A rust-colored sky loomed over Tianzhen City. From the towers of the State of Records Council Hall, Su Mengtian stood at the edge of the central balcony, overlooking the distant mountains beyond the Kun Island frontier. The air was heavy with tension, the city beneath seemingly holding its breath.
Inside, a storm was brewing.
The Shi assassins struck two nights ago under clouded moonlight. Silent shadows had crept through the forests, guided by arcane talismans that nullified detection wards. Their target: Lan Qiu and Yue Mei.
They underestimated Inara of the Hall of Ironblood.
As the blades descended upon Yue Mei's, the air split with a cry of steel and fury. Inara, still recovering from internal injuries after a previous mission, hurled herself into the assassin line, unleashing a storm of sheer physical will. Her fists burned with Ironblood Qi, bones cracking like drumbeats.
But even she could not fend off the entire strike team alone.
Lan Qiu also joined the fray, her wind-sculpting blades and spear dancing in rhythm with Inara's brute force. Between wind and iron, the assassins faltered, three killed, two captured, and one escaping with grievous wounds.
Inara collapsed right after the fierce battle, blood streaming from her mouth, a jagged wound on her left shoulder.
And with her fall, the entire Hall of Ironblood ignited.
Ironblood Hall agents, trained to operate independently and with absolute loyalty, began to activate. Dozens had been seeded across the Crimson Sky Empire—embedded in guard forces, minor clans, trade posts, and even sects sympathetic to neutrality.
When word of the attack and Inara's sacrifice reached them, they moved.
Operation Crucible was initiated.
In the port city of Haoyu, an Ironblood sleeper agent triggered a counter-intelligence purge, exposing three Shi-linked smugglers. In the southern salt fields of the Peng-controlled Nansu Basin, Hall operatives led a covert riot of indentured miners, seizing weapons caches planted for a potential uprising.
They did not wait for orders. They acted on principle.
And across these moves, a single phrase began circulating like wildfire:
"For the blood of Inara."
At Tianzhen city - State of Records Council Hall, Rao Lin paced the Council Hall like a storm caged in a human form.
"They drew first blood! They sought the lives of two Hallmasters!—and now one of us lies half-dead! How long do we endure this theater of peace?"
Baojin, still bandaged from a border dispute flare-up, responded calmly. "Open war will fracture the alliance. If we march too soon, we look like warmongers."
"I don't care what we look like!"
Yue Mei, her expression pale but determined, added softly, "If we lose the moral thread of our cause, then we have already lost."
Rao Lin turned, teeth gritted. "Spare me riddles. I want action."
Yueying, standing by Su Mengtian's side, met his gaze. "And if action leads to the empire branding us all as traitors? If war breaks out, and the capital falls into Compact hands, then what?"
The room silenced.
At last, Su Mengtian stepped forward.
He was not dressed in military garb. He wore a scholar's black robe, stitched with silver threads depicting celestial constellations. A quiet storm simmered behind his eyes.
"Inara fought for us all," he began, his voice level. "And she nearly died because others still believe murder will shape the future."
He looked each Hallmaster in the eye.
"I understand your fury. Rao Lin, I feel it. I want to crush the Shi for what they've done. I want to bleed the Peng for every lie they've sold. But I ask you... not to fight for vengeance."
He raised a finger, tapping the air—summoning a projection of a map, showing Compact-controlled ports, Peng-aligned trade networks, and compromised borderlands.
"We fight not for vengeance, but for legacy."
The word echoed.
"Let the Compact expose itself in full. Let the world see their fear, their treachery, their desperation. We will answer. Not in rage. But in vision."
He turned to Ji Yeyan.
"Initiate Phase Four. The public narrative. Let the people see the truth in whispers and records. Let the Compact trip over its own lies."
Back in Shi territory, panic began to set in. Three assassination teams dispatched. Only one returned. Inara lived. The mission was a failure.
Shi Jainhong convened an emergency war council in one of the Shi family Fortresses.
"The Ironblood Hall must be dismantled," he snapped. "Find their agents. Bait them into the open. Use the Peng riots as cover."
Jin Zeyan responded via encrypted transmission from Goldleaf Tower. "Your aggression has brought chaos to our trade network. We were promised results."
"You were promised war. And now you have it. Adapt. Or be forgotten."
Meanwhile, in the Long family, Shi Ruolan moved silently. Her coded messages reached no response. Her son, Long Yucheng, had been dispatched to the southern reaches.
And still, the note from the rogue archivist haunted her desk:
"The Dragon bleeds."
At Tianzhen city, the halls of the Heavenly Spear Alliance's State of Records Council Hall were shrouded in tension. News of Inara's near-death at the hands of Shi clan assassins had lit a fire in the heart of every Hallmaster. The quiet strategy of misinformation, patience, and political maneuvering teetered on the edge of unraveling.
Rao Lin, his Iron Valor cloak still dusted with blood from the frontier clash, stormed through the Council Hall doors. The room, though filled with the finest tacticians and cultivators of the age, shifted its attention to him like a needle drawn to a lodestone.
"Enough," he growled, slamming his gauntleted fist on the obsidian table. "They draw blades in the dark. They send cowards after our kin. The Compact has declared war in all but name!"
Baojin of Aegis narrowed his eyes, rising from his place slowly. "And what would you have us do, Rao Lin? March openly on the Shi? Collapse centuries of order because of one attack?"
"One attack?" Rao Lin's voice rose. "They nearly killed Yue Mei. Inara bleeds in a chamber as we speak. The Peng slaughtered our warriors in a border skirmish and call it self-defense. The Shi arm rebels. The Jin bribe governors. And the Compact continues to tighten its noose around our throats."
Ji Yeyan, calm and ever-shrouded in the robes of the Hall of Shadows, watched with still eyes. "Rage without direction is merely a weapon in their hand. That is what they want: for us to act without proof, without planning."
Rao Lin rounded on him. "We have enough proof. You intercepted Compact transmissions. Our people are dying while you whisper in corners and send ghosts into vaults."
Su Mengtian, silent thus far, finally raised a hand. The tension cracked like frost under sunlight. Everyone fell quiet.
His voice was soft—but steely. "We are not cowards. Nor are we butchers. We are heirs to a broken age, tasked with building a legacy. Not repeating a ruin."
The room held its breath.
"We will strike," Mengtian continued. "But on our terms. Inara lives, and her survival gives us a weapon greater than retribution: legitimacy. We now have justification for public appeals to neutral clans. Rao Lin, you will mobilize the Hall of Valor—but as peacekeepers. Protect the people. Escort refugees. Shield supply lines. Be seen."
Rao Lin's nostrils flared, but he bowed slightly. "So be it."
At Shi Territory, meanwhile, the Shi clan had descended into turmoil.
The failed assassination attempt on Lan Qiu and Yue Mei had been meant to be surgical—deniable. But the escape of the Hallmasters and the recovery of coded scrolls from one of the dead assassins had exposed far more than anticipated.
Shi Hengzhi, the Grand Elder of the Shi family, confronted his son, Patriarch Shi Jianhong, within the Crystal Assembly Chamber of their ancestral palace.
"Do you understand what you've done?" Hengzhi's voice was cold. "You've given Mengtian a blade to wield against us in public."
Jianhong slammed his hand on the polished stone table. "They are destabilizing our provinces. Collapsing our trade through ghost rumors. Poisoning our alliances with forged truths. I acted to defend our name."
"You acted to defend your pride," Hengzhi snapped.
At the door, Shi Leiming, their trusted strategist, stepped in. "My lords… worse news. The province of Guangling has declared a trade embargo on our convoys. Wyrmcallers have intercepted our smugglers arming rebels in Jinyao. And…" He hesitated.
"What else?"
"There's unrest in three of our cities. The people whisper of treason, and of your hand in assassination. The flames of war are not just coming from without. Our foundations crack from within."
Jianhong's face turned ashen.
Somewhere else, despite Rao Lin's frustration, the Hall of Ironblood had not remained idle. Across the continent, agents began activating sleeper cells—retired cultivators, smuggled warriors, and exiles loyal to the Alliance quietly set into motion months prior.
One such agent, an old general known only as "Tarn," lit signal fires in the valleys of Daoyun Mountain, cutting off Shi supply chains with sudden raids. Another—called Linshui the Grey—commandeered mining tunnels that fed the Jin family's underground vaults.
These strikes weren't official. No banners. No declarations. But across the Empire, whispered stories emerged of "the Red Wind," warriors in old Ironblood red striking only where corruption lived.
The Compact couldn't fight what didn't officially exist. Yet it bled, nonetheless.
In the Bai family estate, Yueying stood on the balcony of her chambers. The moonlight gleamed along the edge of the decree her father had signed. Their neutrality was declared—but in her heart, neutrality had long ceased to be an option.
Tang Lianhua's letter had arrived just after dawn. A desperate scrawl on silken paper:
"Yueying… you don't know everything. Uncle Xuanming did what he had to. There are things hidden, even from you. Come to me. I will show you what your brother and father keep locked in their hearts."
Yueying traced the ink with trembling fingers.
She had chosen Mengtian. But her family's ties were tangled like roots beneath ancient trees. And now, even within her clan, she could feel the winds shifting again.
Three days later, the State of Records Council Hall stood at full assembly. The Compact had yet to move overtly, but rumors of retaliation plans and mass armament in Shi territories gave credence to Mengtian's next speech.
"Hallmasters," Su Mengtian said, standing at the head of the room, "We stand at a threshold. We do not fear battle. But we do not seek it, either. Our actions must bind the Empire closer to us, not drive it away."
He gestured to Baojin and Ji Yeyan.
"A formal envoy will go to the Imperial Court. Yue Mei will deliver the Shi assassin's confession. Ji Yeyan will follow her—unseen—to hand-deliver intercepted documents to the Diviner Qu Yuheng."
"And if the court stalls?" asked Rao Lin.
Mengtian's eyes burned like a storm on the verge of release.
"Then we begin the Iron Mandate."
Gasps rippled across the room.
Xuan Le whispered, "So soon?"
Mengtian nodded.
"If they seek to rule through betrayal and blade… we answer with light and flame."