The wind over the northern crater carried the scent of scorched stone. What had once been a fortress was now a wound in the earth, glowing faintly from within. The Azure Blossom rescue force moved along the rim in a staggered line, their lanterns trembling in the cold air.
Elder Shen raised a hand. "Anchor the tethers here. No one descends alone."
The ropes hissed as disciples fastened them to the obsidian ground, their silhouettes sharp against the ash-colored dawn. From below came a pulse—slow, deliberate—like a heartbeat hidden under miles of rock.
They began the descent.
Mist coiled upward in slow ribbons. Every few steps, the ropes shivered as if touched by unseen fingers. Far beneath, flashes of red and silver flickered, distant but alive. Relief passed through the group in a single breath.
"They're down there," whispered one.
"Or something wearing their light," Shen muttered.
Halfway down the crater wall, the mist thickened into a curtain. Sound dulled. The only noise was the creak of harness and the hiss of shifting dust. Then, without warning, the air split with a crack of pressure that bent metal and bone alike.
A column of light shot upward from the depths, nearly blinding. It wasn't the clean fire of qi—they saw veins of darkness threaded through it, as if two powers wrestled inside a single beam. The ropes snapped; disciples tumbled backward, caught only by emergency glyphs flaring along the cliff.
From the light, two figures rose—Li Xian and Su Yao, clothes in tatters, eyes clear and hard. They landed on the rim as the rescue party scrambled to make space. For a heartbeat, no one spoke. The mountain itself seemed to hold its breath.
Elder Shen stepped forward. "Report."
Li Xian's answer was a single gesture toward the crater. The ground beneath them shuddered, and a web of violet cracks spread outward from the pit's center. Through those fissures seeped a faint shimmer, darker than shadow yet brighter than flame.
Su Yao drew a slow breath. "The seal is gone. What we fought was only a fragment. The rest—"
The earth convulsed. A tower of dust erupted, swallowing her words. Out of it came a sound not meant for mortal air—a deep, resonant chord that rattled the teeth and froze the blood. Lightning split the clouds, revealing for an instant a lattice of wings too large to belong to any creature they knew.
Disciples dropped to their knees, qi faltering under the weight of the presence that now pressed down on the world.
Li Xian steadied Su Yao with one hand and looked to the north. "It's searching," he said quietly. "It doesn't yet see us."
"Then we move before it does," Su Yao replied.
He nodded once. "Form the barriers. Draw everyone back to the inner ridge."
The rescue team obeyed, pouring their energy into hastily etched runes. The crater responded with a low groan. A wave of heat rose, scattering ash into spirals that climbed the air like serpents.
And above them, the sky began to split—not open, but separate, as though the heavens themselves were peeling away from the world. Through the widening seam gleamed a void threaded with violet fire.
Grand Elder Meng Tian arrived just in time to see it. He stopped, face pale. "So this is what Mo Tian sought," he whispered. "The gate between realms."
The seam flared once more and then stilled, holding open like a wound that refused to heal. The wind that poured through it smelled of storms and old iron.
Li Xian turned to Su Yao. "If that gate remains, the northern lands will fall within days."
She met his gaze without fear. "Then we close it before the world remembers it was ever open."
The sky answered with another thunderclap.