Inhabiting the body now walking upon solid ground, Anthony quietly took stock of its physical capabilities.
Well... how to put this. The dragon bloodline was a nice aesthetic touch, but in truth, it was little more than window dressing.
The body's actual strength still depended entirely on Anthony's soul. Going by how it felt right now, he was probably only marginally stronger than an ordinary person.
Not that it mattered.
It was enough.
With that thought settling quietly in his mind, Anthony surveyed his surroundings, swept the area with a pulse of soul energy, and set off in one direction.
First order of business: find Wang. Based on what Jie had mentioned about the situation, Anthony figured Old Wang was probably holed up in some rundown old temple right now, playing chess against himself. Scout out the derelict shrines in the vicinity, and there was a decent chance of turning him up.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: @Wordsmith of the Great Yan — I've arrived.]
[Wordsmith of the Great Yan: That fast? I still can't sense the environment around me at all, though — I'm afraid I won't be able to come meet you in person.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: That's fine. I'm on my way to find Wang right now. Is there anything you want me to pass along? I can lead with that.]
[Wordsmith of the Great Yan: Passing a message... is that convenient for you?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Fairly convenient, actually — I've got a physical body for the moment.]
[AAA City Female Ghost: Jonathan got resurrected and now you suddenly have a body too? Does that count as a resurrection for you?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: It's just a body cobbled together through a couple of abilities... nothing remotely close to a real resurrection. This body has no biological functions whatsoever. It can't even breathe.]
Anthony shook his head calmly at Carmen's interruption, then typed a quick reply.
He missed breathing. The simple, thoughtless freedom of it.
And because of that, he found himself clinging to the memory of the time when he'd been alive. He wanted to live again — or at the very least, to breathe the way he once had. Was that really so much to ask?
What he had now was, by any honest measure, nowhere near enough.
He exhaled — or rather, performed the motion of exhaling — and steered the conversation back on track.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Anyway, I went off on a tangent. So — is there anything you'd like to say?]
[Wordsmith of the Great Yan: Mm... once you've met him, could you check in on how he's been lately? I really don't know how things have been for him since I left.]
[Wordsmith of the Great Yan: And if you get the chance — please tell him... take care of his younger brothers and sisters, don't butt heads with his eldest brother too much, and more importantly, don't put so much pressure on himself.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Very down-to-earth things to say.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: But — understood. I've got it.]
After sending his reply to Jie, Anthony turned his gaze toward the dilapidated temple before him, narrowing his eyes. The soul fragment inhabiting this body registered a sensation like needles pressing into his back — a crawling, prickling awareness of being watched.
Right. This was the place.
That sensation alone was enough to confirm it completely.
He was being tracked. The fact that simply walking up to this old shrine had been enough to draw that attention — this was unmistakably the temple where Wang was being held.
The ones watching him from the shadows were almost certainly the Candlebearers.
As the prickling sensation of being observed gradually faded, Anthony gave a knowing nod and strode through the temple gates with a steady, unhurried pace.
He had a window of time — not much, but enough. The Candlebearers wouldn't move immediately.
Under normal circumstances, if a stranger approached the temple where Wang was being held, the Candlebearers would have intervened on the spot. It was precisely to avoid that outcome that Anthony had chosen this particular Avatar form.
Because think about it — when the Candlebearers spotted an unidentified dragon-blooded individual of indeterminate origin, whose face carried the faintest echo of something familiar, strolling up to the front gates of that particular shrine... their first instinct wasn't going to be to intercept. It was going to be to sound the alarm and escalate directly to the Sui-Year Bureau.
Put simply: this was above their pay grade. The small fry at the bottom wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole — they needed to kick it upstairs and ask for instructions first.
That process wouldn't take too long. But by Anthony's own estimate, it was still more than enough.
With that thought settled, Anthony pushed open the temple doors and stepped inside.
He spotted him immediately.
Seated across from a chess board — a dark-skinned dragon man who radiated an air of quiet, inscrutable mystery. Beneath a curtain of long hair, a pair of yin-yang eyes fixed on the visitor, and a faint furrow creased his brow.
The look in those eyes asked a single, wordless question: And you are?
"...From the Sui-Year Bureau? What business do you have here, uninvited?"
After a beat, Wang finally spoke, his brow still furrowed.
"You've mistaken me for someone else. I am not from the Sui-Year Bureau..."
Anthony paused briefly, then decided to cut straight to the point.
"Sister Jie asked me to deliver a message."
In that instant, the air seemed to freeze solid.
The moment those words left Anthony's mouth, time in the entire temple appeared to halt. A black chess piece leapt from the board in the next instant, hurtling directly toward him —
— and then exploded like a bomb.
The dragon-blooded Avatar was reduced to shredded flesh in an instant. Wang's pupils contracted sharply. He instinctively spun around, scanning every corner of the room with a vigilant sweep — and it wasn't until several minutes had passed that a realization slowly crept in.
Wait. Something wasn't adding up.
The moment Wang had heard Jie's name just now, his first thought had been: whoever this is, they're absolutely not here with good intentions.
Most likely something tied to Sui — perhaps fallout from Sui's power leaking into the world, manifesting in some unexpected form... Only somehow, inexplicably, they'd invoked Jie's name to catch his attention.
And so, in that split second, Wang had made his call.
This has to be Sui. That bastard has taken this form to deceive me! And deliberately used Jie's name to bait me, trying to blind me to what's really going on!
Strike first, strike hard. Neutralize the target before they can act. Then drag them up for interrogation and find out exactly how they know anything about Jie. Whatever happens — the situation stays in my control!
Except the very first step of that plan had gone off the rails.
Wang rose slowly to his feet, wearing a genuinely baffled expression, and took two steps toward the spot where the visitor had collapsed. He stared. His mind went blank.
...How could it possibly be this weak?
In that moment, Wang found himself sinking into something perilously close to an existential crisis.
He had held back on that piece. He'd deliberately restrained the force behind it. His original assumption — that whatever this was had come as a manifestation of Sui's power — meant he'd expected to land that strike and still need to follow up with two or three more before subduing it...
He'd already positioned himself for the follow-through.
And now someone was telling him that one black chess piece had simply... ended it? That the thing was genuinely, certifiably dead?
That can't be right. When did Sui get this pathetic? If Sui could be this pathetic, I could have marched straight into Sui's Mausoleum ages ago and smashed it to pieces — and Jie wouldn't have had to sacrifice herself...
And then — Wang heard a sigh.
He looked up.
Standing at the entrance to the broken-down temple was the same person as before, walking back in through the doorway. The figure glanced briefly down at the floor — at the corpse that was an exact copy of himself — then looked away with an expression suggesting he'd rather not dwell on it. Then he turned to face Wang directly, and with an air of mild exasperation, said:
"Now can you actually listen to what I have to say?"
"Look at me. I can't possibly be something Sui sent to mess with you, right?"
"So then, Mr. Wang — allow me to introduce myself. You can call me Po. Now — can we have a proper conversation?"
____
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