The Jianghu Legacy quest “An Unholy Prophecy” in Where Winds Meet takes place in Kaifeng’s Jadewood Court and centers on the Martial Temple, a disputed war hero, and a set of ceremonial weapons that need to be returned to a statue. The setup feels like it could be missable or permanently broken if you loot the area too early, but the quest is actually more forgiving than it looks.
Where “An Unholy Prophecy” fits in the world
An Unholy Prophecy is listed as a Jianghu Legacy side story tied to the Kaifeng region. In the broader world layout:
- Kaifeng’s Jadewood Court sub-region contains both the Martial Temple and the quest entry for An Unholy Prophecy.
- The Martial Temple is marked as a Landmark, separate from the surrounding outposts and Buddha sites.
Jianghu Legacy quests focus on lore and side narratives rather than the main chapter progression. That means you can reach areas like the Martial Temple by free exploration before ever accepting the quest, which is where most of the confusion around the weapons comes from.
Story setup: the god of killing and a tainted legacy
The quest opens on a discussion about a controversial general whose image dominates the Martial Temple. During a ceremony crowded with civil and military officials, the emperor rejects this general’s worship, calling his bloodshed excessive and demanding that a different, “untainted” figure replace him. That “untainted” replacement is a Warring States general who later acquires the title “god of killing.”
The dialogue leans into the contradiction: if a general is deified as a god of killing, what does “untainted” even mean? The characters list sages, philosophers, and dozens of generals, and ask who can judge which of them deserves glory. The prophecy at the heart of the quest points to the statue’s pose:
- Heavy armor and an “unstoppable sword.”
- The idea that to unlock the truth of the prophecy, someone must stand in the god of killing’s place and mirror his stance.
In parallel, your contact at the temple is searching for a peerless military manual hidden among the arsenal’s treasures. He frames his part in the mystery as paying off an old debt to a friend who once showed him kindness. This personal motive runs alongside the larger political story about lords hoarding armor, private armies, and a court that fears rebellion.
How the Martial Temple layout serves the quest
The Martial Temple is more than a simple room with a statue. The layout functions as a short dungeon with environmental navigation and a weapon-themed puzzle that only fully appears once the quest is active.
- Central hall: Houses the main statue of the armored general/god of killing and the offering point where weapons must be returned.
- Two side corridors: Long hallways branching left and right from the central area, each lined with weapon displays.
- Vertical “spikey tower” section: A light platforming segment that you have to climb or traverse by jumping through traps to reach the far ends of the side routes.
When you explore the Martial Temple early, you can see pedestals and ordinary weapons, but the special quest weapons that interact with the statue do not exist yet. They only appear in the world once An Unholy Prophecy has begun, and you are entering the temple within that storyline.
How the weapon puzzle actually works
The main objective that causes anxiety is the prompt to “return two weapons to the statue.” It looks like you need to hang on to specific loot from earlier exploration, and it is natural to worry about having recycled the wrong items. The quest logic avoids this trap in a few ways:
- The weapons for the statue are not the regular weapons you can loot from the Martial Temple area during free-roam.
- Once the quest is active and you’re running the temple as part of it, the required weapons spawn in fixed places and appear as distinct, vertically mounted displays.
- These quest weapons function more like environmental objects than gear: they cannot be recycled into materials and do not behave like ordinary inventory items.
The core interaction is simple: explore each side corridor fully, survive the spiked vertical section, reach the endpoint, and interact with the standing weapon display. Each side yields one of the two ceremonial weapons that must be brought back to the central statue.
Finding and returning the two weapons
Step 1: Start An Unholy Prophecy as a Jianghu Legacy in Kaifeng so that the Martial Temple segment is officially part of the quest. Do not rely on an earlier visit you made just through open-world exploration.
Step 2: Enter the Martial Temple once the quest directs you there. Walk into the main hall and note the large armored statue and the pedestal where the game indicates that two weapons must be returned.
Step 3: Take one of the side corridors leading away from the central hall. Move all the way through the hallway rather than turning back at the first set of displays or enemies.
Step 4: Reach the “spikey tower” segment in that corridor. Use your lightness skills and jumping to navigate through or over the traps until you reach the top or far side of the tower.
Step 5: At the end of this route, look for a weapon mounted vertically, distinct from the earlier pedestals. Interact with it to claim the first ceremonial weapon. It will not appear as standard salvageable gear.
Step 6: Return to the main hall, then repeat the process in the opposite side corridor. Again, pass through its hallway and trap segment to the far end to find the second vertically displayed weapon.
Step 7: Once both weapons have been collected, interact with the statue’s pedestal in the main hall to “give back” the pair. This completes the weapon-return portion and advances the prophecy’s resolution.
Why you can’t break the quest by recycling gear
The fear of having soft-locked An Unholy Prophecy usually comes from reaching Martial Temple early, grabbing whatever swords or spears are lying around, and then scrapping them when your gear bag fills up. The quest design sidesteps that risk in two key ways:
- The regular weapons you can pick up during free exploration are not the same entities used by the statue puzzle.
- The actual required weapons are tied to the quest state and are not treated as recyclable inventory gear.
Players who revisit the side halls after formally starting the quest consistently find the two necessary items still waiting at the ends of the corridors, regardless of what they previously dismantled. If the statue is asking for two weapons and your inventory is empty of anything that seems to fit, the fix is not to reload an old save; it is to walk the full length of both side routes again while the quest is active.
How the quest’s themes play out around the arsenal
Beyond the mechanics, the Martial Temple sequence doubles as a commentary on militarization and state control. Characters count out the arsenal’s stock—dozens of spears, broadswords, and pieces of armor—and point out that one suit is missing. That gap in the rack mirrors both the missing glory of the deposed general and the tangible threat of private armies.
Dialogue in the temple points out that power-hungry lords keep their own forces and armor sets, treating them as personal capital instead of instruments of the realm. A court that bans mercenaries and concentrates weapon production drives heart guards and other gear onto the black market, where they become more valuable than gold. All of this frames the Martial Temple not just as a puzzle space but as evidence in a larger case about how weapons, honors, and memory are controlled.
When you return the ceremonial weapons to the statue and mimic the god of killing’s pose, you are literally stepping into a contested legacy. The prophecy’s meaning—that someone will stand in his place—plays out both in animation and in the political subtext running through Kaifeng’s elite.
Approached this way, An Unholy Prophecy is less a fragile, missable side task and more a contained, replay-safe vignette: the Martial Temple doors stay open, the two quest-bound weapons remain waiting at the ends of their corridors whenever the story needs them, and your earlier decision to recycle ordinary gear never locks you out of resolving the emperor’s unholy prophecy.
