By the time Jiang Han and Bo Ren emerged from the Temple's hidden passage, the sky was already orange with firelight.
But it was not sunset.
Smoke curled above the hills near the Flame Shrine. The treeline burned in disciplined patterns—controlled, calculated. Not wild destruction.
It was the mark of a sect's cleansing technique.
Bo Ren's face turned grim.
> "They've come with a flag, not a sword."
"But flags weigh heavier than blades."
They ran.
Fast.
By the time they reached the outer valley, the forest had cleared. Soldiers in gold-trimmed crimson robes marched in synchronized units, forming a perimeter around the shrine ruins.
At the center stood a raised pavilion of flame, floating five feet off the ground—cast by a Flame Array master.
Jiang Han saw Yue tied to a spirit totem post, her face bloodied but proud.
Zhao Kai knelt at swordpoint, crackling with barely-contained static, his broken spear beside him.
Lin Yao was nowhere in sight.
Bo Ren whispered, "Don't attack yet. Look."
Atop the pavilion stood a man—young, tall, draped in flame-gold robes etched with ancient script. A twin-bladed sword rested across his back.
His aura screamed nobility.
But it wasn't true.
It was refined flame. Stolen, shaped, forced.
> "I am Jin Tianshu," he declared to the valley, his voice amplified by spirit glyphs. "Direct heir of the Flame Sovereign bloodline. I have come to claim what belongs to me."
> "This shrine. This legacy. This power."
He raised a branded scroll—flame-bound in gold thread.
> "By decree of the Emberlight Sect, the Flame Shrine and its resources are now property of the Sovereign Branch."
Jiang Han's eyes darkened.
> "He's impersonating the flame."
Bo Ren nodded once. "A hundred years ago, the Emberlight Sect tried to awaken the Sovereign Flame. They failed. And buried the truth."
> "Now they've found out you succeeded."
Jiang stepped forward.
> "Then it's time they remembered what real flame feels like."
---
The Reckoning
Jiang Han walked into the clearing.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The moment he crossed the treeline, the temperature shifted.
Not hotter—but sharper. Like a drawn blade held to the skin.
The Emberlight disciples turned.
Jin Tianshu narrowed his eyes. "Who dares—"
> "You talk too much."
Jiang's voice cut through the clearing like fire through silk.
Yue's eyes lit up. "Finally."
Zhao Kai grinned through his split lip. "Took you long enough."
Jin sneered. "And you are?"
Jiang didn't answer.
Instead, he drew Ember Fang.
The blade sang—a harmonic resonance that echoed in the bones of everyone nearby. Even the Emberlight guards shuddered.
Jin's eyes widened.
> "That blade… impossible. That forge was lost—"
"Not lost," Jiang said. "Buried. Like your honor."
Jin raised his hand.
The sect's enforcers surged forward—ten cultivators, all above Level 20.
Jiang Han didn't flinch.
---
The Fight
The first attacker reached him—staff blazing.
Jiang sidestepped, slashed once. The man's weapon melted. He collapsed, clutching his wrist.
Two more came—twin daggers flaring with delayed combustion glyphs.
Jiang ducked, spun, activated Fang Echo.
The phantom strike took both out mid-leap.
Jin shouted: "Do not fear him! He is one spark!"
> "Wrong," Jiang said.
"I am the forge."
He activated Soul Furnace.
Emotion surged.
Pain from the battle in the shrine. Relief at finding Yue alive. Fury at their chains. Hope in his own rebirth.
The furnace drank it all.
Flame roared from Ember Fang in a whip-wide arc—scorching the ground, knocking back five disciples.
One remained standing.
Jin Tianshu stepped forward, twin blades drawn.
His aura flared—two-tier Flame Compression Technique. His blade glowed with sealed ancestral fire.
> "You bear the flame well," he said. "But I was born to rule it."
> "Then burn for it."
---
They clashed.
Flame met flame.
But while Jin's was practiced, calculated, refined—
Jiang's was wild.
Earned.
He moved like heat lightning. Every strike faster than the last. Ember Fang adapted, its soul bond deepening mid-battle.
Jin unleashed his finishing technique—Solar Break, a cross-cut that split flame across multiple directions.
Jiang met it head-on.
And roared:
> "Furnace Pulse: Echo Bloom!"
Flame burst from within.
Jin's strike shattered.
His blade exploded in his hands.
He flew backward, unconscious before he hit the ground.
---
The silence afterward was complete.
Until Zhao Kai stood up.
Grinning.
"Guess we're not joining the Emberlight Sect after all."