A brooding silence fell over the northern reefline as waves licked against black coral and shattered stone. The Ember Isles, once a volcanic jewel in the southern empire, now pulsed like a wounded heart at the center of the Compact's last stronghold. A haze of arcane fog blanketed the waters—its shimmer tinted with residual blood magic.
Yueying, mounted atop her snow-white warbeast Drakil, studied the flickering leyline readings carved into her jade slate. Her eyes narrowed.
"Three pulses," she said. "They've activated the soulbind barrier. Entry routes are narrowing. We have one shot."
Lan Qiu, hovering behind her on a glider disk, adjusted his wind-scope. "We'll breach with wind tunnels through the reef. But it'll only stay open for eight minutes. After that, the Crystalheart array will realign."
Yueying nodded, her Snow Pavilion armor gleaming under starless skies. The sigil of her family—a silver snowflake within a phoenix plume—now bore an imperial stripe beneath it.
While on the other side, the vanguard moved in silence. Along narrow reef corridors—twisting tunnels of jagged crystal and coral—Yueying led eighty handpicked cavalry and phantom dancers from the Hall of Luminous Veil. Each step resonated with ancestral precision, honed through months of war and centuries of snowborn training.
Soulbinder Miren Vos had laid a spiritual masking field. To outer perception, the corridor was empty—a void.
"Vanguard two, stay tight. Initiating harmonic suppressors," Yueying commanded.
Suddenly—a break in the reef. A wall shimmered and gave way.
The Ember Fortress rose in the distance—its obsidian walls alive with tendrils of crimson qi. Above, the Crystalheart Obelisk hovered, spinning slowly, bleeding starlight into chained clouds.
Just as the vanguard prepared to breach the outer gate, a new energy surged across the horizon.
"Commander! North ridge—hostile or allied?" cried a scout.
From the cliffs, a massive snow-laced standard unfurled—the full crest of the Celestial Snow Pavilion. Bai Qinglan, Yueying's aunt and master tactician of the Bai family, rode at its head on a chimeric stag-dragon.
"Clear the field!" Bai Qinglan roared. "Let the storm of the north taste Compact blood!"
A thousand armored riders burst through cloudpaths, blades drawn, slamming into the flanks of Compact patrols. The battlefield turned to chaos—snow against flame, precision against savagery.
Yueying's lips tightened. "She came. My family came."
In the western trenches of the Ember Fortress, Jin Moxuan, once heir to the Golden Chamber, was trying to flee. Injured, panicked, he stumbled toward a side path.
"We have to fall back—Zihan said the eastern cliff was still open!" he yelled.
Peng Hongxuan, covered in blood, stood calmly in his path. "The Compact no longer needs dead weight."
Moxuan froze. "Wait—you can't mean—"
Hongxuan drew a curved blade made of soulsteel. "Your coin turned hollow the moment you hesitated."
With one stroke, Jin Moxuan was cut down. His body dissolved into gold mist, the price of betrayal.
Inside the inner sanctum of the Ember Fortress, Yueying stepped alone into a shattered hall. The scorched hall groaned with every wind-swept gust. Shattered crystal pillars lay broken, still glowing faintly from lightning strikes, casting long shadows across the marbled floor. Moonlight filtered through a cracked dome. Ash floated down like snow. The storm outside raged on, echoing through the breach Yueying had carved during her infiltration.
Dongfang Zihan stood amidst the ruin, adorned in a blood-red mantle embroidered with imperial phoenix feathers—torn. His sword, Sunpiercer Fang, glimmered with golden flames. His armor was dented.
"You should've stayed in the capital," he spat. "You would cast your bloodline aside to serve a ghost?"
Yueying unsheathed her twin sabers and approached slowly, donned in ceremonial Snow Pavilion armor. Her sabers, Twin Frostveil Serenade, shimmered with glacial light.
"No. I serve a future you were too cowardly to imagine."
Zihan sneered. "You would cast your bloodline to serve a ghost? A boy born from the ashes of a failed rebellion?"
Yueying's eyes burned with conviction. "No. I serve a future you were too cowardly to imagine."
Zihan drew his imperial sword, Sunpiercer Fang. "Then let's see which future bleeds first."
They clashed.
Steel rang against soulforce. Zihan used the imperial style—quick, brutal flourishes backed by his celestial lineage. Yueying moved like snow in storm, redirecting force, creating illusions, then striking with precision.
"You were the Empire's hope," he grunted, blocked again.
"No. I was the Empire's prisoner. Now, I am its storm."
Zihan lifted his hand and roared, "Solar Crown Incantation – Blinding Flame Reign!" A radiant arc burst from his sword, engulfing the hall in daylight. The tiles beneath him cracked from the sheer force of the spell. The spellstorm scorched forward.
Yueying whispered a different tune, "Winter Bloom, Seventh Verse – Snowveil Echo." Frost spiraled from her blade, forming crystalline glyphs that swallowed the incoming fire. The collision created a shockwave that split the floor in two, dust spiraling around them.
The two danced in silence save for metal against metal.
Zihan attacked relentlessly, every strike backed by solar aura. Yueying countered with grace, each move flowing like falling snow. Where he struck in heat and power, she responded with precision and timing.
She parried a brutal overhead strike and slid low, slashing his leg. He stumbled.
"You will regret this treachery!" Zihan spat, clutching his wound.
Yueying's voice was cold. "You mistake loyalty for submission."
Just as she lunged for the final blow, Zihan growled. Wounded, he activated a hidden talisman—a shard of the ancient spatial gate.
"Escape Gate: Shattered Horizon Spiral!" The air tore around him in glowing rings. Before Yueying could stop him, he hissed, "This war isn't over," vanishing into a portal, leaving behind a trail of violet smoke and heat.
From atop the eastern bluff, Bai Qinglan observed the battlefield with a hawk's intensity. Her white battle robes were smudged with ash, her glaive planted at her side.
"Relay to Captain Han: Hold the cliffside. Use the third-tier rune mines embedded in the ridgeline. No frontal push." A runner bowed and darted away.
"Tell Archer Line Two: Arrowstorm formation. Delay reinforcements from the western dunes. Target shields, not heads. I want chaos, not corpses."
Her strategist, General Luan, looked at her. "Why not push now, Lady Qinglan?"
She answered without looking. "Because Jin Moxuan's retreat is a ruse. The Peng betrayal was a smokescreen. They're funneling forces to the central courtyard. We wait until they believe they have the upper hand."
Moments later, a Peng division emerged, exactly as predicted.
"Now," she commanded, raising her glaive. "Release the Snowpiercer cavalry. Form 'Frost Crescent' formation. Engage."
Hooves thundered down the slope. The Bai cavalry rode like an avalanche.
On the cliffs overlooking the fortress, thunderclouds churned.
Lan Qiu stood at the edge of the world, both hands stretched to the sky. Her silver hair blew wildly. Around her, the air shimmered with pressure.
"Third Cycle Tempest Array... completed."
She whispered the final phrase: "Heaven's Artery: Stormbreaker Release."
The clouds ruptured.
A lance of stormfire pierced from sky to sea, bisecting the fortress ramparts. Compact warships were thrown skyward, hulls igniting in blue flame. Lightning shaped like a dragon twisted through their armaments, shattering Nullsteel cannons.
Lan Qiu collapsed, her body convulsing with mana backlash. But her storm had shattered the enemy lines.
With Zihan gone and the heart of the fortress compromised, Lan Qiu summoned a stormbreaker gale. Lightning split the Obelisk. Crystal shards erupted into the sky, reflecting every lost name and fallen oath.
Yueying stood amid the ruins, armor cracked, her hair bloodied but her gaze unbowed.
Bai Qinglan approached. "You led the storm well. The phoenix has returned."
Yueying looked to the rising sun. "No. The phoenix never left. It was waiting to burn."
From across the sea, thunder rolled.
Crimson Sky Capital – Imperial Court,
Tang Xuening fell to her knees at the sight of the flaming sigil in the sky – a thunder-dragon spiral of judgment. She clutched a letter from Yueying, her eyes filling with tears.
"She has surpassed all of us."
Grand Marshal Duan Zhengxiong stood from the war table. "Begin the purge. We ride at dawn to support Kun Island."
Celestial Snow Pavilion Territory,
Bai Xuening stared at the stars. "The flame reinforced with ice that was meant to consume her... she now wields."
Shi Clan Stronghold,
Shi Jainhong struck the table. "This was not the plan! How did they predict the convergence?"
Shi Yuluo, pale, whispered, "Because they no longer fear us."
In the Ember Fortress ruins, Yueying picked up Zihan's broken phoenix crest. She held it high, declaring to the assembled soldiers:
"The Compact burns. The dawn rises from its ashes."
Thunder answered her.