The sky went first. The sickly, reddish-brown of the Blood-Wind Territories was blotted out by an
oppressive, rolling blackness that pulsed with a crimson light. It was not a storm. It was hate.
The chaotic Qi of the city, usually a roiling, undirected sea, fled. The very air screamed and tried
to escape.
In their courtyard, the blacksmith's forge-fire died, choked by a power that devoured heat. The
child Kael had saved began to weep, not from noise, but from a bone-deep, primal terror. Kael
and Lin Yue stood on their rooftop, watching the storm roll in. "He's here," Lin Yue said. Her
voice was steady, but her flute was in her hand, and it was already covered in a thin, white-blue
layer of her Will-Ice.
A comet of black-and-red flame smashed into the central plaza of the ruin-city, a mile away. The
shockwave, a pulse of pure, scorching malice, washed over them. Kael's [Aura of Protection
(MAX)] flared, and the wave of wrongness split around their courtyard, leaving them in a bubble
of calm. The rest of the district wasn't so lucky; mortals and weak cultivators alike screamed as
the "Bloodflame" Qi singed their souls.
Then, he spoke. His voice was not a sound, but a psychic scar that carved itself into the mind of
every living being in the city. "LIN YUE! I HAVE... ARRIVED!"
A figure of pure, burning rage ascended from the plaza. It was Yan Fei. But it wasn't. He was
encased in a shell of black, jagged armor that seemed to be made of cooling magma, veins of
red-gold fire pulsing within. His face was a mask of inhuman fury, his eyes pure, burning pits of
Bloodflame. He had fused with the demonic Asura-spirit, and it was he who was in control, a
fact that made him all the more terrifying.
"I GAVE YOU A CHANCE TO BE MINE!" his voice roared, shaking the foundations of the
towers. "YOU CHOSE... HIM?! A MORTAL? AN ANT? A... A... NOTHING?!" He turned, his
burning gaze sweeping the city, and in an instant, it locked onto their courtyard. He saw the
bubble of calm. He saw Kael, the source of that calm. "NO... I WILL NOT... ALLOW... THIS!" he
bellowed. In his rage, he moved. He was not a man; he was a catastrophe. He crossed the mile
in a single, fiery bound, appearing in the sky above their small home. "I WILL BURN THIS CITY
TO THE GROUND!" he screamed. "AND I WILL START... WITH YOUR FILTHY... LITTLE...
PET!"
He pointed a single, clawed finger down at Kael. "ASURA-FLAME LANCE!" A beam of
black-and-red fire, thick as a house, shot down, an attack that would vaporize a mountain.
"Kael!" Lin Yue cried, moving to intercept. "No." Kael's voice was calm. He didn't even draw his
sword. He just stood, his hand on her shoulder, and looked up. His platinum Vow flared. [Aura
of Protection (Passive) Lvl 5 (MAX)!] The beam hit the invisible barrier of his Aura. It
shattered. The black-red flame, a Golden Core attack, was torn apart, washing around their
courtyard like water around a stone, leaving them—and the building beneath them—completely
unharmed. Yan Fei's burning eyes went wide. Kael, his face a mask of calm, just... waited. "Your
move," Kael said, his voice quiet, yet it carried over the roar of the Bloodflame. "Lady Lin."