The world burned.
Smoke curled across the horizon where the Lotus Fortress had stood, rising like a pillar that never faded. For three days and three nights, the flames devoured stone, timber, and flesh alike, and even the wind seemed to carry the echo of screams. The Brothers walked in silence, their cloaks heavy with soot, their faces drawn and dark.
Chen Feng had not spoken since they left the ruins. His sword hung across his back, wrapped in cloth, but he could still feel the heat pulsing through it faint, like a dying heartbeat. Every step he took, it throbbed once, and he wondered if the weapon was truly dying or merely sleeping, waiting.
The path through the borderlands had once been green. Now, the fields lay blackened, the villages hollow. They passed corpses by the roadside men in mismatched armor, women clutching the bodies of their children, the air thick with the stench of ash and iron.
Guo Tian muttered, "This wasn't the Lotus alone. The warlords smell weakness. The border's turning to a grave."
Li Heng didn't answer. His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon. "Power always leaves a vacuum," he said at last. "We tore out the Lotus's heart, and now the carrion gather."
Wu Zhen's staff tapped the earth. "Such is the way of the world. Tear down one evil, another takes root. Heaven's balance is not ours to command."
Chen Feng stopped walking. "Then why fight at all?" His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper.
The Brothers turned toward him. His eyes were shadowed, red-rimmed from sleepless nights.
"If no matter what we do, something worse rises, what's the point?" he said. "We killed them all, and the land still burns."
Wu Zhen's gaze softened. "Because not fighting is worse. To yield is to hand the world to those who thrive on blood."
"But you said Heaven's balance"
"Balance," the old monk interrupted, "not surrender." He sighed. "We are not gods, Chen Feng. We are only men trying to tilt the scales a little toward light."
The boy said nothing more.
They continued walking until dusk, when they reached the edge of a small village. What was left of it. Roofs collapsed, wells poisoned, and the few survivors crouched among the ashes, hollow eyed and silent. When the Brothers approached, the people flinched away as if from wild beasts.
Feng Wuyue dismounted, moving slowly, palms open. "We mean no harm."
An old woman stepped forward, her hair white, her face streaked with dirt and tears. "No harm?" Her voice cracked. "Were it not for your kind, none of this would have happened. The red fire came from the mountains from your battle. It burned our crops, our homes, our children!" She pointed at Chen Feng, trembling. "That light, that cursed light I saw it from here. You brought it!"
Chen Feng froze.
Li Heng took a step forward, but Chen Feng lifted a hand. "She's right." His voice was quiet. "We did this."
The old woman spat at the ground. "Go. Leave us. Let the dead rest."
The Brothers stayed only long enough to bury a few of the bodies and share what food they carried. Then they left, the silence heavier than before.
That night they camped by a dry riverbed. The stars were dim, smothered by smoke. Chen Feng sat apart from the others, staring into the ashes of their fire. He had not eaten.
Li Heng came to sit beside him, wordless for a time. The sound of the night wind filled the gaps between them.
"You can't carry it all," Li Heng said finally.
Chen Feng didn't look up. "I struck the flame. I shattered the column. I caused this."
Li Heng's hand rested on his shoulder. "You ended a fortress that fed on souls. This " he gestured toward the dark horizon " is what happens when darkness dies. It doesn't vanish cleanly. It bleeds out. You can't stop that. None of us can."
Chen Feng's jaw tightened. "Then I'll learn how."
Li Heng said nothing more. But in his heart, he feared that fire not the sword's, but the one behind the boy's eyes.
When dawn came, the Brothers rode north.
The borderlands stretched endless: fields of scorched wheat, villages ruled by petty warlords, broken banners of dead kings fluttering in the ash. Everywhere they went, they heard rumors the Lotus not gone, but splintered, its fragments spreading like seeds. New sects rose overnight, each claiming the Crimson flame. Men killed in the name of salvation, in the name of vengeance, in the name of gods.
Wu Zhen shook his head one morning as they passed a burned temple. "We cut off one head, and ten more rise."
Zhao Ming frowned. "Then we'll keep cutting."
"Until when?" the monk asked. "Until the boy burns himself to ash?"
Chen Feng heard them, though they spoke softly. He didn't turn, but his hands clenched the reins tighter.
By the fifth day, they reached the foothills of the northern border. From there, the land opened into misty plains, where an army was gathering banners of red and black, thousands of men marching under a sigil shaped like a bleeding lotus.
Li Heng called a halt. "They've rebuilt faster than we thought."
Guo Tian spat. "That's not rebuilding. That's an infection spreading."
Zhou Ke slipped ahead to scout. When he returned, his face was grim. "They call themselves the Lotus Reborn. The fortress we burned it wasn't their true seat. Just one of many."
A cold silence fell over them.
Chen Feng stared at the horizon, where the banners rippled like waves of blood. The fire within him stirred again, faint but real.
He could feel the sword whispering beneath the wrappings.
They will keep rising. Unless you burn them all.
He closed his eyes, trembling.
Li Heng watched him, the faintest shadow of worry in his gaze.
The Brothers turned back into the mist, toward whatever war waited next.
And far behind them, in the ruins of the old fortress, something moved among the ashes. A figure cloaked in flame knelt where the column had once burned, gathering the remains of the lotus symbol into his palms. His voice was soft, almost reverent.
"The vessel awakens," he murmured. "And the world prepares to burn."
He rose, and the ashes swirled into a spiral of red light, reaching for the sky.
The Crimson Sovereign was not yet reborn but his shadow had already crossed the borderlands.
The world that morning lay under a shroud of smoke. It clung to the mountains and crawled through the valleys, thick and bitter, turning the rising sun into a blood-red orb. The Ten Brothers rode in silence, their faces streaked with ash, their robes torn from battle. Behind them, far beyond the horizon, the ruins of the Lotus Fortress still smoldered.
The road ahead was little more than a scar winding through charred fields. What had once been farmland was now blackened earth littered with broken tools and bones. No birds sang. No wind stirred the grass. Only the faint crackle of dying embers and the crunch of hooves on ash filled the air.
Chen Feng rode at the rear, his head bowed. He had not spoken since the fortress fell. The sword on his back was wrapped tightly in cloth, its heat faint but alive. He could feel it with every breath, pulsing like a second heartbeat steady, patient, watching.
The brothers knew better than to disturb him. They had seen the boy's eyes when he plunged his blade into the heart of the fortress, seen the light that had swallowed him whole. Even now, none were certain whether the fire that had burned through him was truly gone or merely waiting.
By noon they reached what had once been a village. The walls were gone, the houses collapsed into piles of black timber. A half-burned sign still swung from a post, its characters barely legible: "Peaceful Stream."
There was no stream anymore. Only a dry riverbed choked with ash.
Guo Tian dismounted first. He moved among the ruins with a soldier's grim patience, overturning planks and stones until he found what he sought bodies. Dozens of them. Men, women, children, all half-buried in soot.
"Lotus work?" he muttered.
Zhao Ming knelt beside one corpse, studying the strange red marks burned into the flesh. "No. The marks are too crude. Bandits, perhaps. Or soldiers chasing ghosts."
Wu Zhen's eyes were heavy with sorrow. "The borderlands have no masters now. The Lotus held them through fear. Remove the tyrant, and chaos claims the throne."
Chen Feng stood at the edge of the ruins, the wind tugging at his hair. "Then we didn't save them," he said softly.
Li Heng turned toward him. "You think salvation is clean? That it leaves no scars?"
"I think it shouldn't leave graves."
The leader's eyes darkened. "You think I don't see them too?" He gestured to the burned village. "Every fight carves the land. You can't swing a blade without drawing blood, even if your cause is just."
Chen Feng met his gaze, his voice low. "Then maybe the cause isn't worth the blade."
The words cut sharper than steel. But Li Heng didn't answer. He simply walked away, leaving the boy to stare at the ruins.
They buried the dead as best they could before moving on.
That night, the brothers made camp near the remnants of a bridge. The river beneath it was little more than mud. The stars above were veiled behind the smoke of burning towns.
Chen Feng sat apart from the others, his knees drawn to his chest, the sword across his lap. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the faces from the fortress zealots, prisoners, his mother. The whispers had returned, faint at first, then clearer, curling like smoke through his thoughts.
They were weak. They burned because they were meant to. You can stop this. You can rule it. You can shape fire instead of fearing it.
He pressed his hands over his ears, but the voice wasn't in the air it was inside him.
Wu Zhen approached quietly, his staff sinking into the ash. "The fire speaks again."
Chen Feng didn't answer.
The monk sat beside him, folding his robes carefully. "You can't silence it by fighting. Fire feeds on struggle. To quiet it, you must understand it."
Chen Feng turned his head. "You speak as if you've heard it before."
"I have. Once." Wu Zhen's eyes were distant, the reflection of the dying fire dancing in them. "Long ago, I followed a sect that sought enlightenment through flame. They said the fire burned away desire. But it burned them instead. I left before the ashes cooled."
"Did you stop hearing it?"
Wu Zhen smiled faintly. "No. But I learned to make peace with its echo."
The boy looked down at his sword. The cloth had begun to smolder faintly where his hand touched it. "What if I can't?"
"Then you'll need your brothers more than ever."
For the first time that night, Chen Feng raised his eyes to the circle of men around the campfire. They sat in silence Li Heng sharpening his blade, Zhao Ming writing talismans in the dirt, Feng Wuyue oiling his bow. None spoke, but none turned away either.
When dawn came, they rode again.
They passed through towns where starving peasants fought over scraps, through burned temples where monks hung from their own prayer ropes. Everywhere, banners of red and black rose anew, painted with the lotus sigil. The cult had not died. It had multiplied.
In one ruined city, they found the walls plastered with messages written in blood. The Flame Purifies. The Sovereign Rises.
Guo Tian smashed one of the signs down with his hammer. "They've twisted their defeat into faith."
Li Heng's jaw clenched. "That's what makes them dangerous."
That evening, they found a survivor a young man barely older than Chen Feng, his body covered in burns. He crawled from the ruins of a watchtower as the brothers approached. His voice was ragged. "You… you destroyed the fortress, didn't you? You're the Ten Brothers."
Li Heng dismounted and knelt beside him. "What happened here?"
"The Lotus Reborn," the youth whispered. "They came after the fortress fell. Said the fire was a test. Said the Sovereign's time was near." His eyes rolled back, his breath shallow. "They're gathering in the north. A new fortress. A city of flame."
He died before he could say more.
The brothers buried him under the shattered stones of the tower.
By the second week, the land itself seemed to turn against them. The rivers ran low and red, choked with ash. The forests they entered were silent, the animals fled or dead. In the distance, they saw armies moving bands of mercenaries bearing crimson banners, raiding villages and enslaving survivors.
At night, Chen Feng dreamed of the masked master again. The man stood within an endless sea of fire, his mask cracked but his voice unchanged.
You can't kill the Lotus. It grows in every shadow. You cut one petal; ten more bloom. Come to me, vessel. You were made to burn for Heaven's will.
Chen Feng woke screaming, his palms smoking, the sword beside him glowing faintly through its wrappings.
Li Heng reached him first. "Enough!" he barked, gripping the boy's shoulders. "You're not alone, do you hear me? Control it!"
Chen Feng's breathing slowed, the glow fading. Tears ran down his soot-streaked cheeks. "I saw him," he whispered. "He's alive."
Wu Zhen frowned. "The master? Impossible. You burned him to ash."
Chen Feng shook his head. "Ashes don't die. They wait."
The monk exchanged a glance with Li Heng. Neither spoke.
By dawn, the smoke on the northern horizon had thickened. Columns of soldiers marched beneath it, their banners visible even from miles away. The Brothers climbed a ridge and saw what waited beyond not a fortress this time, but a city.
Walls of black stone rose from the plains, newly built, lined with crimson sigils. Fire burned along the battlements, and at the city's heart, another column of light rose smaller than before, but steady.
Feng Wuyue's voice was barely a whisper. "They've built a second one."
Li Heng nodded grimly. "The Lotus Reborn."
Zhao Ming clenched his fists. "We can't fight an army."
"No," Li Heng said. "But we can watch. Learn. Strike where it hurts."
They camped that night on the ridge, overlooking the city. From afar, the chants of the Lotus carried on the wind low, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat. Chen Feng could feel the fire in his blood answering it.
He sat alone again, staring at the lights below, until Wu Zhen came to sit beside him.
"You can feel it, can't you?" the monk asked.
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
Chen Feng's voice was hollow. "It calls me home."
Wu Zhen's eyes were sad. "And will you answer?"
Chen Feng didn't reply. His gaze stayed fixed on the city, the red glow reflecting in his pupils like embers.
The next morning, before the sun rose, Li Heng found him standing at the edge of the ridge, his sword drawn.
"We leave soon," Li Heng said quietly.
Chen Feng nodded but didn't move. "You said we fight to tilt the scales. What if they can't be tilted anymore?"
"They can," Li Heng said. "But it takes all of us."
The boy turned, his expression cold, older somehow. "Then you'd better be ready to burn with me."
Li Heng studied him for a long moment, then placed a hand on his shoulder. "Not burn. Endure."
They rode at dawn. The road north wound through shattered hills and dying fields, the land itself scarred by war. Behind them, the smoke of the Lotus Reborn city rose higher each day.
And far beyond even that, deep in the unseen places of the world, the Crimson Sovereign stirred again, his whisper spreading through the dreams of men. The borderlands were dying not from battle, but from belief.
The Ten Brothers had become the world's last balance, yet even they could feel it slipping.
And Chen Feng, the Tenth, carried within him the spark that could either save or consume them all.
For days the Ten Brothers wandered the dying lands, a silent caravan of shadows moving across scorched plains. The sky never cleared. The sun was a dull red coin behind the haze, and the air tasted of smoke and iron. Wherever they went, ruin greeted them shattered pagodas, overturned shrines, villages stripped bare by soldiers or ghosts.
They gave what aid they could: food to the starving, water to the children, prayers for the dead. But it was like pouring a single cup into a burning ocean. Each act of mercy reminded them how little remained to save.
One afternoon, as they crossed a field of withered bamboo, they came upon a monastery half-buried in ash. The great bronze bell still stood, cracked down the center, but its echo lingered faintly, as if the wind itself mourned.
Wu Zhen walked ahead, his steps slow, reverent. "This was the Temple of Still Water," he murmured. "I studied here once."
Li Heng bowed his head. "Let us enter, then. Perhaps the silence still remembers prayer."
Inside, the halls were blackened. The murals that once depicted dragons and immortals had peeled from the walls, replaced by soot. In the courtyard, a thousand prayer tags hung from the rafters, charred and fluttering. Chen Feng reached up and caught one between his fingers. The ink had burned away, but faintly beneath the scorch marks, he could still read a single word: Peace.
His chest tightened. "They prayed for peace."
Wu Zhen's staff struck the ground softly. "And found fire."
A sound echoed through the empty temple not wind, but weeping. They followed it and found a boy huddled near the altar, no older than ten. His robes were torn, his eyes red from smoke. When he saw them, he scrambled back, clutching a half-burned lotus pendant.
"Stay away!" he cried. "You'll bring the fire again!"
Chen Feng knelt, his voice gentle. "We won't hurt you. What happened here?"
The boy trembled. "They came from the mountains. Men in red. They said the old monks were heretics. They said the Crimson Sovereign had awakened. They… they burned everyone."
Chen Feng's fists clenched. "How long ago?"
"Three days," the boy whispered. "They said they were cleansing the land for the Sovereign's city."
Li Heng exchanged a dark glance with the others. "They're spreading faster than we thought."
Feng Wuyue placed a hand on the child's shoulder. "You're safe now. What's your name?"
"Bao."
"Bao, do you have anywhere to go?"
The boy shook his head.
"Then you'll come with us."
For the first time, a flicker of hope crossed the child's face.
That night, they sheltered in the remains of the temple. Chen Feng sat awake long after the others slept, watching the boy's small form curled beneath Wu Zhen's cloak. He felt something strange stir in him not the fire's whisper this time, but something older, gentler.
The voice of his mother returned to him, faint as wind in leaves: Do not let hatred make you forget kindness.
He bowed his head and whispered, "I won't, Mother. I promise."
But even as he spoke, the whisper of the fire stirred again, mocking: Kindness will burn with you, little vessel.
He ignored it.
At dawn they moved on, taking Bao with them. The boy proved resilient, walking in silence, eyes sharp. He said little, but he watched everything the way Chen Feng's sword pulsed faintly when danger drew near, the way Li Heng's voice could silence even quarrelsome soldiers, the way the Brothers moved together like parts of a single will.
By the fifth day, they reached the edge of the borderlands proper a barren expanse where the soil was gray and cracked, and the mountains loomed like the teeth of a dragon. There, at the mouth of a ravine, they found the remains of a caravan. Dozens of wagons overturned, their goods scattered.
Zhao Ming crouched, examining the ground. "Killed quick. No arrows. Blades only."
Guo Tian sniffed the air. "Lotus fire."
Indeed, the corpses bore the same sigil scorched into their flesh a bleeding lotus.
Li Heng straightened. "They're not hiding anymore."
Chen Feng stood among the dead, his eyes cold. "They never did."
A faint sound drifted from one of the wagons coughing. They pulled back the tarp and found an old man, half-burned, clutching a scroll.
Li Heng knelt beside him. "Easy. Who did this?"
The man's eyes rolled toward him, wild with fear. "They march for the north. For the border fortress. They seek something buried there. A relic of the Sovereign." He coughed blood. "A flame that never dies."
His hand twitched toward Chen Feng. "And they said… they said the boy carries part of it."
Before anyone could question him, his body went still.
A long silence followed.
Wu Zhen exhaled slowly. "So the fire inside him is not accident, but inheritance."
Chen Feng stared down at the corpse. "Then maybe I was never meant to be free."
Li Heng's tone was steel. "You are free as long as you choose to be."
But deep down, even he felt the doubt creeping.
They burned the caravan to keep scavengers away and moved toward the mountains. As they climbed higher, the air grew thin and the ash fell like snow. Bao struggled, but Chen Feng carried him when his legs failed.
Near nightfall, they reached a plateau overlooking the northern plains. From there, they saw it — the new Lotus city. Black walls. Crimson banners. Fire burning in steady rings. The air above it shimmered with heat, though they were miles away.
"The City of Flame," Zhao Ming muttered. "So it's real."
Wu Zhen nodded gravely. "And growing."
They watched for hours, unseen, until the moon rose red behind the smoke. Chen Feng couldn't tear his eyes away. The sight of it beautiful, terrible called to something inside him. His pulse matched its rhythm. His breath quickened.
Home, the voice whispered again. Return, vessel. Complete what was begun.
He gritted his teeth, clutching his sword.
Suddenly, Bao screamed. The brothers turned shadows had emerged from the rocks, a dozen men clad in red armor, their eyes fever-bright.
"Lotus Reborn," Guo Tian hissed.
The attackers moved fast. Steel flashed in the moonlight. The Brothers met them head-on blades, fists, and fury. Li Heng cut through two with a single arc. Wu Zhen's staff broke bones like dry twigs. Feng Wuyue's arrows struck hearts before they could shout.
But more came. Dozens.
Chen Feng fought beside Bao, each strike of his sword leaving trails of ember light. He moved like fire given form graceful, ruthless. For a moment, he forgot the guilt, the fear. There was only the rhythm of battle, the roar of his pulse, the song of steel.
When the last enemy fell, the plain was slick with blood. Bao trembled beside him, staring at the corpses.
"Don't look," Chen Feng said.
The boy's voice was small. "You burned them."
Chen Feng froze. He looked down his sword still glowed faintly, and smoke curled from his hands. The men he had slain were blackened, as if burned from within.
He staggered back, horror dawning.
Wu Zhen approached quietly. "Control, Chen Feng. You must master it."
"I didn't mean"
"I know. But meaning changes nothing. Only mastery does."
Li Heng stepped forward. "We rest here tonight. No fires."
They made camp under a ruined arch. Chen Feng sat apart again, trembling, the sword beside him humming faintly. He stared into the dark until the stars blurred, until he could no longer tell if the warmth on his face was from tears or flame.
By morning, the air had changed. The smoke had thinned, revealing a horizon streaked with light. Birds returned to the sky, tentative, as if testing the air. For the first time in months, a breeze carried something other than ash the scent of rain.
The Brothers stood at the ridge and looked out over the plains. The City of Flame still burned, distant but visible. Yet for the first time, it seemed… mortal.
Li Heng spoke quietly. "The fire consumes itself. Even the strongest flame needs fuel. When it burns everything, it dies."
Chen Feng listened, saying nothing.
He watched Bao chase the wind between the rocks, laughing faintly for the first time since they'd met. And he thought of his mother's last words, of her smile even as she faded: Don't let vengeance blind you.
He sheathed his sword and whispered, more to himself than anyone, "Then I'll learn to burn without destroying."
Wu Zhen smiled faintly. "Then perhaps, Chen Feng, you'll become more than a weapon."
The boy looked up at the sky, where the smoke thinned into blue. The ashes of the borderlands swirled around them, rising like spirits set free.
For the first time, he didn't feel their weight. He felt their silence the promise that even after fire, life would find a way to return.
The Ten Brothers rode on, leaving the ruins behind. The world was not healed, but it was still turning. And that, in itself, was enough for now.
Far to the north, the City of Flame pulsed like a heartbeat against the earth. A storm was gathering there one that would test the Brothers, and Chen Feng most of all. But for this moment, the ash settled, and the wind carried a whisper that almost sounded like peace.