The world felt colder after he said her name.
Not colder in the way winter touches skin.
Colder like standing before a tomb that never held a body—only memories.
And now that he'd spoken it—
Lianxin.
—it wouldn't leave him.
---
He left the sanctum before the sword could tempt either of them further.
He didn't remember climbing the mountain path.
Only that the wind whispered like an old friend… or an old mistake.
And he let it guide him.
---
It brought him to a ravine of cracked white stone.
The trees didn't grow here.
The air was too thin, too dry. The sky hung heavy above it like a closed eye.
And carved into the cliff face ahead was a forgotten sigil:
The Seal of Heaven's Judgment.
His chest ached.
He didn't know why.
---
Yanlong stepped closer.
His hand pressed against the seal—and the stone flared with pale gold light, burning briefly before dimming again. The wall shimmered, then peeled back, revealing a hidden passage cut into the mountain's heart.
A faint warmth stirred at the edge of his senses.
It wasn't the heat of his flame.
It was older. Harsher. Sanctified.
A holy battlefield.
Why do I know this place?
---
He walked the narrow tunnel in silence, torchless. His eyes adjusted easily. They always had.
The passage opened into a cavern.
Massive. Hollowed by divine war.
Blades of all sizes jutted from the walls—some celestial, some demonic. All rusted. Forgotten.
The bones of angels and beasts alike were sealed in crystal tombs, stacked high like trophies from an ancient battle.
And in the center…
A scorched altar.
---
He stepped toward it.
With every pace, the flame in his chest stirred restlessly.
Like it wanted to leap out of him and kneel before the altar it once defiled.
I fought here.
The thought didn't come as a question.
It came as a truth.
---
He touched the altar.
Visions slammed into his mind.
---
A sky torn in two.
Screams—celestial and human alike.
Lianxin, younger, cloaked in armor, holding him back—her hand bloodied, her voice lost in the storm.
He'd been trying to reach the altar then too.
But not to pray.
To destroy it.
---
He staggered backward.
The pain split his skull.
He dropped to one knee.
"Why… did I hate them so much?"
"Why couldn't I stop?"
---
He looked up at the altar again.
The scorch marks on its base weren't random.
They formed a shape.
A name.
Barely visible, but seared into the stone like a curse—
Yanlong.
---
He had done this.
He had burned this sacred ground.
And Heaven had not struck him down.
It had merely sealed it away—
As if trying to forget him too.
----
The altar pulsed beneath his hand.
He wasn't sure if it was the energy buried in the stone…
Or the memories buried inside him.
He tried to stand, but the cave twisted. The walls rippled like the surface of a disturbed pond, and the scorched blades embedded in the stone groaned—as if awakening from centuries of sleep.
You were here.
You killed here.
---
Voices echoed in the dark.
His voice. Hers. Others he didn't recognize.
"They lied to you, Yanlong."
"Don't listen to them—please, just wait—"
"He's become a devil! He must be cast down!"
And finally—
"I trusted you…"
"You burned it all."
----
Yanlong screamed.
Not from pain.
From clarity.
The memories tore through him like blades through silk.
He saw himself—draped in dragonfire, eyes molten gold, cutting through immortals like wheat.
And behind him—
Lianxin.
Chained. Bleeding.
Begging.
---
He remembered turning back once.
Just once.
Long enough to see her fall.
And not long enough to catch her.
---
The vision shattered.
Yanlong collapsed onto the cold stone floor, sweat pouring down his face, breath ragged.
He felt sick.
Not from exhaustion.
From guilt.
---
"I wasn't just a soldier," he whispered.
"I wasn't a protector. Or a hero."
His hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms.
"I was a weapon."
And worse—
He'd liked it.
---
The wind howled through the cavern, picking up loose ash and scattering it like ghosts.
Yanlong forced himself to stand.
This was no time for collapse.
No time for shame.
He had remembered now.
And that meant...
He had to face her again.
Not as the lost flame-walker seeking peace.
But as the one who had lit the fire that ruined her life—twice.
---
He turned to leave the chamber.
But a figure stood in the archway.
---
Lianxin.
---
She hadn't said a word.
She hadn't needed to.
Her eyes said it all.
She'd felt the shift. The weight of the memory crashing into his soul.
And she had come here, not to kill—
But to see.
---
"Now you remember," she said.
It wasn't a question.
He nodded.
Her voice was calm. Too calm.
"Then tell me," she said. "What's my name?"
---
He met her eyes.
And this time, he said it not with uncertainty or hesitation.
But like someone bleeding from the mouth and smiling through it.
"Lianxin."
---
The silence that followed wasn't empty.
It was full of ten thousand unsaid things.
Full of battles. Cries. Touches. Betrayals.
Memories she'd carried alone for a hundred lifetimes.
Now he carried them too.
---
Lianxin's jaw tightened.
"You remember everything now?"
Yanlong didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
---
Because they both knew:
Remembering wasn't the hard part.
Surviving it was.
---
She turned to go.
But before she left the cave, she said one last thing—
Softly.
Almost kindly.
"Then mourn for who you were, Yanlong."
"Because I'm about to destroy what's left of him."