The sun dipped low, painting the sky in hues of crimson and amber as they moved onward through the steppe. Every step Tian Rui took felt heavier. Not from the exhaustion of the journey, but from the fire inside him. The Forsaken Flame gnawed at his soul, urging him to embrace its power, to become it.
And yet, something in him still fought to stay grounded.
Lyen walked beside him, sensing the struggle in his silence. "Rui, what happened with the chimera… it wasn't just instinct, was it?"
"No." His voice was steady, but there was a coldness beneath it. "It was the flame. It answered me. I didn't control it. It used me."
"Then what happens when it gets worse?" she asked, voice soft but laced with concern. "What happens when you can't stop it?"
"I will stop it," he said, though the words felt more like a promise to himself than to her.
She didn't push further. But the doubt in her eyes lingered, thick as the smoke that clung to the air.
---
The wind changed again, this time carrying a scent that was both familiar and wrong. Tian Rui stiffened, his senses sharpening in the way the flame had taught him.
"Something's ahead," he muttered, crouching low. His hand hovered above the ground, feeling for movement.
A dark shape loomed on the horizon—black cloaks, moving in perfect unison. The Shrouded Cult, a band of rogue cultivators who followed the path of chaos and destruction. They were the ones who had once burned entire villages to the ground in search of power, and their obsession with forbidden arts had made them dangerous to anyone with a true root.
"You know them?" Lyen whispered, her voice tight with suppressed fear.
"I've crossed paths with them before. They're not after us," he said, his gaze narrowing. "They're after what I carry."
"They've seen you," Veylan muttered, eyes locked on the advancing figures. "They know what you've become."
---
The group moved into position, hiding in the ruins of an old outpost. The cultists approached, their robes fluttering in the wind like the remnants of some dying spirit. But their leader—the one in the front—stopped abruptly, his face hidden beneath a mask of obsidian.
"You are late," the leader spoke, voice eerily calm. "We felt the flame. It calls to us."
Tian Rui stepped forward, his presence heavy with the weight of the Forsaken Flame. "And what do you want?"
The leader tilted his head, amused. "We want what was taken. The power that should have been ours."
Tian Rui's eyes flashed with golden and red light. "You won't take anything from me."
The leader's hand moved, and the air crackled with dark qi. The cultists raised their hands, summoning spirits bound in chains of black fire.
Veylan unsheathed his blades. "Let's show them how wrong they are."
Tian Rui stepped into the clearing, his breath steady despite the pressure that mounted in his chest. His palms burned with the Forsaken Flame, the fire swirling around his fingers like a living thing, eager for release.
But this time, Tian Rui wasn't going to unleash the fire.
He was going to contain it.
He formed a seal in the air, pushing his will into the flame. It howled, resisting, but he held fast. With a roar of effort, the fire condensed—becoming a spear of pure, destructive heat. He hurled it at the nearest cultist.
The explosion was deafening.
---
The battle was chaos.
Veylan and Lyen fought with precision, their attacks fluid and synchronized. But Tian Rui was different. He didn't move with purpose; he moved with urgency. Every strike of his flame cut through the air like a blade, burning everything in its path.
The leader of the cult stepped forward, his hands weaving dark patterns. He chanted an incantation, and a barrier of shadow rose to block Tian Rui's flame.
"You cannot control what you've stolen," the leader said, his voice growing cold.
Tian Rui's eyes burned with determination. "I'll control it, or it will control me."
And with a final cry, he unleashed everything.
The Forsaken Flame erupted from his core, consuming the battlefield in a burst of black and red fire. The barrier shattered, the cultists screamed, and the landscape itself seemed to tremble in fear of the power he wielded.
When the smoke cleared, nothing remained but the charred earth and the scent of scorched air.
---
Tian Rui stood in the center of the destruction, breathing heavily. The flame within him simmered down, but the weight of what he had just done pressed heavily on his shoulders.
Lyen and Veylan approached, silent. There were no words to describe what they had just witnessed.
Tian Rui looked down at his hands. The fire was still there, curling around his fingers like a living thing, but it was… quieter. He had contained it, for now.
But how long would it last?