The sky above the Heavenly Radiance Sect burned crimson.
Atop the silver walls of Cloudspine Bastion, the last stronghold before the inner sanctum, stood two figures. One wore the azure robes of a senior sect disciple—broad-shouldered, grim, swordlight dancing from the blade in his hand. The other was younger, lithe, eyes wide with fear, fury, and grief.
"Bai Fu," said Zhao Tianyang, the Righteous Blade. "You need to fall back."
"No."
His reply was immediate.
The younger man gripped his curved blade tight, blood trailing from his lip where he'd bitten down too hard to keep from screaming.
"I'm not leaving you behind."
Tianyang spared him a glance. "We're not winning this one."
"We're not losing either."
Tianyang smiled faintly. "That's not how this works."
Below them, the battlefield writhed with shadow. Demons, cloaked in blood-smoke and bone armor, poured from the breach where the outer sect defenses had failed. Between their monstrous forms prowled humans—twisted cultivators who had traded their core for corruption, faces painted with stolen Qi.
A great roar rose, and a horned behemoth surged forward, leading the charge.
Bai Fu clenched his jaw. "We hold."
Tianyang exhaled. "Then we hold."
They moved.
Tianyang's blade was the wind—impossible angles, perfect grace. Bai Fu was the fire—blunt, fast, raw. Together they carved a path through the first wave, but the second came faster. Harder.
Tianyang bled.
He didn't fall.
Not until the third wave.
A cloaked demon struck from above, a whip-spear piercing his side. Another demon followed—then another.
Bai Fu screamed his name.
Tianyang turned once. He smiled.
"Live."
Then he fell.
Bai Fu's world went silent.
Everything slowed.
And then it erupted.
He didn't remember drawing power. Didn't remember channeling his flame arts. But the explosion of raw spiritual fire that consumed the advancing demons was his. He stood atop the bodies, cloak aflame, face streaked with ash and grief, screaming a name that would never be answered.
Three days later, Bai Fu stood in a camp surrounded by strangers.
He barely remembered how he got there. A Sky Crane had evacuated the remnants of the Heavenly Radiance Sect after reinforcements arrived. Somehow he'd stumbled his way to the central Alliance camp.
The others whispered his name, the one who stood alone and incinerated a demonic phalanx after his senior's death.
He didn't care.
He didn't sleep.
Didn't eat much.
He waited.
And when the messenger called for him he followed.
The war council had been hastily assembled in a circular tent staked into the cracked ridgeline above Shadow Mountain. Bai Fu stepped into the tent, nobody paid much attention to his entrance.
Sitting at the head of the stone table was Kai Feng, clad in battle-worn robes, his presence calm but commanding. Beside him stood Yin Shuang, her aura razor-sharp, a blade barely sheathed. Others lined the circle—sect lords, battle-tested elders, and powerful rogue cultivators.
Kai addressed the war party. "We're moving at nightfall," he said. "You're part of the main strike force."
A map lit up with runes on the table. Kai gestured to the western flank of Shadow Mountain.
"Five ridges cross the caldera," he began. "The demons use the outer ridge as a staging ground, but we've found energy signatures between two collapsed fault lines. That's where the portal was hidden."
"My portal tracing technique resonates with disturbances in Qi structure especially ones not native to this realm."
Yin Shuang continued. "We storm the breach with three teams. Team One draws the main vanguard—Team Two flanks and disables the protective wards. Team Three seals the portal."
Kai looked to the others. "We march at sundown."