The snowstorm ceased abruptly at dawn.
Not out of calm, but as if swallowed by some greater force, leaving behind a vacuum of silence. In the fortress square, the remaining Mirrorguard corpses stood frozen in grotesque postures, the pale flames of Imperial Order in their eyes extinguished completely, leaving only hollow glass orbs reflecting the ashen sky.
Chu Hongying stood before the main steps, her Storm-Piercing Spear tip resting on the ground, its tassel frozen with ice and blood. The Scarlet Bloodlock on her arm no longer burned, but instead transmitted a deeper, more root-like sensation of being anchored to the earth. With every breath, she could feel the pulse of the fortress beneath her—the dying tremors of overloaded energy conduits, the last spasms of severed earth-veins in the distance.
She raised her head.
The survivors were emerging from behind barricades and shattered walls—veteran border guards, herdsmen, Hánshān Sect disciples, refugees who had trembled just last night. Their faces bore no wild triumph, only the numbness of those who had survived catastrophe, and beneath that numbness, a glimmer of something that had been seared awake by yesterday's sky-piercing Heartfire—a light they themselves did not yet understand.
Then, every gaze slowly focused on her.
Shen Yuzhu was the first to stagger.
Leaning against a shattered fragment of the Mirror Array's main pillar, the mirror-runes in his heterochromatic eyes were flowing backwards at unprecedented speed—not calculating, but like an instrument overwhelmed by a tidal wave, forcibly recording a data stream beyond its design limits. He reached out to steady himself, but his fingers touched only cold air.
"The mirror…" His voice was hoarse, nearly broken. "…is rebooting."
It wasn't his mirror-runes rebooting. It was the local section of the Order-Net, torn open by the "Heartfire," attempting to self-repair according to some higher law. He "saw" it—countless invisible data streams flowing from the Imperial Capital direction, like white blood cells rushing toward a wound, only to distort, fragment, and scatter upon contact with the Heartfire embers lingering over the fortress.
Mixed within those data streams were algorithmic principles he knew all too well.
The Empire's Order was attempting to deny what had just happened.
"Yuzhu!" Chu Hongying's voice pierced through the tinnitus.
When she caught his collapsing body, the Bloodlock on her arm and the mirror-runes on his resonated violently. Not a transfer of power, but a deeper, more fundamental sharing of agony—Chu Hongying's mind exploded with shattered mirror-images: countless versions of herself turning back before a burning mansion, wielding her spear on snowy plains, gritting her teeth while swearing an oath before Helian Sha. Shen Yuzhu felt a searing, rust-tinged willpower crash brutally through his rational defenses—not emotion, but something more primal than emotion: sheer survival instinct.
Both gasped in unison.
"Don't try to force a separation." Lu Wanning's voice came from beside them, calm to the point of cruelty. She knelt, three Li Silver needles already inserted into Shen Yuzhu's wrist acupoints, their tails vibrating at an unusual frequency. "Heartfire isn't an energy explosion. It's the conceptual negation of 'Absolute Order' by 'Collective Will.' Our marks have been rewritten by it. Forcibly separating now will only cause neural reflex disorder."
She raised her head, her heterochromatic eyes sweeping over Chu Hongying, then toward Gu Changfeng, who was leaning on his blade not far away.
"The vital signs of the four of us are forming a closed loop." She delivered the diagnosis, her voice betraying worry for the first time. "This is not good. It means any one person's collapse could trigger a chain reaction."
Gu Changfeng spat out a mouthful of blood-streaked saliva, trying to grin but pulling at the wounds torn open on his back by the backlash of wind pressure. "So… we won, but won ourselves into being grasshoppers tied to the same string?"
He tried to manipulate the surrounding airflow, only to find the wind no longer "obeyed."
It had become an extension of his senses.
He could "feel" the minute tremors caused by a veteran soldier's suppressed sob fifty paces away, could "touch" the trajectory of heat disturbance from cooking smoke rising a hundred paces distant, could even "hear" the sound waves of snow collapsing under the paws of a startled snow fox fleeing on a distant slope—his perception had been infinitely sharpened, the world flooding his consciousness with near-violent intensity.
"Not grasshoppers." Chu Hongying steadied Shen Yuzhu, her gaze sweeping over the three of them before settling on the gathering crowd in the square. "Pillars."
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut clearly through the silence:
"Four pillars holding up this sky."
The first to move was the one-armed veteran.
His left sleeve hung empty, the stump tied off with rough cloth, his face a map of overlapping frostbite scars and old wounds. In the deathly silence, he stumbled to the center of the square, where the charred remnants of an Imperial black flag stood half-buried. He stared at that flag for three breaths, then reached out with his remaining right hand, grabbed the fabric, and yanked—
Rip!
The brittle, burnt cloth tore.
He threw the tattered symbol of Imperial Order into nearby embers that hadn't yet died, watching it curl, smoke, and turn to ash. Then he turned, spine straight, facing Chu Hongying's direction, and roared with every ounce of strength in his body:
"General!"
The sound tore through the post-storm air.
"This northern sky—it's time to change its color!"
He hammered his fist against his chest with his lone arm, the impact dull and heavy:
"We! Follow you!"
A moment of absolute stillness.
Then, like the first crack in an ice sheet, scattered sounds rose from all sides:
"Follow the General…"
"Me too!"
"Count me in!"
More and more voices joined, growing louder, coalescing from whispers into a tide, from hesitation into resolve. The crowd began to move, stepping over Mirrorguard wreckage, treading through bloody mud where snow had melted, converging toward the steps. Hánshān Sect disciples helped the wounded, herdsmen supported the elderly, women held children, soldiers gripped salvaged, broken blades.
Their faces were still stained with blood and grime, their eyes still held remnants of fear—but something had been ignited by last night's Heartfire that incinerated Order.
Someone in the crowd shouted the first word:
"Crimson Heart—"
A second voice joined: "Crimson Heart Army!"
A third, a tenth, a hundredth… the voices merged into a single torrent, crashing against the fortress's broken walls, surging toward the leaden sky:
"Crimson Heart Army!!"
"Crimson Heart Army!!!"
Gu Changfeng stood stunned. He looked around at those shouting faces, those burning eyes, his throat moving as he muttered softly:
"The name… they gave it."
Not a title discussed by the four of them, not a banner chosen for strategy, but a name that had grown from the depths of this suffering land, from the throats of these struggling people.
Chu Hongying didn't speak.
She released Shen Yuzhu, took a step forward. The Storm-Piercing Spear spun halfway in her hand, its butt striking the ground with a heavy, resonant thud. Then she raised her head, her gaze sharp as a blade, slowly sweeping over every face in the square.
No rousing speech. No victory declaration.
She simply nodded deeply.
A simple motion, completing the most primal, wordless contract between commander and army.
Nightfall revealed the fortress's exhaustion.
The temporary command post was set up in the original Mirror Array control hall, its walls still bearing the scorched patterns of overloaded energy. A single storm-proof lantern hung from a beam, its swaying light casting the four pale faces in shifting shadows.
Shen Yuzhu sat at a crude wooden table, fingertips pressed against a map of the Northlands salvaged from the ruins. The mirror-runes in his eyes pulsed with a sickly rhythm, each flash making his breath catch.
"Imperial reinforcements can reach the nearest outpost in three days at the earliest." His voice was calm, but sweat glistened at his temples in the lamplight. "But they won't attack directly. Heartfire burned through the Order-Net node—this area is temporarily a 'blind spot.' They'll try to re-establish observation first…"
Before he finished, his body suddenly stiffened.
The mirror-runes exploded in a burst of blinding blue light, then trembled violently like a short circuit. He bent forward sharply, coughing up not blood, but a dark red liquid mixed with fine ice crystals, gleaming with a metallic sheen. Where it landed on the lambskin map, it sizzled, etching white smoke from the leather.
"Yuzhu!" Lu Wanning flashed to his side, three needles flying to pierce his neck and temples. The moment her fingertips touched his skin, her expression changed.
"He's forcibly analyzing the residual Heartfire data… Rational overload is rebounding against his physical body."
At almost the same moment—
A sharp, piercing pain shot through the Bloodlock on Chu Hongying's arm, as if invisible needles were stabbing into her marrow. She grunted, bracing herself against the table edge.
The Li Silver needles in Lu Wanning's sleeves suddenly hummed on their own, seven needles breaking free of control, trembling mid-air.
The water bowl beside Gu Changfeng rippled without wind, concentric circles spreading across its surface, as if stirred by an invisible hand.
All four froze simultaneously.
Lu Wanning reacted first. She closed her eyes, the silver needles hovering around her, their tails tracing intricate patterns as if mapping an invisible field. Three breaths later, she opened her eyes, the cold truth reflected in her heterochromatic gaze:
"As I thought… Heartfire has deeply bound our 'marks.'"
She spoke rapidly, every word precise as a scalpel:
"Brother Yuzhu's 'Mirror' over-calculating generates a mental burden that directly transforms into a call to Sister Hongying's 'Blood'—because the Blood Mark represents life-force and foundation, the Mirror unconsciously seeks support from it. Sister Hongying's Bloodlock being agitated, with violent emotional and energy fluctuations, will impact the stability of the 'Logic Network' I maintain. And if my Logic Network distorts, it will interfere with Changfeng's 'Wind Pressure' control—logic is the wind's trajectory, if the trajectory is disordered, the wind goes wild."
She paused, looking at Gu Changfeng:
"If Changfeng's will endures extreme pressure as a result, for self-preservation he'll instinctively release that pressure outward in the form of 'anchoring'—and the nearest, most stable anchor point is Sister Hongying's Bloodlock."
"Thus," she concluded, her voice lowering, "a closed loop forms. If one collapses, all are in danger."
Gu Changfeng stared at the still-rippling water in the bowl, letting out a bitter laugh. "So we're now… not just a community of fate, but a damn community of physiology?"
Shen Yuzhu wiped the icy blood mixture from his lips, the light in his mirror-runes dimming to reveal extreme exhaustion beneath. He said softly, a rare hint of self-mockery in his tone:
"Hah… So 'hearts connected' isn't just a metaphor."
Chu Hongying remained silent.
She walked to Shen Yuzhu's side. She didn't support him, but reached out—and grasped his cold wrist tightly. The grip was firm, strong enough to make Shen Yuzhu look up and meet her gaze.
Then she turned, looking at Lu Wanning, at Gu Changfeng, her eyes lingering on each face for a moment.
"If we're locked together," she said, her voice calm and unwavering, carrying a finality that severed retreat, "then we bear it together."
She paused, adding another sentence, her tone softening slightly:
"If you can't bear it… remember to say so."
The words were light, yet they landed in the quiet hall with the weight of a thousand pounds.
Shen Yuzhu lowered his eyes, fingers curling unconsciously. Gu Changfeng's grin faded, ultimately just shaking his head, though the tension in his eyes eased a fraction. Lu Wanning let out a soft sigh, retrieved her needles, and began reorganizing her medicine pouch.
A new equilibrium, established upon acknowledging their shared fragility.
Past midnight, the snowstorm returned.
The four climbed to the ruined top level of the main tower. Half its dome had collapsed, the exposed structure like the ribs of a giant beast stabbing at the sky; the other half still stood somewhat, blocking some of the wind and snow.
Chu Hongying stood at the edge of the breach, the Storm-Piercing Spear held horizontally before her. Behind her, the freshly carved flagpole leaned against a broken wall, straight as a spear. Lu Wanning and Shen Yuzhu stood side by side, one fingering a silver needle, the other's eyes glowing faintly with mirror-runes.
Below the fortress, scattered torches flickered in the storm. Night watch soldiers, sleepless refugees, those still sorting through the wreckage. Beyond, the Northlands wilderness sank into boundless darkness, only the roar of the wind.
"It's time," Gu Changfeng said, handing the flagpole to Chu Hongying.
It was hewn from spruce, debarked and polished, solid in the hand. The top had been carved with a tenon, awaiting the flag's descent.
Lu Wanning withdrew a neatly folded piece of cloth from her robes. It wasn't a single bolt, but countless fragments stitched together—indigo sleeve patches from old border guard uniforms, coarse brown cloth from herdsmen's jackets, gray-white remnants of refugee headscarves, even strips of black cloth cut from burnt Imperial flags, washed of soot. All fragments were meticulously joined with Li Silver thread, the stitches like interwoven meridians.
And in the center of this patchwork backdrop, she had embroidered a crimson heart-shaped pattern with silver thread. Along its edges, Shen Yuzhu had used mirror-light to burn minute, nearly invisible runic tracks—not defensive arrays, but a kind of record, documenting all the deaths, all the struggles, all the choices before this night.
Chu Hongying took the flag.
The cloth was cool to the touch, yet those stitches, those burn marks, seemed to carry the warmth and breath of countless people. She took a deep breath and shook the flag open—
At that moment, the wind abruptly shifted direction.
As if the air currents of the entire Northlands had been waiting for this instant. A gale rushed through the breach, whipping up the flag, the crimson heart pattern bursting forth amidst the snow, the silver thread reflecting faint sky-glow like a pulsing heartbeat.
Chu Hongying fastened the flag to the flagpole's tenon. As the knot tightened, she felt a wave of scorching resonance from the Bloodlock on her arm.
Not pain.
Recognition.
She turned, facing the fortress, facing the gathering gazes below, raising her spear high, its tip pointing straight south—toward the Imperial Capital.
Her voice exploded, sharp enough to split ice and steel:
"Today, by the Crimson Heart we swear—"
"We live not by Imperial decree! Not bound by bloodline! Not cowering in fear!"
She paused, the spear tip lowering slightly, pointing at the ground beneath her feet:
"Only for—Heartfire unextinguished, blood-vow unfulfilled!"
As her words fell, Gu Changfeng stepped forward, his Cloud-Edge Blade half-drawn, its hum resonating with the storm:
"What I guard is not territory, but every weeping, laughing, flesh-and-blood human world behind me!"
Lu Wanning's fingertips touched her chest, silver needles hovering around her like star tracks, her voice clear as a thawing stream:
"I use reason as my needle, mending the world's rifts; with a healer's heart, weighing life and death's gravity. To heal, not purify."
Finally, Shen Yuzhu raised his eyes.
He didn't look down, didn't gaze into the distance. His eyes rested on Chu Hongying's back, then slowly moved to the flag whipping fiercely in her hand. He drew a blood-stained finger across his forehead, the mirror-runes igniting with an indigo glow, his voice calm yet carrying a texture like rusted iron grinding together:
"The mirror reflects truth, not illusion."
"Henceforth, what I guard—is not Imperial law, not the cycle of Heaven's Mandate."
He paused, the light of his mirror-runes suddenly condensing into an intensely bright point:
"It is her, it is you all, it is this heart, this realm."
The word "her" was uttered softly, yet it carried clearly through the wind and snow to every ear.
Four oaths laid down.
No celestial phenomena, no energy eruptions.
But an intangible, solid "field" naturally formed between the four. Wind and snow parted silently within three feet of them, the light seemed to grow clearer, and even the long-suffering fortress beneath their feet seemed to let out a heavy, relieved sigh.
The Four Poles configuration was hereby established.
Deep within the Mirror Palace of the Imperial Capital.
On the flowing mirror-wall, the light point representing the northern fortress had been extinguished for five full hours.
A Shadow Recorder knelt at the edge of the mirror array, reporting softly:
"Northland Order Point 'Garrison Seven'… confirmed lost. Residual energy spectrum analysis indicates the node was not destroyed, but was… completely overwritten by some 'unanalyzable resonance phenomenon.' Order-Net self-repair algorithms attempted restoration, all failed."
The new Emperor stood with his back to the mirror-wall, hands clasped behind him.
He showed no anger, no reproach, didn't even turn. He simply listened quietly, then, slowly, very softly, laughed.
The laughter echoed in the empty mirror-hall, carrying the pure delight of a researcher witnessing a rare phenomenon.
"Heartfire…" he murmured, as if savoring the taste of the word. "It truly manifested. Seventeen days earlier than projected, intensity exceeding model predictions by forty percent."
He finally turned, his slender fingers pointing through the air toward the mirror-wall. Ripples spread across its surface, reflecting four blurred silhouettes of light—scarlet, silver-blue, pale white, deep azure—entangled with each other, forming a stable tetrahedral structure.
"A perfect experimental group." Data streams surged in the Emperor's eyes, vaster and colder than Shen Yuzhu's mirror-runes. "First phase of stress testing, outstanding results. Variable 'Collective Human Will' negating 'Absolute Order,' data collection complete."
He withdrew his finger, issuing an order to the shadows, his tone as calm as assigning coursework:
"Activate 'Despair Protocol,' Phase Two."
"Give them hope. A solid stronghold, flowing refugees, nascent belief. Let the Crimson Heart Flag fly for three full days."
He paused, a hint of inhuman curiosity flashing in his eyes:
"Then, cut off the water. Spread plague. Plant seeds of rumor among the refugees. Send 'Arbiters'—not to kill them, but to judge their followers. Execute those who shouted 'Crimson Heart Army,' in the name of Imperial Law, right before their eyes."
The Shadow Recorder's body trembled almost imperceptibly.
The Emperor noticed, tilting his head slightly. "Hm?"
"…Your Majesty," the Recorder's voice tightened. "Such methods… might they… provoke even more extreme resistance? If Heartfire burns brighter because of this—"
"That is precisely what I want." The Emperor cut him off, his tone so gentle it was terrifying. "What I wish to see is not how much pain they can endure. It is whether their 'Heartfire,' upon witnessing faith crumble, comrades die, all effort turn to dust—"
"Will turn around and burn themselves."
He reached out, his fingertip almost touching Chu Hongying's silhouette on the mirror-wall.
"Burn," he whispered, as if coaxing a nearly finished artwork. "Burn away all impurities, burn away weakness, doubt, useless mercy. When all that remains is the purest flame called 'obsession'…"
"That will be the moment I harvest the fruit."
At the summit of the Northlands, upon eternal ice.
Helian Sha sat within the eye of the storm.
This was a place even snow wolves couldn't survive, where razor-sharp gales sliced ice cliffs, the air so thin each breath scorched the lungs. Yet his bare upper body was steady as bedrock, the frost condensing on his bronze skin periodically cracking and reforming with his breath.
His eyes were closed.
Not in meditation, but in listening.
Listening to the lingering resonance carried by the wind from the fortress a hundred miles away. That searing, unfamiliar, iron-and-ice-tinged fluctuation—"Heartfire."
It was weak, like a newly lit bonfire on the plains, easily snuffed by wind.
But it existed.
And it was burning.
Helian Sha slowly opened his eyes.
Golden wolf-pupils ignited within the blizzard, like two beast-lamps piercing ancient, frigid night. His gaze turned southward, piercing through a hundred miles of storm, "seeing" that newly risen, laughable, patchwork flag.
Also "seeing" that woman's straight-backed silhouette beneath the flag.
He remembered her. On the Northlands battlefield, the only female general who had withstood three of his strikes without retreating. Eyes holding a wolf's ferocity, yet bound by things he scorned—duty, righteousness, concern for those behind her.
Back then, he had thought it a pity.
A fine blade, but sheathed.
And now…
Helian Sha's mouth slowly curved, baring white teeth. It wasn't a smile, but the instinctive facial twitch of a predator scenting blood.
"At last…"
He murmured, the words lost in the storm, unheard.
"Not a phantom in the mirror, not rotting corpses on the snow plains."
He stood. His three-zhang-tall frame cast a monstrous shadow on the ice cliff, boiling blood-qi around him vaporizing falling snowflakes into white mist.
"A 'fire' worthy of my seriousness…"
He raised his hand, grasping the giant blade always embedded in the ice beside him. Seven feet long, no guard, no sheath, its body dark as meteoric iron, save for a single dark red bloodline along its edge, seemingly never dry.
The moment the giant blade was drawn, the entire ice cliff trembled.
"Chu Hongying," he said into the storm, pure battle-intent igniting in his golden pupils for the first time in ages. "Don't make me wait too long."
"Let me see—"
"How much solid iron this 'Heartfire' of yours can melt, how many invisible locks it can burn through."
He turned, striding step by step into deeper blizzard. Each step left molten scars upon the ten-thousand-year ice.
On the Northlands chessboard, another piece—no, an existence finally seeing itself as a player—had formally made its move.
In the darkest hour before dawn, the snowstorm miraculously stopped.
Not calmed, but as if pressed down by some invisible hand, abruptly receding. A fissure split the lead-gray clouds, and the faint light of dawn spilled through like molten gold, pouring precisely onto the ruined crown of the fortress's main tower.
The square was already packed.
Not just soldiers. Herdsmen set down their whips, craftsmen dropped tools, elders were supported, children sat on fathers' shoulders. Hánshān Sect disciples stood in white snow-robes at the crowd's periphery, silently watching. Captured Mirrorguards from last night were held in a corner, looking up at the tower, the pale Order in their eyes already dimmed, replaced by a kind of bewildered emptiness.
Everyone was waiting.
Atop the tower, Gu Changfeng hefted the flagpole, walked to the edge of the breach. He took a deep breath, muscles bulging in his arms, aiming the flagpole's base at the deepest crack in the wall below—
"Fall!"
The flagpole plummeted like a javelin, its tip precisely wedging three feet into the stone crevice. Gu Changfeng leapt down after it, feet striking ground, pressing down with the force of a thousand pounds!
Thud…
A dull tremor ran through the wall, loose rubble pattering down. The flagpole stood firm, pointing straight at the sky, as if it had always grown there.
Lu Wanning and Shen Yuzhu acted simultaneously.
Seven Li Silver needles flew from Lu Wanning's sleeves, piercing the stone cracks around the flagpole, their tails vibrating to weave an invisible stabilizing field. Shen Yuzhu's mirror-runes flowed, his finger tracing through the air, several indigo light-traces branding deep into the flagpole's wood—not reinforcement, but anchoring, temporarily connecting this pole to the primary veins of the earth beneath.
Finally, Chu Hongying stepped forward.
In her hands, she held the stitched-together flag. Dawn light fell upon the crimson heart pattern, the silver thread reflecting scattered points of light, as if that heart were faintly pulsing.
She looked up, glancing at the sky.
The fissure in the clouds was widening, golden light growing brighter.
Now.
She didn't shout, didn't proclaim, simply swung her arms wide—
Whoosh!
The flag unfurled against the wind, its crimson backdrop like spilled blood, its silver-thread patterns like flowing rivers, the patchwork cloth revealing its varied textures and scars in the wind. The flag whipped fiercely, its sound drowning out every breath.
Chu Hongying fastened the flag to the tenon at the flagpole's peak, tying the knots triple-tight. As the final knot cinched, the first full light of dawn finally broke through the clouds, like a giant sword cleaving the heavens, falling exactly upon the flag.
In that instant, the Crimson Heart Flag was edged in burning gold.
As if it weren't cloth, but living flame.
In the square, silence held for one breath.
Then, the one-armed veteran was the first to roar. His lone arm thrust toward the sky, voice tearing through the morning air:
"Crimson Heart—unbroken!!!"
A second voice joined, a third, a tenth… a hundred, a thousand. Voices merged into a tidal wave, crashing against the walls, surging skyward:
"Northlands—reborn!!!"
"Crimson Heart Army!!!"
"Crimson Heart Army!!!"
Wave after wave of sound, shaking snow from the walls, making captives cover their ears in bewilderment, making Hánshān Sect disciples grip their sword hilts, making distant wolf packs hunting on the plains look up in alarm.
Atop the tower, Chu Hongying looked down upon that boiling sea of humanity.
Countless faces looked up at her, up at that flag. Faces still stained with blood and grime, still bearing frostbite, sunken eyes, cracked lips—but now, every pair of eyes held fire.
It wasn't worship of an individual.
It was a frenzied belief in a certain possibility.
She looked at the flag raging in dawn light and gale, at the people shouting beneath it, at Shen Yuzhu's pale yet straight profile beside her, at Lu Wanning's fingertips focused on maintaining the silver needle array, at Gu Changfeng grinning widely with his blade on his shoulder.
Then, very slowly, very lightly—
The corner of Chu Hongying's mouth curved into a faint, yet genuine, arc.
For the first time since the Lu family's massacre, since her Northlands exile, since countless long nights waking in blood and snow, her face revealed a smile belonging to "hope."
Dawn light spread completely over the land.
The Crimson Heart Flag unfurled fully under the Northlands sky, like a searing, newborn brand, stamped fiercely upon the forehead of this suffering land.
The flag's shadow whipped fiercely, reflected in the gradually brightening depths of her eyes.
(The firebrand is lit, the storm approaches. But those who bear the fire have decided to light their own path.)
[Volume One: Northland Flames · End]