Shui Hua burst forth from the seawater, cutting through the waves.
Deep blue water light scattered the night mist, and lit up the damp, cold rocky beach outside Luoxia Village.
Old Jiang, who was standing on the shore, saw her open her eyes, and his eyes turned red in an instant.
He knew.
Shui Hua had remembered.
Shui Hua's eyes were burning red too.
She called out softly,
"Sister."
"It's been so long."
The hand of Tantai Jingyue that was gripping her sword tightened sharply.
In that very moment, the depths of her sea of consciousness felt as though something had crashed into it viciously.
A crack spread across the invisible seal.
Blurry images flashed past through the fissure.
But those fragments were far too broken.
Like they were separated by a thick, heavy sea fog.
She could not see them clearly, nor could she grasp them.
A sharp pain pricked at Tantai Jingyue's heart, and her breathing fell out of rhythm for a brief moment.
But she quickly forced that strange sensation under control.
She could not believe it.
At the very least, she could not trust the old tales that Jiang Huaichao had spoken of, just based on a few images of unknown origin.
Tantai Jingyue looked at Shui Hua, who stood poised atop the tides, her voice so cold it was nearly devoid of any inflection.
"I have told you before, I have no younger sister."
Shui Hua froze.
Tears welled up almost instantly in her eyes.
She stepped toward the shore, one slow step after another.
"Don't you remember me?"
Tantai Jingyue did not answer.
Shui Hua took another step forward.
"Don't you remember Luoxia Village?"
"Don't you remember Old Jiang?"
"Don't you remember that you said you would come back for me?"
With every word that fell, the broken images in the depths of Tantai Jingyue's sea of consciousness multiplied.
Two children sat in front of a courtyard gate, sharing a single grilled fish.
The young Shui Hua was on her back, chattering noisily about going to the seaside to catch crabs.
Someone was clutching her sleeve, sobbing so hard they could barely catch their breath.
Tantai Jingyue's face paled little by little.
The more this happened, the more she dared not let herself waver.
She had grown up in the Divine Palace since she was a child.
In her memories, there was no Luoxia Village, no Jiang Huaichao, and certainly no younger sister.
What if all of this was just an illusion meant to disrupt her state of mind?
The Sea Taming Ritual was only three days away.
The entire province of Cangzhou was waiting for her.
She could not forget her duties as the Divine Maiden just because of a few old words.
Tantai Jingyue spoke in a low voice, "I do not remember."
Shui Hua's steps came to a halt.
Tantai Jingyue tightened her grip on her longsword, and continued to speak.
"All I know is that you carry the part of my Hairuo divinity that I lost."
"I must take it back."
The hurt and grievance in Shui Hua's eyes slowly curdled into anger.
She had waited for so long.
Now that they had finally met again, the only thing the other person wanted from her was her divinity.
The hand holding Shui Hua's sword squeezed tighter and tighter.
Deep blue divine light crept up her wrist, winding slowly around the blade of her sword.
The sharp edge glowed blindingly bright in the night.
She looked at her with red, tearful eyes and asked,
"You said long ago that you would come back."
"Now you are back."
"But you have come to kill me?"
Tantai Jingyue did not answer.
Because she could not give an answer.
What if retrieving her divinity truly required Shui Hua to die?
She did not know.
But her silence, in Shui Hua's eyes, was taken as admission.
"Fine."
Tears rolled down Shui Hua's cheeks.
"Then come and get it!"
The words had barely left her mouth when she surged upward, stepping onto the waves.
Boom!
The entire stretch of shallow sea outside Luoxia Village seemed to jolt awake at the same time beneath that single step.
Tides rose from the ground.
Walls of water several zhang high lifted Shui Hua up as she charged toward the shore.
She knew nothing of swordplay.
Nor did she understand how to wield the divinity.
But seventy percent of the Hairuo divinity had originally belonged to her.
All her grievance, fury, and sorrow had transformed into the most direct tidal power in that instant, surging forth alongside her blade to press down on Tantai Jingyue.
Her sword fell.
The sea raged.
Old Jiang's expression shifted drastically.
He had not expected that Shui Hua, who had just broken through her seal, could stir such a massive tide.
Zhu Changli's pupils even narrowed slightly.
He finally understood what seventy percent of the Hairuo divinity truly meant.
Shui Hua had no cultivation base.
She did not even know how to circulate spiritual energy.
But the seawater would respond to her with just a single thought.
This was not cultivation. This was authority.
The innate divine power that belonged to Hairuo.
Tantai Jingyue lifted her sword to meet the attack.
Moon-white sword light sliced through the surging tide.
Clang!
The two swords clashed once more.
This time, Shui Hua was not sent flying with a single strike like she had been before.
Deep blue tidal power surged nonstop from behind her, bracing against Tantai Jingyue's sword intent forcefully.
But Shui Hua was relying entirely on instinct.
Tantai Jingyue, on the other hand, drew on years of cultivation and countless hours of rigorous training.
Shui Hua's power was far more immense, but it was crude and unruly.
Tantai Jingyue's power was not as strong, but it was honed to a razor's edge, and every strike landed precisely on the weakest spot in the surging tide.
She was forced back several steps, and the water beneath her feet shook violently.
Shui Hua's eyes were full of unwillingness.
"Why?"
Tantai Jingyue spoke coldly.
"Getting distracted in a battle will only make you lose faster."
Shui Hua's eyes grew even redder.
"That is not how you used to teach me."
Tantai Jingyue's sword momentum faltered.
Shui Hua seized that split second of opening, lifting her sword to slash horizontally.
The seawater transformed into a long whip that lashed viciously against her blade.
Bang!
Tantai Jingyue was forced half a step back.
She lifted her gaze to look at Shui Hua.
Shui Hua's face was streaked with tears, yet she still held her sword stubbornly.
That face slowly overlapped with the blurry little girl in the depths of her sea of consciousness.
A name was almost on the tip of her tongue.
Huahua.
But at that very moment, the rumble from the distant sea eye seemed to travel across countless water veins to reach her ears.
The Divine Palace.
The Sea Taming Ritual.
The millions of people of Cangzhou.
The gazes of the Ten Priests falling on her.
The Divine Maiden crown that her master had placed on her head with her own hands.
All of those things pressed down on Tantai Jingyue's shoulders at once.
She closed her eyes abruptly.
When she opened them again, her gaze had returned to its usual icy clarity.
Shui Hua could no longer stop.
She did not know how to control the divinity.
The more upset she felt, the more chaotic the tides around her grew.
The sea surface outside Luoxia Village heaved wildly.
Waves kept crashing against the shore.
Lights flickered to life in many homes inside the village.
It was clear that many people had been woken up by the commotion outside.
Old Jiang realized something was wrong, and immediately shouted at the top of his lungs,
"Huahua, stop right now!"
But Shui Hua could no longer hear him.
She just wanted Tantai Jingyue to remember.
She just wanted her sister to admit that she was not some thief who had stolen something that did not belong to her.
She attacked again and again with her sword.
Every strike carried more power than the last.
But her flaws also grew bigger and bigger.
The seawater was churned into a chaotic torrent by her emotions.
Deep blue divine light flickered nonstop all around her, and several times it curled back into her body, slamming against her meridians until sharp pain shot through her.
Shui Hua's face grew paler and paler, and the color slowly drained from her lips.
Tantai Jingyue saw all of this, and the pain in the depths of her eyes deepened.
She knew that if this continued, Shui Hua would be the first one to suffer backlash from her own divinity.
That power was far too strong.
Far too strong for Shui Hua in her current state to bear.
Tantai Jingyue finally stopped only defending.
The edge of her sword turned.
The moon-white light drew inward sharply.
The originally sharp sword intent transformed in an instant into countless Divine Palace ritual markings, lighting up one by one beneath her feet.
[Subdue the Tides.]
The moment her sword fell, the scattered, raging tides abruptly sank under control.
The Divine Palace ritual markings wrapped around the rampaging currents surrounding Shui Hua like chains, forcibly suppressing the seventy percent of the divinity that kept spilling out of control.
Shui Hua's face blanched, and her body froze all at once.
"No..."
She gritted her teeth, trying to lift her sword.
But Tantai Jingyue had already stepped into the tide.
Her sword sliced diagonally.
Boom!
The surging tides around Shui Hua were broken apart with a single strike.
The sword in her hand was knocked off course.
Her entire body was sent flying by the force, and she crashed heavily onto the damp, cold rocky beach on the shore.
The deep blue divine light flickered in disarray.
Shui Hua propped herself up with her sword, trying to stand, but the moment she put weight on her knees, her legs gave out, and she sank back down onto them with a thud.
The divinity she had just awakened was far too powerful.
So powerful that she could not wield it at all.
As she collapsed, the surging tide finally began to calm gradually.
Tantai Jingyue walked towards her step by step.
The blade hung low at her side, and pale moonlight-like light trickled down the tip, leaving tiny, glistening traces of water on the cold, damp stone shore.
Old Jiang's face twisted in sudden alarm, and he tried to lunge forward.
Zhu Changli instinctively blocked his path.
"Jiang Huaichao!"
"If you go over now, you will only make both of them lose control!"
Old Jiang was seething with rage, and he swatted Zhu Changli away with a palm strike.
"Get out of my way!"
But he had forced himself to take a full blow from Tantai Jingyue earlier, and his old wounds had flared up, leaving his body stretched past its limit.
Before he could even steady himself after taking that one step, a thick, coppery sweetness rose in his throat.
He staggered half a step, and blood oozed out from the corner of his lips once more.
Shui Hua lifted her head to look at Tantai Jingyue.
She did not beg for mercy. She only let tears roll down her cheeks one after another.
"Sister."
Her voice was very soft.
"Do you really not remember me at all?"
Tantai Jingyue stopped right in front of her.
The tip of her sword slowly lifted, and finally paused just before Shui Hua's chest.
If it moved forward just one more inch, it would pierce the newly awakened Hairuo divine light right at its core.
But her hand was trembling.
She could not make it stop no matter what.
Tantai Jingyue looked into Shui Hua's red-rimmed eyes, and a pain in her own chest ached so badly she could barely breathe.
Deep in her sea of consciousness, the seal there was already crisscrossed with cracks.
Countless voices seeped out from behind those fissures.
Sister.
Sister.
I'm scared.
Don't leave me.
Tantai Jingyue's face went deathly pale.
She gripped her hilt tighter, forcing herself not to step back.
She had no other choice.
At least, that was what she kept telling herself.
Tantai Jingyue closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry."
The blade thrust downward.
Old Jiang's eyes nearly burst from their sockets.
"Yueyue!"
