stepped forward and faced the demonic horde defiantly. The white cat sat next to her, grooming itself as if it had been waiting there for her the entire time. Heian was still sleeping—she’d done her part already.

“Face me, demon! No—my other half! Now that we’re on equal ground, why don’t you show yourself so that we can talk?”

A strange, shuddering susurrus went through the demonic horde, but the army of rats and corpses parted to reveal a figure. At first, it appeared to be one of the walking corpses, but it was too clean and perfect. It strode forward, its glowing red gaze matched by the rat on its shoulder as it stared Yoshika down.

The demon looked almost exactly like Eui, with a few differences. Her hair was purple, the rat-like tail behind her was tipped with a nasty-looking jagged blade, and a single glossy black horn curved upwards from her forehead where her brand would normally be. She put a clawed hand on her hip and threw her head to the side to move the hair out of her face, raising her chin as she scowled at Yoshika.

“Fine!”

She practically spat the words, and her voice was the same warped distortion of Eui’s that Yoshika had heard before, but clearer now.

“Let’s talk.”