The gate had fallen.
Now the city burned.
Beasts surged through the breach, their twisted and unnatural forms hulking over soldiers, born of Qi too rich and warped to belong in a mortal world.
At the centre of the madness Yan, Ryu and General Oliver battled to keep the bulk of the forces from ripping through the city.
Once a child of Phoenix bloodlines, now rotted by vengeance and corrupted flame and from behind him came four massive beasts. Twisted fusions of Qi and flesh, their bodies stitched by Qi.
One had the legs of a horse and the upper body of a horned wolf. Another breathed mist laced with acidic energy.
They weren't alive.
They were creations.
The corrupted Qi user raised his black-burning staff and pointed to the inner defence line.
"Go," he whispered.
The beasts charged.
Ryu and Yan stepped forward in unison.
She flared her phoenix-fire, wreathing her blade in radiant gold.
Ryu steadied his breath, the star-mark on his hand glowing with rising resonance.
They didn't speak.
They simply moved.
The plaza shook as the first beast collided with Ryu, its massive claw arcing downward. Ryu spun, bending space around his feet, sidestepping with impossible grace, and slashed across the creature's leg.
It screamed, not from pain, but as a response mechanism, lashing out with raw Qi.
Beside him, Yan met the second beast mid-charge, her sword igniting in a wide arc that seared the entire air between them. She ducked a second strike, rolled under the beast's hind legs, and surged upward in a vertical flame burst, cutting it down the middle.
But it didn't fall.
Its Qi bubbled as flash expanded between the gaps of slashed out skin and muscle then it re-formed.
The rot within its core reknit its frame.
"These things regenerate!" Yan shouted.
"They're being sustained," Ryu said. "Through him!"
They couldn't stop them with normal methods.
They fought the powerful monsters head on, severing limbs which regenerated, fire burnt through the limbs of one monster, slowing its regeneration. They worked together Ryu and Yan, managing to slice through the monster and Ryu pushing spatial Qi and compressing the monster into nothing, destroying the monsters corrupt core, one monster fell but the effort to just dispatch one was great.
Meanwhile, Oliver Phoenix faced the warped remanence of his distant kin
Flame against flame.
Legacy against the forgotten.
Oliver's sword glowed with deep orange light. Every strike carried with it not just with raw power but discipline too, the refinement of decades in battle. His blade sang with ancestral Qi, and the ground lit with every step.
But his opponent answered with chaos.
Black fire twisted around his staff like a living thing, lashing, striking, biting. He fought with speed, agility, and fury, his flame corrupted by grief and rot. But beneath the wildness, there was skill. A memory of what he had once trained to be.
The two collided again and again.
Blades rang.
Qi exploded in shockwaves across the plaza.
Each time he let a twisted laugh out echoing through his Qi, a tired and broken laughter.
"You burn bright, old man," he said, breath ragged, "but your era is done."
Oliver didn't respond.
He just struck again.
And again.
Until the man with twisted finally caught his blade with the staff, and Qi roared outward in a burst of black-green flame.
Oliver staggered.
A crack ran through the pauldron on his left shoulder.
His flame dimmed.
"I will let you in on it now old man as your time comes to an end. I am the son of Lilianna"
Flashes entered Olivers mind of days past.
When Oliver had first became a legendary General, the youngest Phoenix city had seen not due to his royal status but with hard work and determination. During his 20's his goal was to improve the elite forces within the capital. Using his skills as a master swordsman and his impressive strength, he trained few elites who could improve the army by being commanders and generals in their own respects.
The Phoenix family lineage had endured for over 10,000 years, and with that longevity came strict traditions to preserve both power and purity. To prevent the overexpansion of the bloodline, no one outside of nobility could marry into the family. Phoenix members could only wed nobles from allied kingdoms, such as those of Myar, and never within their own lineage.
At any given time, there were no more than twelve officially recognized branch families. Each branch existed in service to the main house, sworn to uphold its legacy and martial strength. This structure wasn't just symbolic, it formed the foundation of the capital's elite forces.
From these twelve houses, candidates were selected, typically sixteen at a time, to undergo training under the General himself. These young men were raised not only to become commanders and generals, but to embody the ideals of discipline, loyalty, and flame-born resolve. They weren't simply soldiers.
They were heirs to the flame.
This tradition continued for years, until General Oliver reached his fiftieth winter and declared that the next cohort would be his final personal group of trainees.
Among the branch families was Lilianna Phoenix, a respected figure known for her quiet strength and compassion. She was a cousin to the emperor at the time, sharing the same grandfather, and had once served with distinction within the capital's administration. Her son, Cassius, was fourteen that year, an age by which most candidates from noble lines were expected to display talent worthy of advancement.
Cassius, however, showed little promise. He was not frail in body, but lacked the drive to improve through effort. When his trial, an elite test of skill and discipline, not reliant on Qi, ended in failure, the consequences were clear. As was the custom, Lilianna faced a cruel choice: relinquish her noble status and live outside the Phoenix structure to protect her son from conscription, or let him remain and forge his path alone, without the support of his lineage.
She chose to leave.
What she never saw, what none of them saw, was the rot already blooming in her son's heart.
Cassius was angry. Angry at the system that measured his worth by strength and timing. Angry at his parents for not belonging to the main family. But most of all, he was angry at those who rose while he remained behind.
Jealousy festered where discipline should have grown.
And something darker began to take root.
One day, after the sun had passed its peak, Cassius trudged through the polished stone streets of the capital, his uniform sweat-drenched and dusty from drills. He was fourteen, lean, broad-shouldered, but carried himself like a coil wound too tight. His gaze was downcast, jaw clenched, not from fatigue, but from the simmering thoughts circling his mind.
He didn't belong here. Not truly. His mother, Lilianna Phoenix, was a high-born noble from one of the twelve recognized branch families, cousin to the emperor, sharing the same grandfather. But for all her grace and poise, her son's place in this world felt borrowed, fragile.
He had failed the elite trial. Not for lack of form, but lack of fire, no spark within him, no talent, no sign of self-motivation or effort. While others rose with praise and purpose, Cassius was told to "train harder," to "wait longer," to "earn it like a soldier." There would be no crest ceremony for him. No recognition. No elevation to the Flame Guard. Just a quiet fade into obscurity, unless he clawed his way back.
He passed the flowing river-gardens, one of the palace's quieter corners. Crystal waters curved between flowerbeds and stepped stones, and there, playing atop the flat marble by the fountain, were children of the main family. Nobles by blood. Phoenix by name.
"Cassius!" one of the girls called out, Leira, eleven, bright-eyed, and kind. "Come play! You look like you've been beaten by the whole army."
Cassius stopped. The weight in his chest loosened. He gave a small, cautious smile and jogged over. For a moment, just a moment, he let himself forget.
They played tag through the winding garden paths. Water splashed. Laughter echoed.
Then one of the boys, Theren, nephew of Prince Elric, a slender child with a silver circlet and a sharp tongue, teased him. "Careful, Cassius! You might pull something. You're not as strong as the other army members, remember?"
It wasn't venomous. If anything, it was playful, even self-deprecating. But Cassius heard only the hierarchy behind it. The subtle reminder. The gap.
He saw red.
In a blink, he shoved Theren back with the full force of a soldier's body. The boy tripped, fell, his temple struck the marble edge of the fountain with a sickening crack.
Gasps turned to screams.
The other children fled or froze. One girl sobbed and knelt beside Theren's twitching body. Blood pooled down the white stone.
And Cassius…
Cassius stood over him. Silent. Smirking.
That was the moment Prince Elric arrived. The emperor's brother. One of the highest-ranking nobles in the empire. His eyes locked first on the body, then on the boy standing over it. His nephew, dead. Cassius, alive.
There was no trial. Not truly.
The facts were laid out plain.
Lilianna was summoned before the Flame Council. Tearfully, she pled for her son's life. "He didn't mean it," she said. "He's just a boy. He's been under pressure…"
But the weight of the crime could not be ignored. A child of the main line was dead. And the one who killed him bore a Phoenix crest he had not earned.
Lilianna made her choice.
To save Cassius from execution, she relinquished her title and position. She cast aside her family name and status. From that day on, she lived among commoners in the outer provinces, far from Phoenix City, her face hidden beneath a plain veil.
General Oliver Phoenix a commander of high rank, had tried to salvage what he could for her. He offered quiet support, resources, protection where allowed. But even he could not save her name, or her son's soul.
He never saw her again.
And now, as the battle raged and the boy once named Cassius stood before him, clad in rot and wrath, the memory closed like a fist around Oliver's chest.
There had never been a future for that boy.
He had always believed he was owed one.