The Return Undeserved

Jin Mu didn't speak for hours.

Not because he was unconscious. He was simply…still.

Sitting by the edge of the Vault's collapsed threshold, wrapped in a tattered black robe stitched with sigil-silk. The glow around his body shimmered oddly now—two pulses, faint but distinct, clashing then harmonizing, like twin stars in slow collision.

Camellya had seen many anomalies in her life.

But this—

This was unprecedented.

Su stayed beside him, refusing to leave even when Shen pressed her for food and rest.

Xue, arms crossed, hovered nearby, her normally sharp tongue muted by the gravity of what they'd witnessed.

And Jin Mu—he finally spoke.

"There's…two of me now."

They gathered around.

He didn't look up.

"He's still there. Watching. Thinking. It's me, but...a version that doesn't flinch. The cold one. The ruthless one. And I can feel his thoughts like whispers behind my eyes."

"Do you feel…threatened by it?" Shen asked.

"No," Jin said after a pause. "I feel...balanced."

Camellya stepped forward. "Then the ritual worked—but not as intended."

Jin turned to her, brow heavy with dread. "What did I become?"

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she extended her hand and tapped his chest with two fingers—where the sequence sigils branded his spirit.

The moment she did, a low pulse echoed through the Vault's husk.

Two brands.

Not overlaid. Not fused.

Separate. Distinct. Active.

One: The familiar, jagged spiral of the Black Emperor.

The other...

Unfamiliar.

Not matching any known Pathway under the Sequences.

Camellya's voice dropped to a whisper.

"…This shouldn't be possible."

Su blinked. "He's…on two Pathways?"

Xue narrowed her eyes. "Not derivative like a sub-path? Not a fusion?"

Camellya stepped back. "No. Two entirely independent systems of progression. Two sequences. It's like his very soul split, and then rebuilt the rules around itself."

She turned to Jin Mu. "The Black Emperor Pathway—the one you forged in your original life—it remains. The edicts, the distortions, the corruption and order… all untouched."

"But the other," she continued, "was born when your fractured soul formed its own reality—a mirror identity from your memory-void state. And that version of you, with no memories, instinctively began to climb a different Pathway."

Jin Mu looked down at his hands.

One gloved in old ash-black—a remnant of his Emperor's line.

The other bare, but faintly marked with an iridescent, branching glow. Not a flame. Not a rune.

But something living.

"What…is it?"

Camellya closed her eyes.

"I've only seen signs of this in ancient vaults, buried under the Grand North. It has no name among the standard seventy-two. No god ever completed it. It was abandoned for being too unstable."

"But now—" she stepped back, brow furrowed—"it's choosing you."

A symbol manifested midair.

It wasn't written.

It grew, like ivy, winding in all directions before forming a central shape: a rooted tree split in half, one half burning, the other carved from crystal ice.

Camellya exhaled slowly.

"The Pathway of the Bifurcated Seed."

Shen blinked. "That sounds cursed."

"It is," she said. "And prophetic."

Xue stepped forward, her voice calm but tight. "So now he's walking two Sequences?"

"Correct," Camellya confirmed. "His original Sequence continues—Black Emperor. He's already re-manifested the dormant traits of a Duke of Entropy."

"But the Bifurcated Seed," she added grimly, "starts fresh. And unlike most, it doesn't progress by slaughter, sacrifice, or consumption."

"How then?" Su asked.

"By choice. Every ascension on this Pathway requires a meaningful decision with no clear right answer. It evolves based on what you split, what you embrace, and what you reject."

Jin Mu closed his eyes.

He could already feel it.

Somewhere inside him, there were questions forming.

One voice wanted to command. To distort. To crush and restructure.

The other?

It wanted to ask why.

It demanded clarity before action. Stillness before judgment.

He whispered, "So now, I must climb both."

Camellya nodded.

"But if either falters, your soul will collapse. The harmony must be maintained."

Later that night, as the sky above the Vault shimmered with tainted starlight, Jin Mu sat at the edge of their small camp.

Su slept beside the fire. Shen lay against a pillar, sword across his lap. Xue stood watch near the ruins.

And Camellya approached silently.

"You're not just the same boy anymore," she said, sitting next to him.

"No," he admitted. "I'm the echo and the origin."

Camellya stared into the flames. "Then you better learn to sing in harmony."

And from behind his eyes, in the back of his mind, the cold voice—his other self—whispered calmly:

"Let them try and stop us."

The next morning came, but it brought no warmth.

Ash clouds lingered over the fractured Vault like bruises on the sky. Somewhere above, sunlight should have pierced through—but it didn't dare.

Jin Mu sat alone, sharpening a shard of bone into a makeshift blade. His real weapons lay beside him—untouched. This was for focus. Precision. Control.

Camellya approached, arms crossed, posture relaxed but vigilant. "You've been quiet."

"I've been listening," Jin answered.

"To what?"

"Myself."

Camellya crouched beside him. "Which one?"

Jin looked at her. The morning wind tugged at the burned ends of his robe.

"The older one—the one that was me before all this—he speaks in strategies and absolutes. But the new one… the one born of that blankness… he asks questions I never thought to ask."

Camellya studied him. "They'll start to blend."

Jin shook his head. "No. That's the trap. They can't. They're not meant to. One rules, the other chooses. One orders, the other doubts."

She hesitated, then asked, "Do you regret regaining him? The old you?"

He paused. Then: "No. But I pity him."

Later, the group gathered for a field strategy meeting.

They needed to move soon—the Concord wouldn't rest after the Vault's exposure. But more urgently, they needed to understand the risk of traveling with someone holding two active Pathways.

Xue leaned against a collapsed statue, arms crossed. "So what happens when he progresses in both?"

Camellya paced. "As long as they're spiritually isolated—kept as separate trees—he can manage. But if they begin to intertwine…"

"They'll devour each other?" Shen asked.

Camellya nodded. "Or worse. Fuse into something with no anchor. A chaotic synthesis. A godless amalgam."

Su whispered, "He'll die?"

"Possibly. Or become something worse than death."

That night, Jin Mu meditated.

Not like before, in rhythmic breathing and focus. This time, he descended inward—with full intent to reach the root of the second Pathway.

And he did.

In his mental plane, a tree towered into nothingness. Black bark. Crystalline leaves. But one half of it burned with golden fire, and the other shimmered with violet frost.

As he reached out to it, a pulse shot through his being.

And a choice manifested.

A voice—neither his nor his other self's—echoed from the tree.

"Choose: The Child You Failed or the Tyrant You Became."

He gasped.

Two images surfaced.

The boy—red-haired, eyes wide, the one he couldn't save.

And himself, seated on a throne of skulls in his past life's peak, face devoid of emotion.

Jin reached out…

…And chose the child.

A searing pain sliced through his chest.

The crystal frost bloomed brighter. And the golden fire receded.

Camellya watched Jin stir from meditation, sweat clinging to his brow.

"You progressed," she said softly.

"I made my first Split," Jin muttered.

"And what did you give up?"

"My certainty."

Camellya smiled faintly. "Then the Seed has sprouted."

Suddenly, a shadow flickered.

Xue stepped back, hand on her blade. Shen raised his sword. Su froze.

A presence loomed at the camp's edge.

Out stepped a figure—tall, veiled in fraying robes of violet and bone. Its face obscured. Its presence wrong.

"Who are you?" Jin demanded.

The figure bowed. "A Herald of the Forgotten Branch. You touched what should not be. The tree responded."

"What do you want?"

The Herald tilted its head.

"To warn you. The Bifurcated Seed leads not to glory. Only to isolation. And should you bloom fully, the gods themselves may act."

It turned away.

And vanished.

Camellya exhaled slowly.

"So now the world knows."

Xue glanced at Jin. "This'll only get worse, won't it?"

Jin didn't answer.

He stared at his hands.

One burning with black Order.

The other frozen in crystal Choice.

"Let them come," he whispered.

"I'll split the sky if I have to."