The sky cracked again.
Not from Li Anya's flame-wrapped descent, but from a colder, older wound that seemed to have been opened for a long time
Frost spilled from the tear like spiral of blood, seeping into the soil of Lu Villa, blackening the roots, silencing the crickets, freezing even the ash still falling from the shattered barrier.
From the breach stepped Elarian.
His robes were ragged shadows, his eyes hollow lanterns of ice-fire. He raised both hands slowly, and with him came the tide:
Humans.
They stumbled forward by the dozens — farmers, beggars, forgotten villagers taken long ago. Their skin was pale, veins inked with black, mouths tearing into shrieks that weren't their own. And as Elarian whispered a word in a language that should never have been spoken, their bodies twisted. Flesh cracked, spines arched, eyes hollowed into pits of blue flame.
The first ghoul lunged toward the courtyard wall, claws like blackened iron.
Gu Ni's lightning split the night in two. The ghoul disintegrated into ash — but a hundred more took its place.
Ren swore under his breath. "He's making an army out of them…"
Gu Ni gritted her teeth.
---
INNER SANCTUM
Yueying's breath hitched as the temperature dropped.
Her flame recoiled at first — fire and ice did not coexist — but then steadied, pulsing with resolve.
The silver-eyed man appeared before her like a shadow stepping from nowhere. His gaze locked on her belly. His lips curled in faint amusement.
"You carry more than a child. You carry a mistake/burden just like you were to your mother."
Yueying's flames surged, wrapping around her like armor. "She is no mistake. She is the future."
The man extended one hand — and shadows snaked from his fingers, darting across the sanctum like vipers, seeking to bind her arms.
Yueying answered not with fear, but with a word taught to her only days ago:
"Ardentia."
Flame burst from the ground in a thread like way. The shadows hissed, recoiled.
The silver-eyed man tilted his head, curious now. "The unborn lends you strength. But she also weakens you. Your heart splits its power."
Yueying lifted her chin, fire dancing in her hair. "Then let it split — into two flames you'll never extinguish."
She leapt forward, fire meeting darkness.
---
Elarian moved like water frozen mid-air — slow, deliberate, every gesture carving reality itself.
Yevana blocked him, her golden aura blazing brighter than the pyres of old war. She summoned a staff of light, spinning it in a wide arc to keep the tide of ghouls from breaching the sanctum doors.
But Elarian only smiled.
"Yevana of the Golden Path" he said, his voice echoing both from his mouth and the icy ground itself. "Still loyal to the broken line of light. Still clinging to a duty that buried your sister."
Her eyes hardened. "I bury you tonight."
She lunged, her staff striking his chest. For a moment, light pierced ice. The ground cracked. The ghouls shrieked.
But Elarian spread his arms wide, the shadows behind him merging with the frost, forming a storm of black snow and razor shards. "You'll try."
It was a difficult battle as she has thought.
---
THE SON OF LIGHTNING
From the villa's western side, a young voice cried out:
"Zhenlei!"
Lightning carved a jagged scar across the sky — not Gu Ni's, not Ren's, but Tianlei's.
He stood atop the outer wall, his small figure trembling but unbroken, hands raised as sparks coiled around his body. The experiment Gu Ni had fought so hard to bury was no longer dormant.
His lightning was wild, unshaped — arcs slamming into ghouls, frying them into brittle husks. His hair whipped in the storm he summoned, eyes burning bright white.
"Stay away from my home!" he screamed.
Ren's head snapped toward Gu Ni, realization dawning. "He's— He's channeling it raw. He'll burn himself out!"
Gu Ni didn't move, didn't breathe, only whispered, "He was born to survive this. I'll protect him after."
And she charged forward.
---
TWO DUELS, ONE WAR
In the courtyard, Yevana's staff clashed with Elarian's ice, every blow carving deep scars into the villa stone. Each time she struck, ghouls exploded. Each time he countered, frost crept closer to her skin, threatening to still her heart.
Inside the sanctum, Yueying fought the silver-eyed man — her fire erupting in waves, his shadows slicing with surgical cruelty. Her body strained, her womb burning with the force of shared flame.
And across the battlefield, Tianlei stood beneath the harvest moon, lightning coiling like dragons around his arms, a child waging war in a world where even gods bled.
The villa shook with the sound of different battles at once.
And above them all, Li Anya watched. Her hands folded over her hollow belly, her eyes fixed not on Yueying, not on Lu Quing, not even on the Flame.
But on the child yet to be born.
The rooftop wind tore at Yueying's hair as the man with silver eyes stepped from the shadows, the city lights trembling against the coldness that radiated from him. His gaze was unsettling—not human, not beast, but something that seemed carved from moonlight and death.
"You burn too brightly, little flame" he murmured, voice both cruel and oddly reverent. "Your mother was right to hide you."
Yueying's chest tightened. Mother? The word struck harder than his killing intent. Her fingers trembled around the flame-forged sword, its embers pulsing in sync with her heartbeat.
"What about my mother?" Yueying demanded, her voice fierce though the edges quivered.
A slow smile curved across his face, cruel as it was beautiful. "I knew her well enough to know you shouldn't exist."
The pendant on Yueying's chest blazed suddenly, light spilling outward like molten gold. For a breath, memory not her own raced her mind—flashes of her mother screaming, Lu Quing's wings torn and bleeding, a gate of darkness slamming shut.
The silver-eyed man lunged.
Steel met fire as Yueying swung, the rooftop exploding with sparks. His speed was terrifying, each blow precise, testing her, as though he wanted to measure how much of the First Flame she truly carried.
"You think Lu Quing protects you?" he hissed between strikes. "He cages you. Just as he caged your mother."
The words shook her resolve, but anger seared deeper. "I am not her. And I am not his prisoner!"
Her flames roared to life, erupting in a corona around her body. For the first time, the silver-eyed man faltered—shadows retreating against the radiance. His smile twisted, not in fear, but in fascination.
"Yes" he whispered. "That's it. Show me… whether you are just a tool or the key."
The rooftop trembled as the clash intensified, fire against shadow, bloodline against curse—until the night itself seemed to split open.
---
Far from the city, beneath the fractured sky, ice met moving plants.
Yevana's cloak of azure flame spiraled around her slender form, her hair whipping like a banner of war. Across from her, Elarian stood unbothered, a scarred immortal with eyes like a storm and a presence that bent the air.
"You shouldn't be here, Yevana" he suddenly said, calm despite the destruction already rippling through the ground. "You interfere in games you cannot win."
She laughed, the sound sharp and wild. "Win? My dear Elarian, I didn't just come here to win. I came to end you."
The ground cracked as she launched forward, green intertwined stems shaped into a long cane . Elarian caught it with his bare hand, ice exploding in retaliation. The impact split some ghouls into two.
"You carry her will" Elarian said, voice vibrating with something close to sorrow. "Han Liuhua's shadow clings to you."
Yevana snarled, twisting the cane. "Do not speak her name!"
Her poeee surged higher, wreathing her in leaves that decorated her gowm, every strike fueled by fury. Yet Elarian moved with the weight of eternity, his blows deliberate, each one echoing with the power of the sealed Gate of Origins.
"You cannot stop what is coming" he warned, pressing her back. "The blood of the First Flame will burn, and with it, the world."
Yevana's eyes blazed. "Then I'll let you rot".
They collided once more, power against power ripping through the heavens—two immortals, bound by prophecy, tearing the night apart.