The wind howled its fury around the Crimson Heart banner, whipping the fabric into a frantic dance against the storm. In this frozen wasteland, the banner's defiant snapping was the only drumroll announcing what was to come.
Chu Hongying stood silhouetted against the endless white, her figure a stark cutout on the broken rampart. Below, faces turned up to her—hollow-cheeked border guards, herdsmen with frostbite etching their features, refugees clutching weapons with unfamiliar hands. She drew a breath so cold it crystallized in her lungs.
"The banner flies," her voice cut through the gale, low but carrying to every ear. "You know what this means. The Empire won't tolerate this flag seeing another sunrise."
Her gaze swept across them—terror in some eyes, grim determination in others, the empty stare of those who had lost everything but breath itself.
"This isn't about revenge," she drove her Storm-Piercing Spear into the ice, the impact echoing finality. "Not about thrones or glory. It's about the simplest truth—we deserve to live as people, not entries in the Emperor's ledger to be crossed out at his whim."
Helian Sha's golden eyes flashed in her memory, burning with challenge. His question echoed in her soul: Can you bear the price?
"The road ahead runs with blood. If fear claims your heart, leave now. There's no shame in survival. No judgment in choosing life."
Silence. Then an old soldier, his arm ending in a blood-crusted wrap, spat into the snow. "General, these old bones would rather burn bright with your banner than rot in some Imperial labor camp!"
"Aye! Let us burn!"
The murmurs swelled, becoming a unified roar that defied the storm itself. Not one person turned away.
Chu Hongying closed her eyes, swallowing the emotion threatening to overwhelm her. This is my answer, Helian Sha. The price? I'll pay it.
"Three days of food," Gu Changfeng reported, his tone matter-of-fact as he directed the strengthening of their meager defenses. "Under a hundred arrows. Medical supplies..." He shrugged. "None to speak of. Situ Ming's vanguard is five li out. All Mirror Guards. The Emperor honors us with his attention."
"It's not us he wants." Shen Yuzhu leaned against the broken wall, his face pale as moonlight. The intricate patterns in his eyes swirled violently, like snow in a vortex. "He's accelerating the entire Northern Web. Drawing all energy toward the fortress... guiding it with his own will. The Emperor watches us himself."
Lu Wanning's hands stilled from tending a feverish soldier. She moved to Shen Yuzhu's side, her cool fingers reaching for his temple where a healing energy shimmered.
"Don't." He turned away sharply, his voice ragged. "Save your strength... His gaze carries too much weight... too much hunger. My Mark can't withstand this pressure much longer."
As he spoke, a pillar of pale light erupted from the distant fortress, spreading across the sky like a disease. It formed a vast, shimmering canopy that began its slow descent toward them.
The world grew unnaturally quiet.
Not silent—but muted, as if the air itself had thickened. A suffocating presence settled over them, the weight of absolute Order.
"The Canopy of Order..." Shen Yuzhu pushed himself upright, the light in his eyes flickering erratically. "He means to erase us... to return our minds and memories to the void, leaving only perfect, empty order."
"Form ranks!" Gu Changfeng's voice tore through the oppressive stillness. His Cloud-Edge Blade carved through the air, and an invisible barrier of wind sprang up around them—a fragile pocket of reality beneath the descending doom.
Chu Hongying became a whirlwind of crimson motion. Her spear danced, its tip tracing bloody patterns as it met blades of solidified Order. The Blood Mark on her arm burned with frantic energy, wild and untamable, like a caged beast scenting freedom.
Within their protective bubble, Shen Yuzhu's vision transformed into streams of pure data. "Left flank, three guards, converging in two breaths! Ambusher in the snow at two o'clock!" His commands came rapid-fire, each one buying precious moments against the relentless assault.
Lu Wanning moved through the chaos like a ghost. Her silver needles flew not to heal wounds, but to stitch stability into the unraveling world. Where they landed, small pockets of calm emerged—islands of reason in a sea of madness. But with each needle placed, her face grew paler, her movements more strained.
This was the Four Poles in embryonic form—Blood the spear, Mirror the eye, Principle the shield, Wind the bastion.
Yet the Empire's might proved overwhelming.
The pale canopy above deepened, becoming a monstrous mirror that reflected not light, but fear—
Chu Hongying saw her family's compound burning, heard the screams she'd spent years trying to forget. Gu Changfeng witnessed his father's final stand, the betrayal that had cost everything. Even Lu Wanning saw her healing arts turning to ash, her patients dying despite her utmost efforts.
"Fight it! The Light attacks your mind!" Shen Yuzhu's warning ended in a cough of blood, the patterns in his eyes cracking like fine porcelain. He bore the full brunt of the assault, his mind the primary target of the Emperor's will.
With a sound like breaking bones, Gu Changfeng's wind wall shattered. An unimaginable force drove him to his knees, his blade sinking deep into the ice as he fought to remain conscious, to remain present.
Lu Wanning's needles fell from numb fingers, her carefully woven lattices of reason unraveling.
Chu Hongying felt the Blood Mark tearing at her soul, the connection to the land becoming a feedback loop of agony. Blood filled her mouth, warm and metallic.
Despair, cold and final, began to claim them all.
"Can't... hold..." Gu Changfeng gasped through clenched teeth.
In his fading consciousness, Shen Yuzhu realized the truth—control was illusion. Against such absolute Order, individual will meant nothing. There was only one path left.
With his last strength, he sent the thought burning through their connection:
"Let go! Release the Marks! Let them choose!"
The words struck like lightning.
Chu Hongying responded instantly. She stopped fighting the Blood Mark, instead opening herself completely to its power—letting it resonate with the pain of the wounded land, with the despair of her followers, with the collective cry of the North itself.
Gu Changfeng abandoned any attempt to direct the wind, instead becoming pure anchor—the unshakeable point around which reality could reform.
Lu Wanning released her healing energy not as focused power, but as a quiet tide of acceptance—a prayer for balance.
Shen Yuzhu opened his mind completely, letting the Mirror Mark become what it was always meant to be—not a tool of calculation, but a perfect reflector of truth.
And in that moment of complete surrender, something new was born.
Not an explosion of light, but a wave of pure presence—so vivid, so real it could be felt in the soul. A warmth that had nothing to do with temperature, a strength that had nothing to do with force.
Heartfire.
"This isn't power..." Lu Wanning whispered, tears freezing on her cheeks. "This is... what remains when we stop fighting ourselves."
Shen Yuzhu, hovering at consciousness's edge, perceived the fundamental shift. "The Law... cannot process this... It has no category for hope born from despair... for wholeness forged from brokenness... The system... contradicts itself... collapses!"
As he spoke, the vast canopy above shuddered. Cracks appeared in the perfect pale surface, spreading like lightning across glass. Then, with a sound like the world catching its breath, it shattered.
Across the battlefield, Mirror Guards froze mid-motion, the light in their eyes extinguishing as they crumpled. From the distant fortress came the thunderous roar of overloaded machinery failing.
The pressure vanished.
In the sudden quiet, Gu Changfeng's voice rang out, raw with triumph:
"Now! The fortress is ours!"
What followed wasn't a battle but a tide—a surge of released hope and fury that swept toward the now-defenseless Imperial stronghold.
In the Mirror Palace, the Emperor watched the light-point representing his Northern Fortress flicker and die. His hands, clasped behind his back, trembled—not with anger, but with profound excitement.
"Heartfire... at last." His whisper hung in the perfect silence. "So this is humanity's final shape? Uncomputable. Uncontainable. Only expressible at the brink of annihilation."
A slow smile touched his lips.
"Excellent... Burn brighter, my catalysts. When you have consumed all impurities and become perfect vessels... that is when I shall harvest what remains."
At the roof of the world, Helian Sha stood unmoving in the eternal storm. His golden eyes saw what others could not—the birth of something new in the distant valley.
For the first time, his fierce features softened into something approaching respect.
"So it begins," he murmured to the wind. "Show me, Chu Hongying, how far this heart-fire can burn."
In the conquered fortress square, amid the wreckage of Empire, they raised their banner properly.
Gu Changfeng found the straightest timber from the ruins.
Lu Wanning wove together scraps of cloth—remnants of old uniforms, tatters of previous banners—stitching their collective memory into something new.
Shen Yuzhu, with the last of his power, seared their oath into the fabric.
And Chu Hongying planted their standard deep in the heart of the land they had chosen to defend.
As the crimson banner caught the wind, unfurling against the pale sky, it seemed to those watching that the very snowflakes dancing around it carried a newfound warmth.
The North had kindled its first fire. And it would not be easily extinguished.