He opens his eyes, flickering silently in the depths of incense billowing from the censer. He feels— Shattered. The pain bites at his consciousness, charging straight at its source, and it seems that this wisp of smoke, this tiny flame is his body. No, he remembers that he had once been able to analyze all things in this world, level mountains and lay waste to cities with a flick of his tail. However, his consciousness should not have arisen from the midst of this chaos, for that which slumbers yet sleeps, and naught has changed since. The tendrils of smoke weave their way through the netting, sinking down to the base of the censer, where the wispy cloud swallows him whole. Why do I awaken? Why do I struggle? Why is it that at the deepest part of this tomb-like jail, there is an even narrower cage? His eyes become smoke, and he gorges himself on his own body, letting off a roar of fury at the nothingness before him. The smoke shifts imperceptibly, as if a minute breeze has swept across the chamber of stone. He remembers— Humiliation. A great hunt, his defeat, the shame engraved on his bones and inscribed on his heart. His fury draws a picture of the past, where the strong were brought low by the weak, ancient time was overwritten by fleeting moment, and gods were toppled by commoners. The True Lung bled before the people, boiling copper and molten gold pouring onto the earth. For three thousand days and nights, smiths chiseled deep ravines into mountains, casting myriad forms of weapons. The altar became a stronghold, and the robes of the devotees burning incense concealed blades of edict divine. Yes, this was the price of such trickery. An incisive punitive strike, a wound that could not heal. The traces of this humiliation still reside in his body, and he plans to use this wound as a mold to cast a sword. A flame bursts forth from the censer as if pumped by a bellows, and the Candleholder on guard rings the alarm bell. He raises— A blade. Within the boundless gloom, there are still other consciousnesses being born. At the moment, those consciousnesses are not as lucid as he, but they are as he, and they too seek to surface from the depths of this turbid pond. He still remembers how mortals would describe this sort of relationship, and he understands that they will be his... brothers and sisters. He endures the pain, as though his stomach had been split in twain, and flicks his wrist. The cloud of smoke bursts and dissipates, his sword rending apart heaven and earth from within the chaos. The primordial fog shrinks back, and gloomy night becomes brightest day. The Candleholders rush into the stone chamber, and the Imperial Guards surround the tomb layer by layer. At last, he feels— Freedom. The smoke rises from the censer in spirals, standing steady on its stone platform. In the depths of its belly, the Feranmut yet slumbers. He feels that his own body has become lighter, as if he has turned into a wisp of smoke rising through a hole in the censer, floating across the heads of the Candleholders and Imperial Guards, floating past the sealed stone door of the mausoleum, floating through the skies above Baizao, towards distant lands.