Chapter 63: Ashes of the Jadefront
The wind howled over the peaks of the Jadefront Mountains, carrying with it the scent of scorched stone and forgotten blood. The range had once been a bastion of elemental cultivators, scholars of wind and stone. Now it was a graveyard. Ashen stood atop a jagged cliff, the ruined remnants of a battlefield sprawling beneath him—craters etched into bedrock, shattered weapons protruding like broken bones, and towers half-sunken into the earth, twisted by some ancient wrath.
Kaelis hovered beside him, eyes glowing faintly. "This is where the High Convergence War ended. The records call it the Battle of Tenfold Winds."
Revyn scoffed behind them. "More like the Slaughter of Ten Thousand Dreams."
Ashen crouched, pressing his palm to the ground. Threads of Chaos spiraled into the cracked earth. The soil drank in the resonance, and for a moment, silence deepened. Then came the echoes.
Whispers.
Cries.
Laughter.
And a single scream that had never stopped.
"There's something trapped here," Ashen said.
Keyven stepped up from the slope behind them, his cloak torn from the ascent. "I found the perimeter. There's a glyph pattern scorched into the cliff faces. A containment grid. Still active, barely. It's holding something beneath."
Kaelis frowned. "Not a spirit. A remnant. Maybe a technique gone rogue or a soul fragment with too much will."
Ashen moved without another word. They followed the glyph lines across fractured ridges and fallen spires until they reached a crater filled with obsidian shards. In its center stood a blade. Embedded. Rusted. But thrumming.
Ashen approached slowly.
The blade wasn't forged of metal. It pulsed with crystal veins, resonating with memories—not just of battles, but of the wielder's conviction.
A name carved into the hilt had nearly been erased by time: Master Tiyen of the Jadefront Wind Sect.
Kaelis inhaled sharply. "Tiyen was a legend. Said to have created the Windshift Arena with a single slash. They say she challenged the heavens themselves."
Ashen extended a hand toward the hilt. The ground shuddered.
Reality twisted.
They were no longer standing at the edge of a crater but in the middle of a battlefield at its height.
Phantom warriors clashed around them. Ethereal weapons sparked in the air. The smell of ozone and fury saturated everything.
At the center of it all stood Tiyen.
Tall. Cloaked in white and silver. Her hair tied in silver braids, her eyes calm even as the storm howled around her. She fought not for dominance, but for remembrance.
Then came the darkness.
A tide of black-armored figures swept the field—faceless and silent, wielding chaos-twisted weapons that shredded spirit and will alike. Tiyen stood against them until her blade shattered the sky itself.
Then, silence.
The battlefield faded, and the real world returned. But the blade remained, humming more violently now.
Ashen reached out again.
As his fingers wrapped around the hilt, a burst of wind exploded from the crater, flinging dust and ash skyward. The wind whispered.
Not words.
A memory.
Ashen's mind filled with images—not from the war, but from Tiyen's final days. Her decision to remain behind, to seal the battlefield, to trap the fallen techniques and rogue spirits within herself. Her soul had not passed on. It had split, leaving an echo behind.
He pulled the blade free.
A surge of power flooded through him, not his own, but resonating with his Chaos threads. The technique etched into the blade unfolded in his mind:
Storm-Carrier's Echo — the ability to draw upon the will and force of winds once controlled by masters, amplifying motion, distorting time mid-movement, and warping the trajectory of an attack beyond physical dimensions.
Ashen stumbled, overwhelmed by the imprint.
Kaelis steadied him. "You're anchoring too many echoes. Too fast."
Ashen nodded slowly. "She didn't want the knowledge to be lost. Only kept from the unworthy."
Keyven glanced around the crater. "Then we release the rest. Let this place breathe again."
Revyn whistled low. "You sure about that? Whatever she sealed wasn't just echoes. Some of those were corrupted."
Ashen looked up at the sky, now clearer than before. "We'll cleanse what we can. Preserve what matters."
They began the process. With Kaelis's sigils and Ashen's Chaos threads, they unraveled the remaining seals. A tempest surged briefly through the mountain range, casting old cries into the wind.
Not all were peaceful.
One remnant fought back.
A fragment of Tiyen's technique, twisted during the war by chaos-tainted cultivators, erupted in the form of a living windstorm—a vortex shaped like a lion, screaming with anguish.
Ashen stepped forward, blade in hand.
The battle was swift and elegant. Wind met wind. The Storm-Carrier's Echo wrapped around Ashen, letting him move through the gusts like a phantom. Each strike resonated with Tiyen's original intention—discipline, memory, and a refusal to forget.
With the final clash, the vortex shattered.
Silence returned.
Ashen sank to one knee, sweat beading his brow. The mountain range had stilled. The blade in his hand now felt lighter, more aligned. The memory had been honored.
They made camp at the edge of the crater, just as dawn touched the distant horizon.
Kaelis studied Ashen from the shadows. "You're not just absorbing techniques. You're inheriting burdens."
Ashen nodded. "Each one tells a story that needs remembering. I won't become a gravekeeper. I'll become a witness."
Keyven grinned. "That's a grim title. Want a cooler one? Chaos Echo Walker? The Memoryblade?"
Ashen smirked faintly. "Let's just stick with Ashen Aras for now."
He gazed at the wind-swept ruins one last time.
He could feel Earth changing. Responding. The lost remnants, the forgotten warriors, the echoes—they weren't just trapped. They were waiting. Waiting for someone who could remember them.
And now… he could hear them.
More ruins awaited.
But next, he would head east—toward the Scaled Hollow. Where dragon-blood once wept from the trees.
A place the echoes feared to speak of.
He had to know why.
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