The moon hung over the Ashen Blades’ valley like a silver blade, cold, merciless, and sharp enough to split the world in two. Beneath its pale light, three sect armies stretched across the hills, banners fluttering in the wind. Their chants echoed through the night, a promise of blood.Kael stood at the sect gates, his coat torn and his hair whipping in the cold breeze. Behind him, the remnants of the Ashen Blades waited in silence. Fear rolled off them in waves. Even now, after everything, most couldn’t decide if the man before them was their savior or their doom.He didn’t blame them.He wasn’t sure of himself anymore.“Kael,” Aelira said quietly, stepping beside him. Her silver eyes glimmered faintly in the moonlight. “You don’t have to do this alone.”He gave a low, humorless laugh. “I already am.”From the enemy camp, horns blared. A thousand cultivators began to move, the three sects advancing as one tide of power and hatred. The ground trembled beneath their boots.Kael dr

Night had fallen by the time the battlefield stopped trembling.The light of the slain Avatar still shimmered faintly across the horizon, dying like a retreating storm. All that remained of its divinity was ash, ash and a broken man lying at the center of it.Kael didn’t move.His body was a ruin of cracked flesh and bleeding light. Gold and red lines pulsed under his skin, leaking warmth that wasn’t entirely blood.Every breath rattled through him like a broken bellows. The System flickered erratically above his fading vision, its voice distant, warped.[Critical condition.][Vital integrity below 2%.][Initiating emergency preservation protocol.]He tried to move his hand, but his fingers wouldn’t obey. The world was slipping away, sounds fading, colors dissolving into a dull haze.Through that haze, he heard a voice, faint, desperate.“Kael! Stay with me!”Aelira’s hands pressed against his chest, divine light spilling from her palms, trying to mend what couldn’t be mended. Every

The mountain was silent for three days after the fire. Only the wind dared move through the ruins, dragging ash through broken halls, carrying faint whispers of the name that once defined this place: Ashen Blades.But that name is gone now. On the dawn of the fourth day, when the sky turned the color of old blood, Kael stood before the surviving disciples in what remained of the main courtyard. The ground was blackened, the statues shattered, but his presence burned brighter than the ruin around them.The survivors, seventeen in total, knelt in a half-circle, faces streaked with soot and awe.Kael’s crimson aura pulsed faintly, the sigil on his arm glowing like a live brand. His voice, when it came, was calm and unyielding.“Do you know what I see when I look at you?” he asked.No one answered.“Fear,” Kael said, stepping forward. “Fear that the gods will strike again. Fear that I’ll burn what’s left. Fear that the world beyond this mountain has no place for you.”His eyes narrowed.

The forests beyond the Black Fang mountain range were old, older than the sects, older than the gods’ shrines themselves. The trees towered like pillars of bone, their bark gray with age and mist clinging to the ground like restless souls. Somewhere deep within, the beasts slept,waiting for the scent of blood to wake them.Kael stood on the cliff overlooking the dark expanse, his cloak snapping in the cold wind. Behind him, rows of disciples knelt in silence, weapons drawn, faces pale with a mix of fear and anticipation. The crimson insignia of the Black Fang Sect gleamed freshly branded on their robes.He turned, gaze sweeping across them.“This,” he said, his tone measured, “is your first trial. Your first chance to prove your worth.”His voice echoed through the mountain air, each word cutting through the fog like a blade.“In that forest lie beasts infused with divine residue, spawn left behind by fallen avatars. Hunt them. Bleed them. Survive them. Bring back their cores, or do

The smoke had barely faded from the forest before the whispers began.No one knew the truth at first, only fragments carried by frightened merchants and wandering cultivators. A temple burned. Priests slaughtered. Holy relics defiled. And through it all, a single name was spoken in trembling voices: Kael Draven.In taverns and sect halls across the kingdoms, men whispered over their cups.“They say he wields forbidden arts.”“They say he walks with a woman half-divine.”“They say he burned a god’s outpost to ashes.”No one agreed on the details, but all agreed on one thing, the heretic had returned.Within the Black Fang Sect, the air was thick with the weight of newfound power and unspoken fear. The disciples moved through the crimson-lit halls with newfound reverence, bowing low whenever Kael passed.Aelira followed him into the grand chamber, once the council room of the Ashen Blades, now marked with Kael’s sigil burned deep into the stone floor.“You’ve become a rumor,” she said