Part 4 · Chapters
Against All of Flame City
True protection gives everyone the chance to stand side by side.
Feng Ling sounded the wind-guard knot. The storm eagle dived from above the ruins. Riding the fastest high-altitude current, they raced back to Flame City through the night.
On the way, Feng Ling sent out every message tube she had. News spread along trade routes, refugee camps, and Earth outposts. Everyone who could come was gathering toward Flame City.
Before dawn, Flame City's high walls emerged from the night.
Xiao Jin returned carrying the black armor's core and the complete evidence.
The gates did not open. Instead, dozens of flame ballista platforms rose. The council's voice carried across the city through amplifying crystals:
“Xiao Jin, traitor of the Ash District, has conspired with the Frost Kingdom, attacked guards, and spread false rumors. Anyone who assists him shares his guilt.”
“They won't even look at the evidence,” Feng Ling said.
Shuang Ya looked at the military flags behind the walls. “It's not that they won't. They can't. Admitting the truth means admitting they pushed the whole city into war.”
Xiao Jin entered through a maintenance channel he had used while investigating the tower. This time, companions were beside him.
Guards surrounded them at the outlet in the Ash District.
“Don't kill anyone,” Xiao Jin said. “They aren't the enemy. They just don't know who they're protecting yet.”
The battle inside the city climbed upward from its lowest streets.
Xiao Hui blocked pursuit with coal carts. Yan Pan divided the squads with earthen walls. Shuang Ya froze weapons, not arms. Feng Ling sent arrows into empty ground with the wind. Xiao Jin's blade cut only armor clasps and fire chains, while his Guardian Field sheltered residents caught in the fighting.
A squad of Heroes' Academy students blocked a side alley.
Yan Tuo stood at the front, his fire wolf crouched at his feet. Xiao Jin formed the Ember Blade, and Shuang Ya's ice crystals took shape.
Yan Tuo glanced at them, then at the Ash District children being evacuated through the alley.
“No traitors found on the east side,” he suddenly told the students behind him. “Everyone, assemble at the tower.”
Someone stared. “But they're right—”
The fire wolf growled.
No one said another word.
Yan Tuo stepped half a pace aside, still not looking at Xiao Jin.
“I just don't want to clean up the council's mistakes.”
In the furnace quarter, the foreman and a group of workers blocked the road.
Xiao Jin thought they meant to capture him. Instead, the foreman tossed him a hollow black staff shaft.
“The old craftsman forged it to match your original one.” The foreman avoided his eyes. “He said that once you'd truly trained that broken stick into a sword, he'd leave the last step for you to finish.”
Xiao Hui took a charred piece of the broken staff from his tool bag.
They had brought it back from the throne hall's ruins.
He pushed it into the new shaft. Tiny gears meshed along the seam, one after another, locking the old blackened iron firmly to the newly forged metal.
The original scars remained at its center.
They were not hidden. They simply no longer came loose.
“Why help me?” Xiao Jin asked.
The foreman looked behind him. Everyone rescued in the coal-armored beast incident stood there.
“Because we've kept our heads down too long.”
Xiao Jin gripped the weapon where old met new.
This time, it was neither scrap nor a famous sword.
Only proof of everything that had accompanied him this far.
He lifted the staff and continued upward.
Before the central square, Lie Ang alone barred the way.
His long crimson-flamed blade shone brighter than before. But he had removed his guard captain's badge and held it in his left hand.
“Show me the evidence,” he said.
Xiao Jin pushed the black core between them. His faint light passed over it, clearly revealing an image of the Hearts of Fire and Ice bound in black mist.
Lie Ang briefly closed his eyes.
“I wrote a confidential report about the mist reacting on the emblem and gave it to the council. They said they would investigate.”
“They knew all along.”
“I should have known too.”
The horn to march sounded from the gate. Lie Ang raised his blade again. “But the orders have been given. If soldiers obey only orders they agree with, the army will fall apart.”
Xiao Jin lit his blade. “When an order tells you to hurt innocent people, obedience stops being loyalty. It becomes fear of taking responsibility for a choice.”
Crimson flame and ember collided in the square.
Lie Ang's power still far exceeded Xiao Jin's. Each stroke fell like molten rock, repeatedly breaking the Guardian Field. Yet Xiao Jin never struck a vital point. Again and again, he guided the blade away from the residents.
After several exchanges, Lie Ang suddenly lowered his weapon.
At that instant, gears turned atop the city wall. Unmanned flame ballista platforms aimed past the square toward the evacuating Ash District. Crimson control lines ran from their cores back to the council tower.
The guards waited for their captain's command. Xiao Jin tightened his grip. Lie Ang first looked down at the badge in his palm, as though weighing whether it meant obedience or protection.
He turned. His blade pointed neither at Xiao Jin nor at any soldier. Fire like a sun gathered along its spine, strong enough to burn through an entire wall, then narrowed into a single upward arc of gold and red.
“Sunfire City-Sundering Slash.”
The blade's light passed over every head and precisely severed the unmanned platforms' core shafts. Burning fragments spread into a brief sun high above, extinguishing into cold ash before they reached the ground.
“This technique taught me how to destroy a city.” Lie Ang watched the unharmed crowd. “Only today did I learn that the truly difficult part is hurting no one.”
“Go to the gate,” he said quietly.
“What about you?”
Lie Ang looked at the guards still awaiting orders. “I have to decide whether I'm the council's blade or Flame City's shield.”
Xiao Jin ran up the last steps. The gate slowly opened. Beyond it stood the entire army preparing to march.
One after another, doors opened along the Ash District's side alleys. Those who had once kept silent had no weapons. They made a path with their doors and their bodies. At last, Xiao Jin saw that the narrow line he had protected years ago had grown into a choice shared by the whole street.
Before heading to the gate, he took the black emblem from his pocket and returned it to Xiao Hui.
“The first time, you brought it back to Flame City.”
Xiao Hui closed his hand around it. “And this time?”
“I'm trusting you to keep it again.”