---
## **Chapter Five: The Name Beneath Fire**
> *Location: Ardent Hollow – A forgotten ruin beneath the city, sealed since the Pact War.*
It began with a dream.
Bai Lu stood in a field of white ash. The moon above her wept blood. In the distance, something ancient stirred—its wings broken, its voice like thunder wrapped in silk.
And it called her by a name no one should know.
> "**Erisyn.**"
She woke before her heartbeat could stop.
---
### **The Hunt for the Relic**
The briefing was simple: a minor demon cult had breached a sealed subrealm under Xintai's foundation. Bai Lu was to investigate. Standard cleanup. Low risk.
Of course, nothing about ancient seal-breaks and abyssal signatures screamed *low risk*.
Rin tagged along, slurping blood tea from a thermos shaped like a panda. He wore sunglasses underground and claimed it was for "emotional mystery."
"You know," he said, ducking under a collapsed archway, "this totally has 'final boss' energy."
"No talking."
"Just saying. If we die here, I want it on record that I was right."
They passed through what had once been a chapel, now cracked open by molten fissures. Symbols of forgotten gods wept ichor from broken altars. The deeper they went, the colder it got.
Until the heat *returned*—not with fire, but presence.
And then…
He was there.
---
### **The Demon Prince**
He did not walk. He arrived.
The air folded inward. Stone wept steam. Shadows turned to blades. And from them, a figure emerged.
Tall. Ageless. Eyes like twin eclipses. Horns like sculpted obsidian, curving back over white hair that shimmered like starlight over oil.
He wore a suit—not armor, but silk, perfectly tailored. His beauty was obscene.
He smiled.
"**Erisyn.** At last."
Bai Lu did not blink.
"I don't know that name."
His laughter was a symphony of screams and choir.
"Oh, you do," he said. "You *remember*—you've just buried it beneath layers of frost and denial. But your soul never forgets its mother tongue."
Rin moved to step forward. Bai Lu held out a hand.
"No."
The Demon Prince's gaze flicked to Rin.
"Ah. The stray. Does he know what you are? What's *inside* you?"
Rin opened his mouth.
"Don't," Bai Lu snapped.
The prince's eyes glimmered. "So fierce. So *frightened*. You locked your power away so long ago... even your blood has started to forget its shape."
"You're not real," she said.
"Oh, I'm very real. And soon, I'll be very free."
---
### **Truths and Teeth**
He raised a hand. The room split open.
Not physically. Spiritually.
The *walls of reality* cracked, and memories surged—faint, violent. A girl with burning eyes. A battlefield of angels and monsters. A blade made of her own soul.
Rin staggered.
"I... I saw you," he whispered. "You weren't human."
Bai Lu's body tensed.
The Demon Prince stepped closer.
"Would you like to know who sealed you, child? Would you like the names of the gods who feared you so deeply they broke your memory?"
She lunged.
---
### **The Fight Beneath the World**
Light met shadow. The ruin exploded in force.
Bai Lu moved faster than she ever had—her power clawing at its seals, eager to burn. She struck the prince's chest—he bled *lightning*. He smiled.
"You're waking up," he whispered. "It's beautiful."
He caught her wrist mid-strike and twisted. Her arm *snapped*, but she didn't scream. She drove her knee into his throat.
They clashed across dimensions—burning through echoes, shattering altar stones, ripping screams from the realm itself.
Rin, breathless, tossed her a binding crystal. "Catch!"
She did.
Activated it.
The glyph flared. The room trembled.
The prince roared, form flickering.
"You think this holds me?"
"No," Bai Lu whispered. "But it reminds you that I can."
With a final surge, she stabbed the crystal into his shadow.
He vanished.
For now.
---
### **The Fallout**
They limped out of the ruin. Bai Lu's arm hung at an odd angle. Rin's shirt was half-burnt. The hellhound-cat sat on his head, tail twitching.
"I vote we never do that again," he said.
She didn't answer.
"Erisyn," he said carefully. "Was that really your name?"
She stared ahead. "It was. Once."
"And now?"
"Now I'm Bai Lu. That's enough."
"For you maybe. But if that was a *demon prince*... then someone out there remembers who you were."
She looked at him. Her eyes glowed faintly. Not red. Not gold.
Something older.
"They all remember," she said. "And they're coming."
---
> *The demon prince had called her Erisyn.*
> *But the world would learn to fear her real name again.*
> *Sooner than she hoped.*
---