At Tang Clan Territory – Secrets in the Hall,
The night air was thick with incense as the high lanterns of the Tang family compound flickered in uneasy rhythms. Within the inner sanctum of the Hall of Silk Lanterns, the walls hummed with ancient enchantments that muted sound and cloaked shadows. Tang Wushen sat with his hands steepled beneath his chin, the flicker of crimson flame reflecting in his eyes. Seated around him were his trusted inner circle — Tang Tianheng, the grand elder; Tang Shuren, the strategist; and two cloaked elders representing the ancestral voices.
Tang Lianhua stood silent near the carved wooden door, her face unreadable.
"It is done," Tang Wushen finally said, his voice low. "We will withdraw support from the Compact, but not publicly. Not yet. We will seal our borders and return to neutrality — the ancient law of our ancestors."
Tang Shuren frowned. "The Shi clan will not take this lightly. Nor will Peng."
"Nor will the Emperor," Tang Tianheng added gravely. "He may see this as rebellion."
"Then let him," Wushen said. "We are not rebelling. We are retreating. I will not throw Tang blood into a furnace for a war born of lies."
Lianhua stepped forward, hesitating for a breath. "What of Uncle Tang Xuanming? He still supports the Compact secretly."
"Then ask him to return," Wushen said coldly. "Issue a sealed decree. The Tang Clan withdraws from the Compact. No troops, no funds, no counsel."
A nod passed silently around the chamber. The Tang clan had taken its first step away from the crumbling edifice of conspiracy.
Under the weeping willows of a secluded estate near the capital, Yue Mei sat across from Jin Zeyan, patriarch of the Jin family, within a walled garden filled with soft wind chimes and moonlight. Between them, a simple table bore two cups of untouched tea.
Jin Zeyan, regal in deep gold robes, studied her carefully. "You speak of trust, Hallmaster Yue Mei, but your Alliance manipulates perception with illusions and half-truths."
Yue Mei smiled faintly. "Perception is reality, Lord Jin. You of all clans should understand the value of curated truth. Your merchant fleets carry more than goods—they carry whispers."
Zeyan's gaze darkened. "I came here with an offer. Neutrality. Trade privileges. Safe passage. We don't need to be enemies."
"And yet, you financed the Compact's first strikes. Your name appears in contracts with mercenary groups in the East. Your silence during the Kun Incident is deafening."
Jin Zeyan leaned in. "Then what do you want from us? A public apology? An admission of guilt? Do not play your light games with me. The Jin family plays the long war."
Yue Mei's tone hardened. "Then this conversation ends. We are not asking you to switch sides. We are offering you the chance to be remembered as builders of peace—not profiteers of destruction."
Zeyan stood, robes rustling. "Then remember this, Yue Mei. Markets rise and fall. So do empires. But coin flows eternal. When your war burns too hot, you'll find we've already sold the ashes."
He left without finishing his tea.
At Lunari City,
The sun had barely risen over the neutral trade city of Lunari when the streets exploded into crystalline chaos. Towering crystal golems—ten feet tall, faceted with sharp-edged limbs and glowing cores—emerged from hidden containers smuggled into merchant warehouses the night before.
They rampaged with calculated fury. Stalls were crushed. Walls cracked. Civilians screamed and ran. And above it all, etched into the sky by arcane projection, was a single sigil: the twin-spires of the Shi Clan.
In Tianzhen city, Su Mengtian watched through projection mirrors, standing beside Ji Yeyan.
"Let it burn," Mengtian said quietly. "Record everything. Get me images from thirty angles. Send it through our whisper network. Tonight, Lunari becomes our mirror."
Ji Yeyan's eyes glinted. "The world will see this as the Compact's true face."
"Because that's what it is," Mengtian replied. "We just held the mirror."
The golems were eventually stopped—neutral defenders and mercenary forces activated defense arrays—but the damage was done. Not just in property. In perception. In the soul of the people.
Within the Bai family estate, Yueying stormed through halls lined with snow-silk banners and ancestral paintings until she reached the eastern wing, where her mother resided.
Tang Xuening, graceful and composed in a robe of mist-blue silk, sat before a zither, her fingers paused over the strings.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Yueying demanded.
Xuening did not turn. "About what, daughter? About my brother's betrayal? Or about your father's silence?"
"Both," Yueying said, stepping forward. "I needed truth, and you gave me tradition. I needed family, and you gave me duty."
Xuening finally turned, her face calm. "Your father needs the clan united. Your grandfather needed time. I needed—"
"You needed to choose," Yueying snapped. "And you chose to let the Compact drown us in politics."
"I chose to protect the Pavilion," Xuening said, her voice rising. "You think this is easy? Do you think being mother, wife, sister, and daughter to conflicting clans is a choice I made lightly?"
Yueying's shoulders trembled. Her voice broke. "Then be my mother now. Help me bring peace. Help Mengtian."
Xuening looked at her daughter, truly looked. And in that silence, a hundred years of duty warred with a mother's guilt.
"Then come back in three days," she said softly. "If I cannot change my brother's heart by then—I will cast him out myself."
Yueying left the room in tears, but with a flame reborn behind her eyes.
At Shi Clan Inner Chambers – Crystal Fortress, Eastern Crimson Province,
The translucent chamber shimmered with blue crystal light. Within the cold heart of the Shi Fortress, twelve elders of the Great Crystal Clan sat around a radiant obelisk pulsating with silent power. The shimmering crystal reflected their furrowed brows and steely gazes as Shi Jainhong, the patriarch, stood alone before them.
Shi Leiming broke the silence. "The golems... were a mistake."
"No," replied Shi Jainhong, voice calm but thunderous, "they were a message. To remind the people that the Compact still has might."
"But they killed innocents!" snapped Shi Yuluo, his daughter, stepping forward despite tradition forbidding younger clan members from interrupting Council. Her voice cracked. "And now those deaths are everywhere. Veilburst was bad enough, but now we look like tyrants."
Elder Shi Hengzhi pounded his cane against the floor. "We are being framed! Veilburst was carefully orchestrated slander, designed to splinter the Compact. We are being outplayed."
"No," Shi Leiming said gravely. "We are being exposed. There is a difference."
Silence rippled across the chamber.
Shi Jainhong turned to his daughter. "You would speak in front of Elders and defy your clan?"
"I speak for our people," she answered, trembling. "The ones who will starve this winter. The ones who now fear their own banners."
Shi Hengzhi narrowed his eyes. "Where is Ruolan? Why hasn't she reported back from Long territory?"
"Vanished," said Jainhong. "Like Long Yucheng. The Dragon is bleeding. And we may soon follow."
He turned, gazing at the crystal obelisk. Within it, a faint shape stirred: the dormant soul-core of another forbidden golem.
"If we are to fall," he whispered, "then let us fall with brilliance."
At Tianzhen City – Hall of Shadows,
Ji Yeyan stood beneath the silver-laced lanterns of the Shadow Hall's innermost sanctum, flanked by veiled operatives. The report lay before him — etched in black ink on bone-pulp parchment.
"Shi Jainhong has activated the Obsidian Protocol," whispered his second-in-command. "Another golem may be awakened."
Ji Yeyan closed his eyes. "Then our timetable advances. Initiate the Echo Sweep."
"Target sectors?"
"Crystal trade routes, inter-clan couriers, and their core sympathizers in the imperial census bureau."
"And our mole in the Crystal Fortress?"
"Tell her... the time has come to make a choice."
A long pause followed.
"And if she refuses?"
Ji Yeyan opened his eyes, and for a moment, the candlelight caught something ancient and cold in his gaze.
"Then the Shadow forgets her."
At Lunari Citadel – Two Days After the Golem Attack,
Ash still clung to the buildings. The once-prosperous neutral city groaned under the weight of broken stone and soot. Survivors huddled in the Temple of Dawn, watched over by Hall of Aegis healers.
Word had spread.
The Crystal Clan had done this.
All across the midlands and eastern provinces, peasants whispered of shattered glass beasts that howled as they killed. Merchants folded their banners and left convoys unmanned. Minor clans began questioning their Compact vows. In taverns, in fields, in the halls of minor lords, a phrase passed like wildfire:
"The Empire cannot protect us. The Compact has lost its way."
Tianzhen City – State of Records Council Hall – War Briefing Chamber,
Su Mengtian stood before the map, lightning dancing faintly across his shoulders. The hallmasters stood in a semi-circle, silent.
"Let me be clear," Mengtian said, voice crisp, "We will not respond with mass violence. We will not match their fire with fire."
Rao Lin gritted his teeth. "You want restraint while golems raze cities?"
"Yes," Mengtian answered. "Because it's working."
He gestured to the map. Circles flared across the east — cities destabilizing, supply chains failing, governors calling for investigations.
"The Shi think fear is their strength. But it is also their noose."
Baojin nodded. "The people believe again. That matters more than banners."
Mengtian walked forward, tapping a small city to the north.
"Ji Yeyan will release the next Veilburst node here. It will expose the Peng clan's ancient debt trafficking."
"And the Shi?" Yue Mei asked.
Mengtian met her eyes.
"We don't have to destroy them. They're doing it themselves."
At Bai Estate – Midnight,
Bai Xuening sat alone in his study, the words of the blue-robed monk still etched in his memory:
"The Celestial Snow Pavilion will either herald dawn—or be buried in the avalanche."
He opened a hidden drawer beneath the floor, revealing an old letter.
From his wife. Dead forty years.
She had warned him of a time like this.
"Trust in your blood. Trust in truth."
And so, slowly, painfully, he began to pen a message.
To the Emperor.
To Su Mengtian.
To Yueying.
The Snow Pavilion would not stay neutral much longer.