The sun dipped low over the Burning Sky Border, turning the horizon a molten gold that bled into vermilion. Dust devils twisted through the broken ridges, their whirling bodies catching sparks from the still-simmering battlefield. The scent of scorched earth and shattered magic thickened the air.
A distant horn sounded—a long, keening note that sent tremors through the cracked stone and ash-choked ground. From the cliffs above, a column of silver-armored riders emerged, blades gleaming like starlight. They moved with unnatural grace, the dying light reflecting off their pauldrons like halos. At their front rode Liang Yezhao, his expression unreadable, posture flawless.
He had eyes like polished obsidian, cold and sharp, and bore the weight of celestial blood in every calculated movement. The glaive slung across his back hummed softly, recognizing the taint of demonic energy in the air.
"Demonkind," Yezhao muttered, scanning the charred landscape. "Still fouling this world."
Below, at the base of the ridge, shadows stirred. Crimson embers flared as Xue Wuyao stepped out from behind a jagged outcropping, his cloak of serpenthide fluttering in the wind. He was every bit the nightmare Yezhao expected—tall, broad-shouldered, and wreathed in heat. His hair, the color of fresh blood, tumbled freely around his shoulders, framing a smirk that never quite reached his eyes.
"Commander Yezhao," Wuyao purred, voice lazy with mockery. "Still polishing that silver stick of yours? Or did you come to finally stain it red?"
The riders behind Yezhao tensed, but he raised a hand. "Your tongue drips poison, demon. But it seems even your kin were too frightened to follow you."
Wuyao laughed, a deep, feral sound. "They're waiting until you're exhausted. Which should be—what, five minutes? Ten, if you're lucky."
Steel hissed as Yezhao unslung Moonpiercer. The weapon unfurled like moonlight splitting fog, its edge gleaming with divine wrath. Wuyao mirrored him, calling forth Red Fang from his waist. The twin-bladed whip writhed like a living serpent, pulsing with infernal heat.
The moment snapped.
They collided with the sound of thunder cracking stone. Blade met flame, glaive met fang. Sparks scattered like fireflies as divine and demonic magic clashed, rippling out in violent waves. Yezhao moved with surgical precision, a tempest of sweeping arcs and thrusts meant to disable. Wuyao danced through the blows, dodging, grinning, countering with chaotic, brutal strikes.
"You're slowing," Wuyao taunted, twisting around a downward slash and snapping his whip toward Yezhao's unguarded flank.
Yezhao parried, barely, the force sending him skidding back. "You mistake calculation for weakness."
Their duel scorched the land around them. Trees wilted. Rocks cracked. Time itself seemed to slow, the world watching in breathless silence as two forces that should never have met clashed again, for what felt like the hundredth time.
But then—
A tremor split the ground. Both combatants froze. A sound like cracking ice echoed across the battlefield, followed by a pulse of black light that exploded from a fissure at the ridge's center. It consumed everything in its path—stone, air, magic.
Yezhao stumbled back, shielding his men. Wuyao cursed, throwing up a barrier of infernal fire.
Then silence.
The fissure remained, a chasm that bled shadow and cold. Something ancient stirred beneath it.
Yezhao turned to Wuyao, and for once, neither smirked nor sneered. Both looked toward the rift.
"That," Wuyao said, voice grim, "wasn't either of us."
Yezhao nodded slowly. "No. But it may be what forces us to fight together."
They stood in silence, the air between them still crackling, but no longer with hate.
And so the world shifted.