The night sky above Hollow Wind was no longer calm.
It burned.
Ash and fire danced like falling stars, the edges of Shen Liun's Ashen Domain cracking as it strained against the weight of a foe far stronger than anything it had ever contained.
The Crimson Sword bled from the side—but still stood tall, blade humming in his hand.
"You've grown, boy," he said, voice calm despite the wounds. "But power without restraint burns the wielder faster than the world."
Liun's aura surged, the golden flame around him pulsing with righteous fury.
"Then let me burn."
---
Inside the Ashen Domain, time seemed to bend.
Every breath was longer. Every movement felt carved in flame.
Liun pressed forward, eyes glowing, each step driving the spirals of judgment deeper into the world.
> "Ashen Verdict: Echobrand!"
He slashed the air, and a seal burst from his blade—burning itself into the Crimson Sword's chest like molten scripture.
The assassin staggered—but didn't scream.
He looked down at the seal.
"You're forcing judgment onto my soul core…" he murmured. "Clever."
Then—he smiled.
"But you don't understand what's inside me."
His blade began to vibrate.
And then it howled.
A massive surge of dark crimson Qi exploded outward, cutting through the domain like a scar across heaven. The judgment seals flickered. One cracked.
> "He's breaking the law of your domain!" Aoshen warned. "He's rewriting it with his own!"
Liun's grip tightened. "He can rewrite nothing I won't allow."
He raised his hand, blood dripping from his palm.
> "Ashen Verdict: Flame Unchained."
A new seal formed—unlike the others.
Wild. Untamed. It shimmered with chaos, but within it pulsed something deeper: sorrow, vengeance, and legacy.
Golden fire surged, not in spirals—but in broken chains, snapping around Liun like wings. The entire domain trembled.
Crimson Sword narrowed his eyes.
"That technique…" he whispered. "That's not yours."
"I forged it," Liun said, stepping forward, "from my pain."
"No. I've seen that flame before."
He stepped back.
Paused.
Then—lowered his blade.
Liun didn't move. "What are you doing?"
The Crimson Sword looked him in the eye.
> "Your father… forged the same technique. Once. Before the Empire erased his name. I saw it, just before I killed him."
Liun's blood ran cold.
"What?"
"Your father wasn't just a Flameborn. He was the last wielder of the Unchained Flame—a branch of the Ashen Path that defied even the heavens."
Liun's breath hitched.
"My father never told me."
"Because it was forbidden. Even your sect elders feared it."
The assassin stepped closer.
"I killed him. Yes. But I never beat him. He chose to die. So you could live."
---
The domain shook again—this time not from power, but emotion.
Liun's fire flared wild. His knees threatened to buckle, not from injury, but from the weight of everything he'd never known.
His father had died to protect him. To pass down a forbidden path.
And now, after all this time… that flame lived again.
"You said I couldn't judge you," Liun whispered.
The Crimson Sword nodded slowly. "Because I judged myself long ago."
A moment passed.
Then Shen Liun raised Dawnmourne.
"I'm not you," he said. "I don't want to be your executioner. But I will be your reckoning."
He swung.
The final seal—Flame Unchained—latched onto the assassin's soul like a shackle of fire.
It didn't burn him alive.
It didn't destroy him.
It made him remember.
Thousands of faces. Screams. Ash. Blood.
And the silent boy hiding under the shrine while his world collapsed.
Crimson Sword fell to his knees.
And for the first time in decades… he wept.
---
The domain shattered.
Liun stood in the real world once more, breathing hard, the golden seal slowly fading from his hands.
All around them, Hollow Wind warriors watched in stunned silence.
The Crimson Sword remained on his knees.
And then… he bowed his head.
> "Shen Liun," he said softly, "you carry more than flame."
"You carry justice."
He rose slowly, placed his sword in the dirt, and walked away—the first Imperial assassin in history to defect.
---
Later, beneath the stars, Liun sat alone outside the shrine, Dawnmourne across his lap, the fire beside him barely flickering.
Ning'er approached and sat beside him.
"You alright?" she asked.
He nodded. "No. But I will be."
Ranyi appeared next, holding the old scroll that had started it all.
"You've taken your first enemy and turned him into a memory," she said. "Or maybe a witness."
Liun didn't smile.
But his voice was steady.
> "The Flame is no longer just mine."
"It belongs to the world now."
"And I will burn until the heavens remember what they tried to bury."
---