The sky groaned.
Above Ember Veil Forest, it had stopped being a battle—it had become an event the continent would remember in fractures and flame. Simon, Simar, and Jana carved through the sky like embodied war. Artinian, Sabella, and Seymour struggled to hold ground against the rising tide. Every lightning surge was met with flame. Every mist coil torn through by ignition petals. The Flare trio didn't just fight—they burned through rhythm, forcing imbalance.
Then—
The heavens tore again.
Two figures surged downward with reality-bending pressure. Paul Ember Pearl and his younger brother Jak Ember Pearl landed with precision, their arrival warping the ridge lines and silencing the air. Their aura didn't shimmer—it imposed. Flame pressed downward. Qi threads recoiled.
Simon felt the shift instantly. Simar adjusted mid-flight, halberd spiraling tighter. Jana's petals rippled, scattering under the Ember Pearl pressure.
This was no longer three versus three.
It was five against three.
Paul's disruption-forged flame destabilized ignition arcs. Jak's flame compression aura constricted combat flow, forcing Jana's spirals to compress unnaturally. Seymour regrouped behind them, reforging void crescents into dense halos. Artinian flanked Simon with crackling voltage, while Sabella reformed her mist into a layered poison dome.
Simar clashed with Jak immediately—halberd ringing through pressure-forged flame defense. Jak didn't speak. His dragon-spine aura compressed reality around every step, making even flame feel slow.
Jana spun into a flame-circle, protecting Simar's flank as Sabella surged forward. Simon blinked past Artinian's trap glyph and struck Paul head-on, flame colliding mid-air like twin suns grinding their edges.
__
Meanwhile, far across the continent Phillip Ember Pearl stood alone in a spirit-refined vault, his flame aura net stretching thin across Emberfall and beyond.
He searched for Jalen Hewitt.
No qi signature. No pulse distortions. No ley ripple.
Phillip narrowed his eyes.
"Did he return to his family?"
Then scoffed quietly.
"No. Too weak. They couldn't shield him. And he wouldn't be that foolish."
The Emperor's calm cracked faintly.
The boy was gone. Unreachable. Unclaimable. Yet the war he sparked was still burning.
Phillip turned from the crystal display in silence.
—
Back in the burning skies, the battlefield had become a graveyard of technique.
Flame spiraled in collapsing suns. Lightning arced across ruptured clouds. Mist twisted into venomous specters. The air itself refused balance. Each cultivator cast strikes without hesitation. Decades of mastery compressed into every movement. Their cores screamed. Their bodies cracked. But none retreated.
Jana, the youngest and weakest among the Flare trio, suffered the deepest wounds. Her ignition petals burned dim. Her qi rhythm faltered, interrupted by Sabella's poison mist and Jak's flame compression aura. She fell once. And then again. Simon surged into the fray each time, shielding her not with words—but with fire.
On her final collapse, Sabella surged forward—in full poison-bloom fury—casting Crimson Mist Verdict, her final lethal technique. A spike of venom-qi aimed straight for Jana's heart.
Simon flared. No words. Just movement.
He intercepted the blow. Sabella's spike hit full force.
His chest tore open. Flame erupted around him, folding inward to shield Jana, even as blood streaked the air. But before Sabella could retreat, he twisted—pain roaring through his marrow—and struck back.
Sunfault Break Collapse.
The fire didn't bloom—it detonated. Sabella was thrown back, skidding across the ridge, her robes scorched, her bones fracturing on impact. Her mist shattered. Her technique ruptured.
She lay still.
Not dead. Not conscious. But useless to battle.
At the same time Simar's halberd cleaved space itself, cracking ley nodes with Thousand Flame Lotus Reversal. Seymour countered with Void Spiral Rend, but mid-spin—Simar's blade pierced his left lung. Seymour screamed once before silence took hold.
He died.
But Simar didn't stop there, his halberd arced once more, heading for Artinian, who was reeling from overload, but Jak and Paul intercepted.
Jak's flame compression aura slowed Simar's strike, Paul's disruption-forged flame staggered his rhythm mid-air. Artinian escaped death by a breath—but not unharmed. Simar's strike clipped him in retreat, gashing across his side.
The blow shattered three ribs.
Artinian crashed into the canyon wall, coughing blood, unable to continue. His core destabilized. His hands trembled. He was severely injured, his lightning aura sputtering like a broken engine.
With this the outcome was clear.
Despite having five elite cultivators against three—despite the arrival of royal imperial might—they had failed.
Phillip Ember Pearl descended onto a broken ridge nearby. His robe was clean. His face composed. But he carried no prisoner.
No prize.
He hadn't found Jalen Hewitt.
Paul glanced toward him. Jak said nothing.
The sect leaders barely stood. The Flare family, though burned and bruised, still breathed. Jana lay unconscious in Simon's arms. Simar leaned against a crumbling cliff, blood trickling from his palms. Simon didn't speak—his silence heavier than any chant.
Paul exhaled. "We call it."
Jak agreed. Artinian and Sabella said nothing—they lacked the strength to object.
This war was supposed to end the Flare resistance. It was supposed to capture a boy. Gain a monstrous technique. Reassert imperial dominance.
Instead?
One leader lay dead. Two nearly followed. And Phillip stood empty-handed—his strategic gambit shattered.
The Royal Family and the top clans forces turned to leave.
Not in shame. But in loss. And uncertainty.
They would not press this battle further—not today. Not with things tipping in directions they couldn't predict. The boy had vanished. The enemy endured. And worse: the tides had shifted.
Simon watched them disappear into the sky.
And somewhere, far beyond Emberfall, Jalen Hewitt breathed freely.
The continent hadn't just burned.
It had changed.