Night fell over the Elder Estates—an inner sanctum of the Searing Cloud Sect where no outer disciple dared tread, and few inner ones left alive.
Within the estate of Elder Fei Liansheng, silence ruled.
Gardens of ice orchids bloomed under moonlight.
White lanterns drifted with spiritual mist.
Guards walked like ghosts—silent, soul-bound, obedient.
But even still, they couldn't see her.
Not the one who moved like smoke and burned like silence.
> The Silent Flame Widow had arrived.
---
The House of Ice and Secrets
Disguised under soul-veiling arts, the Widow drifted through the corridors, sensing everything.
No defensive killing arrays.
Odd for a High Council member.
> "He doesn't fear death," she whispered. "Only exposure."
In the western wing, she found a chamber locked in spatial frost. A vault.
She slipped inside.
Scrolls lined the walls.
Memory jades flickered with soft runes.
But at the center, glowing beneath crystalline wards, was a black book wrapped in dragon hide.
Its title etched in frozen silver:
> "Soul Transference: Art of the Empty Throne."
Her eyes narrowed.
> "Forbidden script. One used to bind sovereigns to vessels…"
She took it.
And vanished.
---
Forging from Ashes
Meanwhile, Liu Shen stood within the Sealed Flame Pavilion, where the shattered remains of the Infernal Binding Altar lay in chains.
Rin and Yun Rou stood at his side, watching.
He held the black lotus core—what remained of the puppeteer Bai Ye—and dropped it into the altar's center.
The obsidian fragments drank it in.
Then Liu Shen raised his hand.
> "Crimson Flame Art – Eighth Tongue: Awaken the Echoes."
The shattered altar pulsed once.
Twice.
Then flared with blood-red fire.
The chains snapped inward—forming a new object:
A slender bone-white ring, pulsing faintly with demonic symbols.
> "A relic of betrayal," Liu Shen said, slipping it onto his finger.
"Now reforged into a tool of justice."
Rin frowned. "What is it now?"
Liu Shen looked at the ring, eyes smoldering.
> "A soul-tether tracker."
> "If Elder Fei tries to bind another sovereign-level soul again…"
"I'll know. And I'll kill him before he finishes the first rune."
---
Unraveling the Elder
The Silent Flame Widow returned with the forbidden text, placing it in Liu Shen's hands.
He scanned the pages.
His expression hardened.
> "This… this is how they did it."
> "This is how they turned Zhao Mingyuan into my executioner."
The technique detailed transferring soul ownership—using spiritual chains hidden inside cultivation vows.
If one were loyal, they could be rewritten without ever realizing.
> "They rewrote my disciples," Liu Shen muttered.
> "Turned them into weapons. Blinded by vows that weren't theirs."
Yun Rou whispered, "That means Zhao Mingyuan never betrayed you…"
> "No," Liu Shen said darkly.
"He did."
> "But not by choice."
---
Vengeance With Precision
With new understanding came new fire.
> "We move carefully now," Liu Shen ordered.
"Fei Liansheng isn't a brute. He's a scholar of shadows."
He turned to the Silent Flame Widow.
> "Go to the Bladewind Archives. Find out where the next Grand Council Assembly will be held."
> "I will not confront him there."
> "I will expose him—before all of them."