The clash between Yunlei and Liang Xun left echoes hanging in the Vault Below the Stars. Yuxian watched in silence, her eyes like galaxies spiraling behind the veil. Yue Qian stood guard at Yunlei’s side, blade steady, heart pounding.Liang’s serpentine daggers had melted away into stardust, devoured by the Binding Flame now wrapped around Yunlei’s arm like a living gauntlet. He didn’t fully understand it yet—but it pulsed with ancient knowing, responding to his will and thought.“I won’t warn you again,” Yunlei said, his voice resonating with something beyond mortal tone. “This path is no longer yours to block.”Liang Xun’s lips curled. “You still think this is about you, Kirin Heir? You don’t realize the role you’ve stepped into. That flame… is bait. You’ve lit the lantern, and now the nightmares will come.”He spun a throwing knife toward Yue Qian—too fast to track. But Yunlei raised his hand and the flame arced outward, forming a blazing crescent. The knife dissolved mid-air.“Lea

It felt impossible, yet the certainty in her voice was unshakable. Someone of his blood—his clan—had made a pact with the enemy, aligning with the Mirror King’s ambitions. The implication clawed at his chest like frost.Yue Qian placed a steadying hand on his arm. “What did she mean? A prince... of your line?”Yunlei turned to the masked assassins still lining the courtyard, their silence more oppressive than before. “There are only a handful of us left,” he muttered. “My father had no brothers. No cousins I was ever told of. Unless...”The old woman—now unmasked—began placing the guqin into a lacquered case with reverence. “The Obsidian Lotus kept watch on your bloodline long before your birth, Flamebearer. The Mirror King feared your kind, so he sought to corrupt it.”Migu squinted at her. “You're saying this guy is like... Yunlei’s evil twin?”The woman shook her head. “Not a twin. A brother born of shadow. He was taken as a babe during the Burning of Huanshi and raised in the Mirr

The dust from Yunlei and Yunxian’s final clash still hung thick in the air when the cry came from the monastery walls.“The sanctum is breached!”Yunlei’s heart lurched. The Chronicle—the one document linking Yunxian’s identity to the experiments of the Sapphire Clade—was inside that sanctum. If it was lost or destroyed, so was their only chance at exposing the truth.“Go!” Yue Qian shouted, dragging him back to his feet. “I’ll hold him!”Yunlei’s instincts screamed in protest, but her expression brooked no argument. Yunxian was recovering too—his robes scorched, face bleeding from a shallow cut, but his aura still fierce.“I won’t kill him,” Yue Qian said with a smirk. “Unless he makes me.”Yunlei nodded once, then blurred toward the monastery.The temple’s once-pristine hallways were now charred and crumbling. Pillars etched with ancient glyphs had been blasted apart by enemy talismans. Monks lay wounded or dead along the marble floors, their golden robes soaked in blood. Yunlei vau

The wind snapped like a whip as Yunlei shot across the frozen plain, his cloak blazing behind him. The Frostbite Emissaries reacted instantly, spreading out in perfect formation—like shards of a shattered mirror snapping into place. Their palanquin glowed with eerie runes, humming with eldritch cold.The lead emissary stepped forward again, her voice cutting through the snowstorm. “Surrender the Chronicle and face judgment.”Yunlei answered with fire.He slammed his palms together and unleashed a wave of golden flame, spiraling in twin arcs toward the guards. The frost emissaries raised their staves—each one etched with soul seals—and countered with an ice storm that froze the air itself.But Yunlei wasn’t fighting to win. He was fighting to delay.As the first two emissaries lunged, he rolled under their attacks and struck upward with a burst of compressed ki, shattering one’s mask and sending her sprawling. The other swung a glaive of ice, grazing Yunlei’s shoulder as he leapt back.

Far beyond the shattered frostfields, where neither snow nor sun could fully reach, a forgotten palace slumbered beneath the sands. The Palace of Dust and Echoes, once the celestial observatory of the Nine Seers, now lay buried under centuries of war, time, and betrayal.But tonight, its doors stirred.Yunlei and Yunxian stood before a crumbling archway, its ancient runes flickering like fireflies trying to recall their purpose. Zhao Qixuan’s instructions had led them here, his final words echoing in Yunlei’s mind:> “Seek the truth not from voices above, but echoes beneath. What was hidden from you is older than prophecy.”The twin heirs stepped into the dark together.The palace’s halls stretched out like the ribcage of a long-dead beast. Dust coated every tile. Broken statues lined the corridors—figures of forgotten gods and flawed prophets. As they walked, whispers danced around them, barely audible yet haunting.Yunxian paused, fingers brushing an inscription on the wall. “This l