The morning after they left the Temple of Roots the world felt too quiet even the wind had gone still as though the land itself was holding its breath.The temple’s open hand stood pale against the horizon its faint glow fading with each step they took away from it.Jin Mu didn’t look back he could still feel the temple’s pulse in his bones not painful just there like a memory under his skin.Orin walked beside him scribbling notes even as he stumbled over the uneven path. “If the murals were right,” he said, “then the ancients believed balance wasn’t born from harmony it was born from conflict. Life and death feeding each other in endless cycle.”“That’s not a belief,” Lian said quietly “It’s a warning.”Jin Mu glanced at her “You sound like you’ve read that somewhere.”She nodded once. “In the Lotus archives There’s a forbidden text called The Twelve Breaths of Heaven. It spoke of an immortal flame that would rise when Heaven’s scales fell out of balance A Death Flame.”Orin grinned