The victory at Hollow Wind spread faster than Liun had hoped—and faster than he feared.
The story was already being told in secret taverns and night markets:
> A boy with golden fire judged a monster, and the monster fell screaming.
In distant cities, rebels whispered his name.
In high courts, nobles gritted their teeth.
And in the Divine Empire's inner sanctum…
A blade was unsheathed.
---
The man known only as the Crimson Sword stood barefoot in a chamber of burning coals.
He had no sect. No title. No allies. No home.
Only a sword.
A sword that had once drunk the blood of Shen Liun's father.
He remembered the boy.
How he'd clung to his mother's robes.
How he'd wept beside the ruins of the Emberfall Shrine.
> "Send me," the Crimson Sword said calmly. "Let me finish what we started."
The First Elder's voice was low and cold.
"Leave no flame behind."
---
At Hollow Wind, the sky was just beginning to darken with clouds when Liun returned from patrol.
The training grounds were alive with motion—dozens of recruits sparring, elders guiding them, young cultivators forming circles to learn Flame Script for the first time.
Ranyi greeted him at the edge of the shrine. "You've started something, you know."
"I didn't want to," Liun replied. "But I couldn't keep hiding either."
"You're not hiding anymore," she said. "You're leading."
Liun glanced toward the western sky. "That's the part that scares me."
Ning'er joined them moments later, wiping blood from her blade—fresh from drills.
"Scouts report movement," she said. "A man in red robes. Alone. Walking through the mountain pass without cover. As if he wants to be seen."
Liun's breath caught.
He already knew.
"Crimson Sword."
Ranyi frowned. "Who?"
"Assassin of the Imperial Purge," Liun said. "He doesn't leave bodies. He leaves ashes. My father fought him during the final siege."
"And lost?" Ning'er asked.
"He delayed him long enough for me to escape," Liun said quietly. "He never stood a chance."
---
The Crimson Sword approached Hollow Wind slowly—his steps light, like feathers on stone.
He carried no banner. Wore no armor. Only a red scarf over his mouth and a blade at his back.
By the time he reached the outer gate, every elder in Hollow Wind was alert.
"Name yourself!" one of the disciples called from the wall.
The man looked up.
And simply said:
> "Bring me the boy."
---
Inside the council hall, Liun finished buckling on his gauntlets.
He turned to Ranyi and Ning'er. "Do not engage him."
Ning'er opened her mouth to protest—but Liun cut her off.
"He's beyond any of us. If I fall, run. Hide the scroll. Burn the seal."
Ranyi stepped forward, her voice quiet but sharp. "You're not dying here. Not after everything."
"I don't intend to die," Liun said, stepping past them. "I intend to prove… the Ashen Flame is no longer afraid of its past."
---
The wind was dead still when Shen Liun stepped out of the shrine.
The Crimson Sword stood alone before the gate.
He smiled faintly beneath his scarf.
"You've grown," he said.
Liun's fingers tightened around Dawnmourne's hilt.
"You murdered my father."
"I cleansed a threat," the man replied. "But I failed. Because his flame lived on… in you."
Liun didn't reply.
The ground between them cracked from the force of clashing Qi.
"You walk the Judgment Path," Crimson Sword said, tilting his head. "Then let us see if the flame can judge me."
He moved.
Faster than anyone could track.
His sword flashed like a streak of red lightning—
But Liun blocked.
Dawnmourne screamed against the strike, fire lashing upward in a pillar.
> "Ashen Verdict: Soulbind!"
A golden seal burst into life above Liun's palm and slammed toward his opponent.
But the Crimson Sword slid through it, his aura shearing through the binding like water through cloth.
"You think you're the first to judge me?" the man whispered. "I passed my own sentence… long ago."
His blade came again—this time in three perfect arcs, each aimed not at Liun's body, but at the spaces between his defenses.
Liun parried the first two.
The third drew blood across his shoulder.
He staggered—but planted his feet.
"You killed thousands for an empire that fears the truth."
"And you're just a boy drowning in it."
Golden fire ignited behind Liun's eyes.
> "Then let me show you what drowning really feels like."
He drove Dawnmourne into the ground—and released his Ashen Domain.
---
The battlefield changed instantly.
The world twisted into flame and light—judgment spirals hovering in the sky, fragments of memory flickering in the air.
Here, the laws were his.
Crimson Sword blinked. "You formed a soul domain?"
"No," Liun said, rising from the blaze. "I forged one."
> "Ashen Verdict: Mirror of Flame."
A new seal appeared—twin to the enemy's aura. It matched the Crimson Sword's killing intent… and turned it back upon him.
The assassin staggered—slightly. Just enough.
Liun struck.
Blade to blade.
Will to will.
For the first time, the Crimson Sword was pushed back.
---
The battle did not end that night.
But as the first stars blinked into view above Hollow Wind, one truth had already been written into the eyes of every elder, every disciple, every hidden watcher:
Shen Liun had survived.
And the Ashen Flame was rising higher than anyone thought possible.
---