The tribulation clouds rumbled menacingly overhead as they prepared for their final strike. Jiang Xiulan sat in lotus position, bracing herself for the bolt of tribulation lightning that would expose her deepest heart devil and pave her pathway to ascension.
A wave of calmness washed over her as she opened her eyes and gazed lovingly at the friends and family who gathered to protect her in her time of need: her stoic master Feng Zhibai, devoted dao companion Yang Wei, martial sister Liu Zhiting, martial nephew Wang Baofeng, and affectionate younger sister Jiang Yuwen. Together, they formed a protective line of defense, supporting the five points of an ancient formation embedded in the desolate valley where she chose to undergo ascension.
She could sense her enemies patiently laying in wait, looking for the best opportunity to attack, but she trusted her protectors to keep her safe as she placed her full concentration onto her tribulation.
Jiang Xiulan's dark eyes closed once again as the final massive lightning bolt descended from the heavens. It struck the top of her forehead and invaded her body, searching for chinks in the armor of her nascent soul. Pain seemed to rise from the depths of her mind as her heart devil fought to gain control, spurred on by the tribulation lightning. Her body trembled with the effort needed to contain the war raging within, and a cold sweat formed as stray strands of ink black hair pasted themselves to her face.
Jiang Xiulan summoned the remaining dregs of her spiritual power and focused her mind on her own convictions, battling away the visions of insecurity, fear, and hatred conjured up by heart devil in her soul. With a tremendous effort, she opened her eyes once again and was suffused with a triumphant feeling of victory as her heart devil prepared to surrender to her strength of will.
Suddenly, her jubilation was doused with an icy sense of disbelief. Jiang Xiulan's breath was knocked out of her lungs as she looked down and saw a bloody blade protruding from her dantian.
The tribulation clouds swiftly dissipated, like a band of murderers fleeing the scene of a crime, and her head lifted back up to meet the horrified gazes of her loved ones. She watched Wang Baofeng and Liu Zhiting run to her as if in slow-motion and turned her head to Feng Zhibai who was fiercely slaughtering enemies taking advantage of the confusion, transforming from a serene Daoist into a bloody Asura.
Her master's perpetually calm countenance was contorted with rage and pain as he spread his spiritual sense towards the nascent soul slipping away from her physical body. Bewildered, Jiang Xiulan searched for the comfort of her dao companion before freezing at the scene that seemed to be an unholy manifestation of the heart devil she had faced moments earlier.
Yang Wei was smiling, his peach blossom eyes filled with a gentle expression as he wrapped Jiang Yuwen in a tender embrace with her face burrowed firmly into his chest.
Jiang Xiulan was overcome with a sensation of disbelief, of a refusal to accept this reality, as she screamed with all of her soul, "why? Why? WHY?" At a loss for words, she was unable - no, she was unwilling to acknowledge this betrayal that stabbed into her heart.
He looked up from the woman in his arms and stared straight at Jiang Xiulan with an expression so compassionate, it forcibly brought back all of her fondness for him. Her love for him surged up and twisted in a tangled state of confusion, disgust, and disappointment.
She waited for him to reply, desperate for some kind of reasonable explanation for his betrayal, but he merely looked at her, impassive, as if nothing had ever changed between them. Then, he released her younger sister from his arms and turned her around to face Jiang Xiulan.
Yang Wei ordered, in that perpetually gentle voice, "Release Xiulan from her misery, my love."
When Jiang Yuwen's eyes finally locked onto Jiang Xiulan's nascent soul, floating above her own corpse, it was with a wholly unfamiliar face. There was no trace of Jiang Xiulan's innocent, cheerful little sister. The sister that she had pampered since birth was a stranger, with doe eyes so devoid of emotion, she barely seemed human.
Jiang Yuwen wordlessly flew towards Jiang Xiulan's nascent soul, Nine Sectioned Foxtail Whip outstretched. She watched in disbelief as her sister approached her, searching futilely for some sign of recognition, remorse, or even resentment, before exploding with an inhuman cry of despair that reached the Heavens.
The tortured sound of a nascent soul on the brink of collapse echoed throughout the battlefield like the wails of a vengeful ghost until it was silenced by the eerily calm voice of Yang Wei, "Your loved ones are still here. Do you want to drag them down with you? I thought you were a better woman than this."
His words penetrated through Jiang Xiulan's half-crazed mind and she forcibly stopped her self-induced explosion. The backlash crushed her remaining willpower as the Nine Sectioned Foxtail Whip wrapped around the pitiful remnants of Jiang Xiulan and squeezed.
She stared into her unfeeling sister's eyes, unwilling to believe that the sister she had always doted on would betray her like this.
Those cold doe eyes imprinted themselves into her soul before she faded into nothingness.
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Ninety nine years after the passing of Jiang Xiulan, beneath a full moon on a perfectly clear night, a strange flower bloomed at the site of her tragic death. The nine petals unfurled with great effort, proudly supported by a deep black stem, all nine a deep, vivid red.
The color of happiness, of luck.
The color of rage, of blood.
Jiang Xiulan's blood.
As soon as the flower fully extended, basking in the moonlight, a cold and bitter wind violently passed through, scattering the blood red petals into the world, sparing only a lone black stem.
In a pitch-black cave on the outskirts of the Cursed Ghost Sect, a small cultivator took her last breath, the victim of an unfortunate encounter with a soul-harvesting senior cultivator. The bitter wind passed through the mouth of the cave, and that small devil cultivator once again opened her eyes and took her first breath.
"I'm. Who?
I'm Xiulan.
Jiang Xiulan.
I am Jiang Xiulan."
Outside, the breeze picked up, forming a devilish whirlwind that raced from one desolate valley to another, leaving behind the echoes of a bloody history in its wake.