Part 4 · Chapters
The Lost Heart of Fire
True protection gives everyone the chance to stand side by side.
When Hui Ying covered the sky, every magnificent flame seemed fleeting. The armor on Xiao Jin's chest broke away. All that remained was the first tiny light—the one everyone had mocked for being too weak even to cook a meal.
It had no fixed face. Within the black mist, weeping Fire people, furious Frost people, and councilors and soldiers blaming one another appeared and vanished. The Hearts of Fire and Ice were locked in its chest, their incompatible powers pressed into a single dark core.
“At last, you are willing to believe in me.” Hui Ying's voice came from inside every heart. “As long as you fear another person, you will need me.”
Black-mist monsters fell like rain.
Lie Ang led the guards in protecting Flame City. Yan Tuo and his wolf held the entrance to the Ash District. Yan Pan steadied the breaking earth. Feng Ling and the storm eagle tore open the black clouds together.
Shuang Ya stood between the Fire army and the crowd at the gate, raising a towering ice wall to stop uncontrolled cannon fire from falling into the city.
Xiao Jin rode the current Feng Ling sent him and charged straight at Hui Ying's chest.
Hui Ying reached out and copied his Ember Blade. Its other hand became Shuang Ya's ice spear. Storms and rock armor spread across its back while blue-white lightning leaped from its shoulders.
It had turned all the powers the five peoples had long used against one another into weapons.
The Guardian Field broke for the first time.
Xiao Jin used the fragments to move closer, but a black greatsword shattered his Heartflame Armor. He absorbed an attack with Flame Return. Hui Ying redirected the force toward the crowd below, forcing him to disperse his own counterattack.
“You cannot save everyone,” Hui Ying said.
“I know.”
Shuang Ya touched her ice spear to the ground.
Transparent ice flowers bloomed across the battlefield, supporting the injured and the city walls about to collapse.
“Everfrost Bloomfield.”
Feng Ling leaped onto the sea of flowers. Eight currents answered from different directions, weaving a road through the sky.
“Dance of the Eight Winds!”
Yan Pan held the fissures in the earth. Lie Ang drew his sunlike fire into a protective curtain. Yan Tuo's ten slashes fell only on mist monsters. Lightning sealed the gaps overhead. Moon shadows cut the black threads reaching toward both armies.
No one fought to deliver the final blow.
Each simply left one more step for the next person.
Xiao Jin stepped onto the path where ice flowers met flowing wind.
Ye Sha stood at the edge of the moon's shadow.
“Go,” she said. “This time, no one let you come this far alone.”
Hui Ying's voice pressed down from the sky-covering mist:
“You know you cannot save everyone. Why are you still standing?”
Xiao Jin formed his blade again.
“Because I'm not the only one saving people now.”
Ice flowers supported Xiao Jin's feet. The eight winds carried the last stretch of his path into the sky.
But Hui Ying made the Hearts of Fire and Ice collide.
The explosion swallowed the sky.
The Ember Blade shattered. The Heartflame Armor broke completely. Xiao Jin fell to the city gate, unable to kindle the Guardian Field in his chest again.
“You grew stronger all the way here, and still you can save no one.”
The giant hand of mist pressed toward the people behind him.
Leaning on the iron staff, Xiao Jin stood. Every technique was gone. Only the small flame he had carried since birth remained in his palm.
It was as small as the fire in the first chapter, too small even to warm a bowl of water.
Xiao Jin stepped before the giant hand.
“My fire really isn't very big.” He spread his arms. “But as long as I'm standing, you won't touch them.”
The small light touched the mist. There was no explosion. It only revealed the fear hidden inside.
A warm golden light first appeared in Xiao Hui's chest, like a gear beginning to turn again.
Shuang Ya's fractured ice core glowed pale blue. A blue-green current rose beside Feng Ling. The stone markings on Yan Pan's chest shone a steady earthen gold.
On the ridge, Lei Ze's blue-white lightning patterns lit up. A cold violet crescent appeared in the shadow at Ye Sha's feet.
Yan Tuo, Lie Ang, Ash District workers, Wind merchants, Earth villagers, and Frost refugees each shone with a light of their own.
Their colors were different. Their brightness differed too.
But the rhythm of their heartbeats slowly became one.
Countless threads of light crossed walls, snowfields, and valleys, reaching toward Xiao Jin's palm.
The Flame of a Thousand Hearts rose between earth and sky.
It burned no one, yet revealed the core of every mist monster. Soldiers of both peoples finally saw that their true enemy had never been each other.
Clothed in the light of a thousand hearts, Xiao Jin flew toward the dark core once more.
“You cannot destroy me!” Hui Ying roared. “As long as they can hate, I will always exist!”
“Then it's a good thing I didn't come to destroy them.”
Xiao Jin reached out and touched the core. “I came to help them see one another.” He stepped into Hui Ying's heart. The threads of a thousand flames remained connected behind him, like countless hands refusing to let go.