Strongest Incubus System

Damon narrowed his eyes.

"No curse?"

"No."

"No hidden test where backing down means I failed?"

"No."

"No gate exploding, mountain collapsing, or monster appearing because I decided to use common sense?"

The guardian took a few seconds.

"No."

"You thought before answering."

"Because monsters may appear regardless of your choice."

Damon sighed.

"Great. Very reassuring."

A few steps behind him, Aria covered her mouth to hide a laugh.

Ester did not find it funny.

She was still watching Damon as though expecting him to collapse at any moment now that the Heavenly Body was no longer responding automatically.

Jian Yue, however, was not paying attention to the conversation at all.

His eyes remained fixed on the guardian.

Now that the helmet was open, the resemblance between them was impossible to ignore.

The shape of the eyes.

The line of the jaw.

Even the way they held their shoulders rigid seemed to have survived across generations.

Jian Yue tightened his grip on his sword.

"You really are him."

The guardian turned his eyes toward him.

"The first Jian Yue."

"That was my name."

"My family searched for you for centuries."

"I know."

Jian Yue went still.

"You know?"

"Everyone who carried my blood and came close enough to this gate was heard."

"And you never answered."

"I couldn’t."

"Because you needed to protect Xue Lian?"

The guardian looked toward the interior of the Tomb.

Xue Lian remained seated on the steps, eyes closed, as though that conversation had nothing to do with her.

"Because I made a promise."

Jian Yue took a deep breath.

"A promise was worth four hundred years?"

"More."

Damon turned his head.

"More?"

The guardian ignored him again.

Damon decided that family had serious problems with incomplete answers.

Jian Yue lowered his sword slightly.

"My family believed you were abandoned here."

"I chose to stay."

"Why?"

"Because someone needed to remain outside."

Jian Yue frowned.

The guardian rested a hand on the hilt of his broken sword.

"When Xue Lian entered, many of us believed she had hidden an inheritance. Others believed there was one final teaching. Some wanted to free her. Others wanted to force her to return."

"Mu Qing," Damon said.

"Mu Qing was only one of those who refused to accept her absence."

Jian Yue fell silent.

"I stayed to prevent our need from becoming a right," the guardian continued. "Someone needed to say no."

Damon understood.

The descendants of the Open Door had spent generations interpreting that man as someone abandoned before an impossible gate.

In reality, he had never been waiting for permission to enter.

He had been stopping others from doing so.

Jian Yue seemed to understand as well.

"So you weren’t trying to open it."

"No."

"You were keeping it closed."

"Yes."

Jian Yue’s hand relaxed around his sword.

Damon looked at Xue Lian again.

"That explains a few things."

The guardian turned his attention back toward him.

"It does not explain why you are still here."

"I’m thinking."

"That is why the gate opened."

Damon raised an eyebrow.

"You’re saying someone who reached this place running to enter would have failed?"

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"I am not the gate."

"This is getting irritating."

"I’ve heard that before."

"Mei."

The guardian did not answer.

That was confirmation enough.

Ester stepped closer to Damon and took his wrist.

She checked his pulse for several seconds.

"You’re getting tired."

"I’m standing still."

"Your body isn’t accustomed to functioning without automatic compensation."

"I can go in."

"That isn’t what I said."

Damon looked at her.

Ester held his gaze.

"You don’t have accelerated regeneration. You don’t have bodily reinforcement. You don’t have control over your internal temperature. If something happens in there, you can’t simply decide to keep going."

"I never simply decide to keep going."

Aria laughed.

Ester looked at her.

"Don’t help."

Damon looked back at the gate.

"Can you come in with me?"

"No," the guardian answered.

Damon closed his eyes for a moment.

"Of course."

Aria crossed her arms.

"Why?"

"You were not called."

"I wasn’t called to half the places I’ve entered."

"This is not one of them."

Aria looked genuinely offended.

Ester, on the other hand, pointed toward Xue Lian.

"If he collapses in there, who takes care of him?"

"He does."

"Wrong answer."

The guardian remained indifferent.

Damon sighed.

"Ester."

"No."

"I haven’t even said anything yet."

"Your face did."

Aria nodded.

"You’re becoming really predictable."

Damon ignored her.

"I didn’t cross all of this because someone ordered me to. I want to talk to her."

Ester released his wrist.

"About Jian Li."

"That too."

"Mu Qing."

"That too."

"And why she let a root destroy people for centuries."

"Mostly that."

Jian Yue looked at him.

Damon noticed.

"I’ll ask about your sister."

Jian Yue became serious.

"Don’t accept an easy answer."

"You still don’t know me?"

That made Jian Yue release a short breath, almost a laugh.

Damon turned toward the gate.

He took the first step.

Nothing happened.

The second carried him beyond the guardian.

The sensation of cold disappeared.

It did not lessen.

It vanished completely.

Damon stopped.

Behind him, Heshan was still surrounded by snow and wind.

Inside the Tomb, however, there was no temperature at all.

The snow over the steps did not melt or freeze further.

It simply existed.

"This is uncomfortable," he muttered.

No one answered.

Damon continued.

The gate remained open, but the sounds from outside began to disappear as he advanced.

Xue Lian did not move.

Damon reached the steps.

She looked different from the memories.

Younger in some details.

Older in others.

There was none of the crushing presence that accompanied the memories.

No authority pressed against the environment.

No energy announced who she was.

Only a white-haired woman sitting in silence.

Damon stopped a few meters away.

"I came."

Nothing.

He waited.

Still nothing.

"This would normally be the part where you open your eyes."

Silence.

Damon looked over his shoulder.

The guardian remained before the gate.

Ester, Aria, and Jian Yue were on the other side, but now they seemed much farther away than a few meters should allow.

He turned back to Xue Lian.

"If I crossed four doors, abandoned half my powers, and ran from frozen dead people just to find a sleeping woman, I’m going to be very annoyed."

Her eyes opened.

Blue.

Very pale.

Damon did not feel the root react.

Did not feel memory.

Nothing inside him recognized Xue Lian.

For the first time, he could look at her without some borrowed part of his own existence interfering.

Xue Lian observed Damon for several seconds.

"You took your time."

Damon blinked.

"You’ve been waiting for me for centuries. A few hours shouldn’t make a difference."

A small smile appeared.

"You’re still the same."

"That sentence would mean more if we had actually met before."

"We have."

"In my head."

"It was you."

"With your memories mixed in."

Xue Lian tilted her head slightly.

"So you consider that false?"

"No. I consider it incomplete."

Her smile widened.

"Good answer."

Damon stepped down one stair and sat in front of her.

He did not kneel.

Did not bow.

Did not make any ceremonial gesture.

Xue Lian noticed.

"You do not intend to show respect?"

"I walked a long way."

She laughed quietly.

"Definitely still the same."

Damon rested his arms over his knees.

"Did you know I would come?"

"I knew someone might."

"Convenient answer."

"I did not know it would be you."

"Better."

Xue Lian watched him.

"You don’t want to be chosen."

"Not particularly."

"Even after receiving my inheritance?"

"It was useful."

"Useful?"

"Were you expecting religious gratitude?"

"No."

"Good."

The smile gradually faded.

Damon became serious as well.

"Jian Li."

Xue Lian closed her eyes for a moment.

"I assumed you would begin with her."

"You knew."

"I knew Heshan’s root would be removed."

"You knew someone would carry it."

"Yes."

"You knew it would destroy that person’s body."

"I knew it would try to replace their circulation."

Damon remained silent for several seconds.

"And you didn’t stop it."

"No."

The direct answer irritated him more than an excuse probably would have.

"Why?"

Xue Lian looked at her own hands.

"Because I could not act outside this place."

"You left Xue Mei in Heshan."

"She does not carry my authority."

"You left a guardian."

"Neither does he."

"You left roots spread across half the world."

"That is exactly the problem."

Damon frowned.

Xue Lian extended one hand.

Nothing happened around them.

Even so, something very far away moved.

Damon felt it as pressure traveling through the ground.

Mountains.

Rivers.

Underground lines.

Many.

Too many.

"When I entered the Tomb," Xue Lian explained, "I could no longer distinguish connection from dominion."

Damon remained silent.

"Any root I touched began responding to my existence. Cold regions adapted. Spiritual currents changed direction. The more I tried to correct, the more things began recognizing me."

"You were changing the world."

"Yes."

"Without meaning to."

"At first."

Damon raised his eyes.

"At first."

Xue Lian did not try to evade it.

"I liked it."

That he had not expected.

She continued.

"It was easy. A region suffered from drought, I altered the channels. A mountain threatened to collapse, I anchored its roots. A kingdom needed a shorter winter, I changed the circulation."

"Until everyone started depending on you."

"Yes."

"And you started deciding because you could."

"Yes."

Damon slowly exhaled.

"Mu Qing learned a lot from you."

The sentence struck.

Xue Lian did not become angry.

That made it worse.

"She did."

"So the Tomb is not protection for you."

"No."

"It’s protection against you."

"Yes."

Damon looked around again.

Now the fortress made sense.

It was not a sepulcher.

It was containment.

Xue Lian was trapped because her own existence had become an environmental authority.

"Then why give me your memories?"

"Because I needed someone outside."

"You already had disciples."

"That was precisely why."

Damon almost smiled.

"You overestimated them."

"For centuries."

"Chen Mo still seems reasonable."

"Chen Mo learned to say no too late."

"Mu Qing never learned."

"No."

Damon remained silent for several seconds.

"Then why me?"

"Accident."

He blinked.

"That was unexpected."

Xue Lian smiled again.

"You touched something you should not have. Your body survived an integration that should have killed you. My memories found enough space to remain."

"So there was no prophecy."

"No."

"Destiny."

"No."

"Chosen from birth."

"Definitely not."

Damon relaxed.

"You just moved up considerably in my estimation."

"But afterward, I chose to keep watching."

"Why?"

Xue Lian looked directly at him.

"Because you received my inheritance and immediately began asking why you should obey it."

Damon went quiet.

"My disciples heard my words and searched for orders," she continued. "You heard orders and searched for reasons. When a door told you to sacrifice, you refused. When a root could be possessed, you returned it."

"So the tests were yours."

"Some."

"That means there are tests you didn’t create."

"Yes."

Damon did not like that.

"I’ll ask later."

"I assumed you would."

He stood.

"So I’m not your successor."

"No."

"Good."

"You are something else."

Damon narrowed his eyes.

"That sentence always causes problems."

Xue Lian stood as well.

"You are my way out."

Damon went still.

"Explain."

"I do not need you to inherit what I am."

"Good."

"I need you to end it."

"Less good."

Xue Lian approached.

There was no threat in her movements.

Only exhaustion.

"My authority cannot remain contained here forever."

"Then we remove it."

"It cannot be removed."

"We return it."

"There is nowhere to return it."

"We find somewhere."

"Damon."

"You did not bring me here because I accept definitive answers."

Xue Lian fell silent.

Then sighed.

"That is exactly the problem."

"Your problem."

"Now it is yours too."

"I disagree."

She almost laughed.

Then her expression became serious again.

"If I fully awaken, the Tomb will no longer contain me. If I die normally, the authority will seek continuity."

Damon understood before she finished.

"In me."

"Probably."

"Because I already carried parts of you."

"Yes."

"That’s why I had to leave everything in Heshan."

"Yes."

Damon ran a hand over his face.

"So your grand plan is?"

Xue Lian held his gaze.

"You need to destroy my authority before my body dies."

"That sounds complicated."

"It is."

"And then?"

She took only a moment.

"Then you kill me."

Damon looked at her.

The silence stretched.

Xue Lian waited.

Damon crossed his arms.

"No."

For the first time since opening her eyes, she looked surprised.

"Did you understand what I said?"

"Perfectly."

"Then—"

"You chose me because I don’t obey without understanding."

"Yes."

"And your first solution when you finally meet me is to tell me to kill you."

Xue Lian fell silent.

Damon pointed at her.

"So let’s start over."

He pulled the improvised chair from the steps and sat down.

"First explain why destroying the authority requires killing you."

Xue Lian watched him for several seconds.

Then, slowly, she sat as well.

Damon rested his arms over his knees.

"Now we’re doing it properly."

A small smile appeared on her face.

"You really are irritating."

"I’ve been hearing that a lot lately."

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