Night pressed low over Heaven's Ridge. The forest smelled of rain that never fell — thick with resin and burned ash. Between the trunks, a faint red light trembled like a heartbeat.
Lian stopped breathing for a moment. The light was moving.
She pushed through the mist, her steps soundless on the moss. When the figure finally came into view, it wasn't a spirit — it was him. Huo Yun staggered against a fallen pine, armor cracked, blood and soot streaking the gold of his insignia. His right hand still clutched a half-burnt talisman, its glow fading to ember.
"Huo Yun!"
The name escaped before she could stop it.
He lifted his head. "Lian…? Don't—" His warning broke into a cough. The talisman in his hand flared violently and died, scattering ash that hissed as it hit the ground.
She caught his arm just before he collapsed. The heat rolling off him was unnatural — not fever, but Qi fire, devouring itself. She pressed her palm to his chest, forcing the rhythm of her breath into his, the Breath of the Still Lotus flowing instinctively. The burning eased.
"Who did this?" she asked.
"Fire-Aligned Talisman Squad." His voice was rough stone. "Temple inquisitors… they were waiting at the border outpost. Said the forest hides an unregistered Qi source."
"They were after you?"
"No." His gaze met hers, fierce and weary. "They were following your silence."
The wind shifted. From deep within the trees came the faint metallic chime of formation bells. Not temple bells — hunting signals. Several, distant but closing.
Huo Yun pushed himself upright. "They marked me. Their talismans carry scent-threads; they'll trace my burn. We have to move."
Lian nodded, tightening her grip on his wrist. "This way."
They slipped between the pines, the moonlight fracturing across pools left by the rain. Behind them, faint crimson sparks drifted — scout talismans, floating like fireflies, searching.
— ✶ —
The ridge descended into an old ravine where roots hung like curtains. Lian led him through a narrow cleft, down into a hollow overgrown with ferns. The Spirit Spring murmured faintly below, its surface now dark and calm.
Only when they reached the water's edge did she let him rest.
"How far?" she whispered.
"Half a league." He tore off a piece of scorched armor. "They move in triads — three to a team, one sigil-bearer, two seal-archers. Their talismans burn spirit Qi directly; even Fire users get scorched."
She studied the wounds on his shoulder: burns shaped like spiraling characters, each still faintly glowing. "Purification runes. They weren't trying to kill you. They were purging the energy itself."
"Exactly. Whatever they think you are — they mean to erase it."
Lian looked toward the mist-covered canopy. The silence there was different from her own — heavier, like a door half-closed between worlds.
"If they find the spring," she murmured, "they'll unseal what sleeps below."
Huo Yun followed her gaze. "Then we hold them here."
"Two against nine?"
"Two against imbalance." He managed a crooked smile. "You taught me that fire needs stillness to live."
Her lips curved faintly, though her eyes stayed serious. "Then burn only when I tell you."
He chuckled under his breath. "Yes, little ghost doctor."
— ✶ —
The first squad arrived before dawn — red armor ghosting through the mist. Their leader raised a staff etched with sigils; runes bloomed in mid-air, forming a barrier circle that pressed the forest's breath flat.
Lian felt it instantly — the disbalance of forced Fire. Her pulse stilled, aligning with the spring beneath them. Huo Yun drew his blade, flame flickering along the edge.
The squad's leader called out:
"By decree of the Imperial Temple, Heaven's Ridge is under purification. Any who resist shall be cleansed!"
Flames spiraled outward — elegant, disciplined, deadly. The trees ignited like torches.
Lian moved first. Her sleeve swept upward, scattering droplets from the spring. Each drop carried her Qi, falling in arcs of lightless shimmer. Wherever they touched, the flames slowed, turned pale, and folded inward into silence.
The squad reeled. "What art is this?"
Huo Yun's voice cut through the confusion. "One the Empire forgot." His sword drew a line of crimson through the fog. "I'll hold the outer ring. Lian — the seal!"
She understood. Pressing her palms together, she summoned the Seal of Five Directions, a technique Hui Yuan had barely managed to teach her. But something new stirred within — her Void answering the call. The five lights of the elements flickered around her hands, then merged into colorless brilliance.
She pressed the seal into the earth. The ground responded like a living heart.
"Harmony through unity…" she whispered.
The Fire runes on the trees began to unravel, threads of red light twisting upward like smoke returning to the sky. For a moment, the world breathed again.
Then a new voice spoke from the treeline — low, sharp, and cold.
"So the report was true. The Silent Current walks in flesh."
Both turned. A second squad emerged, led by a woman in priest's armor, her face half-veiled. Around her hovered talisman rings shaped like fiery halos.
"By order of the High Oracle," she declared, "the Void anomaly is to be captured alive."
The priestess raised her hand — and the halos burst into flame.
____________________________________________________
Clarification of World Cosmology:
The Fire-Aligned Talisman Squad — the Emperor's flame-bearing exorcists. Their talismans burn with purifying Qi, said to scour corruption itself.