The night sky cracked like glass.
Lightning arced above South City's eastern ridge, illuminating the snow-covered ruins of an abandoned observatory. Below it, Leon stood alone, his breath misting in the air, the jade pendant around his neck glowing violently.
Valeria's soul fragment had flared again.
But this time, it wasn't her voice that came through.
It was screaming.
Then silence.
Leon clutched the pendant tighter, forcing his Qi into it. "Where are you?" he growled.
That's when the ground trembled.
A second later, the sky split open.
From a rift no wider than a street lamp, **five figures** descended.
Cloaked in red. Faces veiled. Each of them bore the same insignia—a lotus burning in reverse, petals curling upward like tongues of flame.
The Red Lotus Guild.
In his past life, they were ghosts. Whispers. Assassins that wiped entire sects from the records, leaving only ash and silence.
Tonight, they came for him.
The tallest one stepped forward, voice genderless behind the mask. "You have touched what should remain dead."
Leon's eyes narrowed. "She's not dead."
"She is scattered," the figure replied. "And some fragments belong to us."
A blade appeared in their hand. Crimson. Serrated.
"You will surrender the pendant," the figure said. "Or burn with it."
Leon exhaled.
And the flame returned.
Blue at first—then violet.
Then white.
It roared around him like a hurricane.
"I've burned before," he said. "I'm not afraid of fire. I am the fire."
They didn't respond.
They attacked.
—
The first came at him like a phantom, striking low with a dagger laced in soul poison. Leon ducked, twisted, and slammed his elbow into the assassin's throat. The body flickered—illusion.
The second dropped from above, throwing three cursed talismans.
Leon snapped two with a flick of his fingers. The third exploded midair—but he was already gone.
He appeared behind the caster and slammed a fist charged with spiritual Qi into their spine.
The assassin crumpled.
Three more surrounded him now, forming a shifting array—moving clockwise in perfect sync.
A formation.
He recognized it.
"Flame-Siphon Spiral," he muttered. "You're not just Red Lotus…"
He stepped forward—and the air thickened.
Spiritual gravity.
They were trying to compress his flame.
It worked—for two seconds.
Then the pressure imploded.
Leon's eyes flared white. His Qi surged outward in a pulse that cracked the ground in a fifty-foot radius.
The assassins staggered.
He moved.
Three precise strikes.
Two deaths.
One survivor, bleeding and crawling backward, reached for a signal talisman.
Leon stopped him with a foot to the chest.
"You're not the real threat," Leon said. "Who is your master?"
The man coughed blood. "You'll find out soon enough…"
Then his body went stiff.
Poison. Self-inflicted.
Of course.
—
Leon turned to the rift still spinning open above him.
It wasn't closing.
Someone was keeping it active.
Then he heard her.
A voice—not Valeria's.
"You fight like someone who's already dead," she said.
A girl dropped from the treeline.
Maybe seventeen. Maybe twenty. She wore black robes stitched in silver thread, her eyes violet, her hair tied in a braid laced with talismans.
She wasn't with the assassins.
But she wasn't normal either.
"Who are you?" Leon asked.
"An observer," she said. "Tonight, at least."
"You kept the portal open?"
She shrugged. "Someone had to. Otherwise, they wouldn't have risked crossing dimensions."
Leon's gaze hardened. "Why help them?"
"I didn't," she said. "I helped you."
He frowned. "Why?"
She stepped forward and touched the pendant on his chest.
It didn't flare.
Instead, it hummed. Soft. Almost… welcoming.
"I knew her," the girl said. "Not in this life. But once."
Leon's voice was low. "Valeria?"
The girl nodded.
"I was there," she said. "When she died."
Leon stepped back. "You—"
"I couldn't stop it," she whispered. "But I promised I'd find her again. No matter the cycle."
Leon's fists unclenched.
She wasn't lying.
He could feel it.
The connection wasn't soul-deep like his. But it was real.
"I go by Mira," she said.
Leon nodded slowly. "Leon Fang."
"I know."
Of course she did.
"Then you also know this is just the beginning," he said.
Mira looked at the rift still spinning in the sky.
"No," she said. "This was the **warning shot**."
Then she vanished.
—
Leon stood alone again, surrounded by ash and blood and silence.
Above him, the sky began to heal.
But something had shifted.
The world wasn't waiting anymore.
It was moving.
And for the first time since his rebirth, Leon Fang wasn't chasing fate.
He was standing in its path.