Elder Heng's axe trembled in his grasp.
Not from exhaustion.
Not from fear.
From pure, soul-consuming rage.
The streets of Lianshan were a living nightmare.
Buildings collapsed under roaring flames, ash raining down like snow.
The thick, choking stench of blood and burnt flesh clung to every breath.
His disciples. His friends. Innocents who had trusted him.
Now scattered across the ground like discarded dolls, their faces frozen in agony.
And yet, despite the blood he had shed, the oaths he had sworn, the sacrifices he had made—
He had failed.
Xiangbei still lived.
Fengyuan City still stood, untouched behind its shining walls.
And now even Lianshan—his last refuge, his final hope—was dying before his very eyes.
---
The Weight of Regret
A shadow blurred to his left. A Black Talon assassin, fast as a whip.
Heng moved without thinking.
His axe split the assassin's skull with a sickening crack, gore splattering across the cracked cobblestones.
The body dropped.
Heng barely noticed.
The kill brought no satisfaction.
Only memory.
"You will die a failure," Xiangbei's voice sneered inside his mind, a ghost that never left him.
"Your name forgotten. Your bloodline erased. Your legacy nothing but ash and dust."
The words, spoken as Xiangbei's sword had fallen on Heng's ten-year-old son, burned hotter than any fire.
Heng had sworn revenge that day.
Had sworn on his wife's lifeless hand.
On the smoking ruins of his clan's ancestral halls.
He had promised he would tear Fengyuan stone from stone, gut Xiangbei like a dog, and spit on the ruins.
And yet—
Here he was.
Broken.
Spent.
His qi was nothing but a flickering ember.
His body was a battered wreck—ribs shattered, muscles torn, blood pouring from a hundred wounds.
His axe—the last heirloom of his bloodline—was chipped, dulled, near ruined from endless slaughter.
And still the enemies came.
Endless as the tides.
---
A Moment of Weakness
Elder Mo stumbled to his side, one saber snapped in half, the other soaked in crimson.
"Heng—!" he gasped, clutching a bleeding gash on his side. "The east gate's fallen! They've breached the inner quarter! We can't hold them!"
Heng didn't respond immediately.
The world tilted. His vision blurred—not from blood loss, but something far worse.
Shame.
Decades of cultivation.
Victories on battlefields older than this generation's memories.
Wars won. Legends made.
All of it—meaningless—in this final, bitter moment.
He wasn't enough.
Not enough to protect this city.
Not enough to strike down the monster who had taken everything from him.
A scream ripped through the clamor—a child's scream, high and thin.
Heng's head snapped around—
—and he saw it.
A Black Talon's spear driving through a young boy's chest.
The boy couldn't have been more than eight, maybe nine. His small hands flailed uselessly, blood gushing from his tiny frame.
A child.
Just like his son.
Something inside Heng—already cracked and bleeding—shattered completely.
His grip tightened on the axe until his knuckles turned bone-white.
He would not let this end here.
Not yet.
---
The Last Stand
Mo reached for him, desperation in his voice.
"Heng! We have to fall back—there's still time! We can regroup at the west gate—!"
Heng shrugged him off roughly.
"No," he said.
His voice was raw, hoarse, barely more than a whisper.
But it carried the weight of finality.
A death knell.
"You'll die!" Mo shouted, almost pleading now.
Heng turned, blood dripping from his torn lips in a grim smile.
A smile filled not with hope, but with savage, bitter truth.
"I died," he rasped, "the day he killed my boy."
Mo's mouth opened—to argue, to beg—but Heng was already moving.
He charged forward, axe raised high.
His war cry ripped through the battlefield—a broken, ragged roar of a man who had nothing left to lose.
He didn't fight for victory.
He didn't fight for survival.
He fought for one thing—
Time.
Every second he bought meant one more soul might escape.
One more life snatched from the empire's claws.
---
The Final Blow
The Black Talons closed in, like vultures to a corpse.
Spears stabbed deep into Heng's side.
Blades carved ragged lines across his arms, his back, his thighs.
He didn't slow.
He didn't stumble.
His axe fell like a reaper's scythe, smashing skulls, severing spines, splitting armored chests with brutal, merciless strength.
Every step forward cost blood.
Every breath was agony.
But he moved, and he killed, and he endured.
Until—
A cold blade slid between his ribs, deep and cruel.
Right to the heart.
Heng gasped. Blood spilled from his mouth in thick, bubbling streams.
His legs gave way.
The axe, faithful to the end, slipped from his numb fingers with a heavy thud.
As he crumpled to his knees, Heng's gaze lifted through the smoke and carnage—
—and there, in the far distance, through the gaps in the burning city—
He saw Fengyuan's towers.
Still untouched.
Still shining.
Untouched... unpunished...
His cracked lips moved.
A name fell from them like a curse.
"Xiangbei..."
The word tasted of iron and ash and heartbreak.
Then the darkness claimed him.
---
Aftermath
Far away—miles from the battle—Li Yuan Tian stumbled and looked back
Zhao, standing beside him, frowned in alarm. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
Li Yuan Tian didn't answer at first.
He simply stared into the horizon, as if something had disappeared
He knew.
Somehow, he knew.
A storm had fallen.