Frost cracked under boots not born for orchard soil.
The Pale Host advanced in a silent wave — bone beads rattling soft prayers for old kings and fresh corpses. Their leader's mask, lacquered white with a single black crown rune, turned left, then right — marking orchard shadows where rumor's teeth waited.
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Li Shen stood at the spear point of his line — Wolfchain banner strapped across his back, the Fang's old dagger stitched into the hem like a promise carved into dusk.
Yue Lan drifted behind him, threads whispering frost sigils into the churned earth, binding roots to iron, cold breath to blade edge.
Behind them, orchard hands braced splintered axes on knee-high frost. Fathers gripped rusted spearheads tied to orchard staves with old goat rope. Children crouched low behind split logs — too young to fight, old enough to carry rumor's oath in wide eyes.
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Master Tian leaned against a stump just behind the line, staff laid across his knees, breath rattling like dry leaves caught in winter wind.
"Stone breaks roots if roots stay quiet," he rasped, voice just loud enough for Li Shen to hear.
"So roar, boy."
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The Pale Host's leader lifted a burial blade — cloth-wrapped steel that dripped old salt ink onto the frost. His voice was calm, gentle as a priest's at the grave's edge.
"Chain-breaker," he called, crown rune glinting moonlight through drifting mist, "kneel. Your roots drink no blood tonight. Kneel, and the orchard feeds on coin instead of corpses."
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Li Shen stepped forward. Just enough for every orchard soul to see his grin — frost steaming off his teeth like an oath cut in raw iron.
"You bring old bones to break rumor's roots?" he called back.
"Roots drink deeper than stone remembers."
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Then he lifted his blade, point catching pale moonlight. The orchard hush cracked — not from the Pale Host's boots this time, but from orchard hands rising from hollows, splintered axe hafts slamming frost like old drums.
The Wolfchain banner snapped once behind him — the Fang's dagger glinting cold at its hem.
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Yue Lan's threads flicked — a net of frost breath brushing the Pale Host's front ranks, blurring the burial runes on the masked faces.
A single orchard father stepped up beside Li Shen — big-shouldered, beard iced with rice chaff, eyes bright with rumor and raw hope.
He lifted his rusted broad knife, voice rough as churned frost.
"Roots stand."
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The Pale Host leader hissed — a soft sound, almost pity. His burial blade lifted higher.
The bone beads rattled once.
Steel struck frost.
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The first clash was not a roar — it was a hush breaking like an old bone. Orchard blades met burial cloth steel. Yue Lan's threads spun frost hooks around wrists and elbows, dragging masked monks off balance.
Li Shen's blade found a burial blade's cloth — tore it wide, edge biting salt ink, snapping the Pale Host's prayer in half.
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Behind him, orchard fathers swung axes not meant for war — but rumor made them war all the same. Mothers drove spearheads through cloth armor, splitting burial runes with orchard iron.
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The Pale Host leader slipped through frost like a ghost — blade flicking for Li Shen's throat.
Li Shen pivoted, grin wide — his blade kissed the burial steel once, twice, then locked it against Yue Lan's threads that coiled the leader's free arm.
Steel scraped bone. Roots cracked stone.
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Frost churned into mud where feet slipped, but the orchard line did not break. Splintered axe handles splashed burial blood. The Wolfchain banner snapped like rumor's last oath — loud enough to drown the Host's soft prayers.
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When the Pale Host's leader fell — mask cracked, burial blade broken at the hilt — Li Shen stood over him, frost steam rising off his blade.
He pressed the Fang's stolen dagger to the broken mask — a single cut that split the crown rune wide.
"Roots break stone," Li Shen murmured.
The orchard hands roared it back. Steel struck frost. Splinters rained.
Roots drank.
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When the last Pale Host shape fled into the pine dark, they left bone beads in churned frost — and rumor's teeth sharper than any burial cloth blade.
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By dawn, Tian's Watch stood quiet again — but the orchard roots hummed with iron's promise.
Li Shen pressed his palm to the Wolfchain banner. Yue Lan stood at his side, threads coiled loose but ready.
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Roots break stone.
And rumor's chain roars louder than any crown's hush.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty-Six — Roots Break Stone
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