"When a tree rots from the roots, its blossoms lie. Only the worms know first."
— Third Elder Yao, before his disappearance
The descent into the lower sanctum was steeper than Shen Li remembered.
He carried no torch—his flame was enough—but it flickered uneasily in his palm, casting red shadows along the walls carved by generations of fire cultivators.
The heat here should have comforted him.
Instead, it felt like he was walking into something's lungs.
When he reached the leyline basin, he stopped short.
Once a wellspring of molten spiritual qi, the pool was now… dormant. Its surface glistened black, as if coated in oil. No warmth. No breath.
He crouched slowly.
Why hasn't anyone reported this?
Because they can't feel it? Or because they won't?
He extended a tendril of flame into the pool.
Instantly, the surface snapped upward, like a leech with a tongue.
His body recoiled on instinct, but not fast enough. The flame dimmed. His pulse stuttered. A cold ache gripped his fingers—not ice, but void.
Draining.
Not dispersing qi.
Consuming it.
He gritted his teeth and pulled back, flame rippling up his arm to cauterize the numbness before it spread.
As his balance returned, a low echo pulsed from the basin—not a sound, but a pulse, like something breathing through stone.
This isn't an imbalance, he realized.
It's a feeding.
In the west garden, Lan Xueyi kneeled beneath a flowering snowberry tree. The branches shed delicate frost-petals that melted before reaching the ground.
Her eyes remained fixed on the glass-winged crane floating before her.
When she opened her palm, it dipped its head and spoke with her father's voice.
"The Emberheart Sect's leyline corruption predates current leadership. Reports suggest an anchor has been planted beneath the flame root. It may be drawing on residual war-techniques. If the heir proves unstable, intervention is authorized. Terminate if necessary."
The crane disintegrated into frost.
She didn't blink.
Her father's tone had been even, distant. The voice of the Sect Lord, not of a father.
She stood slowly.
Lan Xueyi knew what kind of decisions her sect made behind still masks and polite smiles.
And she knew how many of those decisions began with phrases like 'terminate if necessary.'
He fears instability, she thought.
But not corruption itself. That's just... strategy.
She exhaled once.
Not to calm herself.
To decide.
Shen Li moved deeper.
He knew the route from memory, though the last time he had walked it, his father had still been alive.
They had come here together after the Second Outer War. He had only just reached Core Formation then. He had asked questions.
His father had not answered any of them.
And now, the answers were rotting beneath the sect.
The sealed gate loomed ahead—three fire-seals shaped like blooming lotuses. Two glowed faintly. The third, once etched with his father's qi signature, was cracked down the center.
Not shattered.
Just split, like a heart that had stopped mid-beat.
Shen Li pressed his palm to the center rune.
No resistance.
That terrified him more than if the gate had rejected him.
It slid open with a dry hiss.
Inside, the chamber was wet with condensed spiritual residue. The air felt wrong—like breath held too long.
The vein-thread glowed dimly in the floor—supposed to pulse gold-red with life. Instead, it shimmered with streaks of black and rusted crimson, as if it were bleeding behind its own skin.
He knelt beside it.
There were runes carved into the stone here—crudely etched. Older than the sect's founding. Almost feral in script.
One of them pulsed when his flame neared.
And in that moment, Shen Li heard something.
Not with his ears. With his soul.
"Soon."
The voice was heatless. Familiar.
And it knew him.
Evening had fallen by the time Shen Li emerged into the courtyard.
The first stars were appearing.
Lan Xueyi waited beneath the broken incense arch, arms folded, cloak drawn tight against the coming chill.
She didn't speak at first.
She only looked at his face—and the thin scorch along his sleeve.
"You've seen it."
He nodded. "It's worse than rot. It's leeching us."
"I received orders today," she said. "If you lose control… I'm to act."
He met her eyes.
There was no fear in them. No accusation.
Only the cold weight of choice.
"I don't want to fight you," she said.
"But you're prepared to."
"Yes."
He didn't flinch. "Then stay long enough to know whether I deserve it."
She studied him for a moment longer.
Then reached into her sleeve.
She handed him a fragment of the crane. Frosted glass, edged with sect-engraved snow-flake script.
"You'll want to know what your allies think of you."
He took it. His hand brushed hers.
The contact was brief.
But it left heat behind.