> [Location: Skyvault Market – Floating Platform Complex, Western Expanse]
Party: Tian Xue, Lin Suyin, Sect Mistress Yan Qirou, Phoenix Hatchling (Disguised Form: Flamefin)
Status: Infiltration Mode – Nexus Flame Signature Suppressed
Objective: Secure Supplies, Recruit Relic Traders, Avoid Detection
Threat Level: Medium-High (Sovereign Eyes in Area – Unknown Enforcer Presence)
---
Arrival Under False Names
Skyvault Market hung between the peaks on floating platforms made of soulsteel and tethered lightning. It had no laws, no flags, and no loyalty—only coin, relics, and secrets. Everything had a price.
Tian Xue pulled her hood lower as they stepped onto the first platform. Her forged identity crystal pulsed quietly.
> "Name?" asked the guard.
> "Li Yan," she said.
The guard barely glanced. "Purpose?"
> "Trade. Maybe a fight."
That earned a short grin. The gate opened.
---
Navigating Flame and Lies
The deeper they moved into the market, the more overwhelming the scent of raw power became. Soulpet stalls, black flame traders, rune forgery booths—it was a chaotic crossroads of the flame world's underbelly.
Lin Suyin moved like a ghost, marking escape paths. Mistress Yan Qirou kept one hand on a concealed dagger.
Tian Xue paused at a relic booth where a weathered old man was hawking ancient Sovereign system fragments.
> "Where'd you get these?" she asked, voice casual.
> "Dead provinces. Burned sectors. Places no one should walk."
He leaned closer.
> "Funny thing though... last time I saw someone ask about these, he had the same eyes you do."
Tian Xue froze.
> "What did he say?"
The old man shrugged.
> "Said something about lighting a fire so bright, even the Sovereigns would have to look away."
---
The Crimson Trade Offer
In a hidden alcove of the trade spire, they met with a masked woman draped in merchant silk.
She introduced herself simply as "Mothleaf."
> "You've stirred the deep-market currents," she said. "Word is, someone's trying to rebuild what Long Chen died for."
> "We're not rebuilding," Tian Xue said. "We're remaking."
Mothleaf tapped her fingers against a soulglass orb, revealing an inventory: relic-forged soulpet armor, flame-thread gauntlets, sealed glyph cores.
> "You'll need more than words to fund a flame war."
> "We brought something better."
Mistress Yan stepped forward and revealed the Verdant Flame Glyph and Crimson Moth Emblem.
> "You want relics?" she said. "We offer freedom. Invest now… and you'll never bow again."
Mothleaf stared a long moment.
Then smiled.
> "Deal."
A Signal in the Smoke
As they exited the trade room, Lin Suyin paused near a quiet alley.
There, drawn in flickering ash on the wall, was a familiar mark:
The same spiral glyph that marked Emberveil Temple.
But it was fresh.
And beneath it: two words.
> "Still burning."
Tian Xue smiled faintly.
> "So we're not alone."
But above them, hidden in the spire shadows, a Sovereign-class observer crystal clicked on.