The ruined temple groaned under the weight of silence. With the Echoes vanquished and the Sovereign Flame reborn, an unnatural stillness fell across the scorched stone. Yet the tension in the air did not ease. Something deeper stirred—ancient, bound by more than steel and spell.Yunlei stood atop the shattered dais, eyes closed, sensing the fractures beneath the city. Though the Echoes had been extinguished, the entity they had worshipped—the Dreaming God—remained restless, buried beneath a thousand years of illusion and pact. Its dreams still pressed against the veil.Behind him, Ruoqin sat cross-legged, her hands wrapped in healing cloth. “We should return to the surface,” she muttered, though her voice lacked conviction.“No,” Yunlei said softly. “There’s one more seal. Shen Rui didn’t just guard the gate. He was part of the Accord. And the final key… is down there.”Meizhen frowned, approaching with a limp. “The Accord? You never said it had another layer.”Yunlei turned, his sove

The coastal winds tore through the camp at dawn, scattering embers from the night’s dying fires. Tents flapped like battered sails, and the cries of gulls merged with the clang of steel as soldiers trained in the yard below the cliffs. Amid them stood Yunlei, bare-chested, arms wrapped in hemp bands, his fists streaked with blood.Opposite him knelt General Haoyu of the Sky Piercer Mercenaries, gasping for breath, his blade driven into the sand for balance. Yunlei had not used his sword. He hadn’t needed to.“You wanted proof,” Yunlei said, offering the older man a hand. “Now you have it.”Haoyu took it, grunting as Yunlei pulled him to his feet. “That was no duel,” the general spat. “That was a lesson.”“Then learn it,” Yunlei replied calmly. “I’m not asking for loyalty. I’m offering a cause.”Around them, the warriors of the Sky Piercers watched in tense silence. Many had heard the rumors—of the Kirin Heir returned, of an Accord reforged—but few had believed them until now.Haoyu st

The city of Nanyue had once been called the Pearl of the South. Its towers were lotus-shaped, its canals lined with floating lanterns. But on this day, the waters ran black with ash, and smoke painted the skies in strokes of gray.Yunlei stood atop the city’s northern gate, staring into the horizon where fire still flickered on the ruins of the outer farms. His cloak whipped in the wind, stained from days of battle and ashfall. Behind him, his generals waited, tense and silent.“The lotus fields are gone,” said Meizhen. “Burned to mud.”Yunlei didn’t reply at first. His gaze followed the curling smoke as if it could carry him to the ones responsible.“They struck in the night. Silent. Precise. They didn’t want territory. They wanted symbolism.”Zhao stepped forward, arms crossed. “Three Heartseeds destroyed in a single night. Dozens dead. No tracks. No survivors.”“Only one mark,” Meizhen added. “A single word burned into the temple wall: ‘Ash.’”Yunlei clenched his fists.“Ashen Pact

The map had no ink.Yunlei stared at the moon-threaded silk, turning it over again and again. No lines, no compass. Just smooth fabric, cool to the touch, as blank as the sky before a storm.And yet, he could feel it.Not see it—but feel it. Every time his fingers brushed a certain patch of the cloth, a strange tug stirred in his chest, like gravity with no direction. As if the map responded not to sight, but will.“You’re sure this isn’t just a riddle?” Meizhen asked, arms crossed.“No. This is a test.”Yunlei knelt by the campfire, pressing his palm flat across the center of the silk.The fire dimmed.Zhao stepped back instinctively. “Uh… that’s not normal.”Runes, ancient and pulsing, bloomed across the fabric like glowing veins. A pattern began to take form—five circles, five paths, each leading to a jagged symbol at the center. The Cradle of Ash.Meizhen whistled. “Old magic. Older than the Empire.”“Runes from the Deep Flame,” Yunlei murmured. “No wonder the Jade Court hid this.

The valley ahead was choked with fog and silence, but not the kind born of nature. This hush was heavy—an ancestral quiet that wrapped around the bones of the forgotten dead. Ghostlights drifted above the ground like will-o'-the-wisps, casting flickers of pale blue across broken marble columns, fallen palace gates, and shattered statues of long-dead emperors.“The Ghost Courts,” Meizhen whispered, wrapping her cloak tighter. “Once the seat of the Eastern Celestial Dynasty. Now it’s just... echoes.”Zhao drew one of his knives, testing its edge with his thumb. “Echoes don’t kill people.”“Tell that to the last seven expedition teams that came here,” she muttered.Yunlei stood still at the threshold, gazing at the once-grand courtyard ahead. Faded tapestries still fluttered on broken spires. Fountains ran with water that shimmered like tears. And overhead, a broken throne sat atop a fractured dais—its gold tarnished, its gemstones missing.The symbol of the dynasty’s fall.“Stay close,”