The path to Withered Orchid Valley cut through a jagged mountain pass where the moonlight barely reached.
Mist swirled at their feet. Snow crunched beneath their boots.
Lin Xiyan's hand never left his sword.
Shen Liufeng walked a step ahead, silent, focused. Ever since they crossed into this range, something had felt… wrong.
Then, the silence broke.
A faint clink—metal unsheathing.
Then dozens more.
From both sides of the pass, black-clad figures descended, masks silver, blades curved like crescent moons.
"Assassins," Lin hissed. "Form is… Lotus Shadow."
Shen's eyes narrowed. "My father's elite unit."
One of the masked killers stepped forward, voice young, but cold as stone.
"沈流风.你不该回来的."
(Shen Liufeng. You shouldn't be back)
Shen drew his blade. "And yet I did."
The assassin nodded. "Then you know what comes next."
The air split.
The first wave came fast—too fast for normal men.
But Lin and Shen were no longer ordinary.
They moved like twin stars.
Lin's blade danced in arcs of frostlight, slicing through the first attacker before the others could blink. Shen parried two blades at once, his counter a brutal upward slash that snapped steel and bone.
But the assassins kept coming.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then—one figure remained, untouched.
He stepped forward slowly, mask glinting.
And when he spoke, Shen's breath caught.
"…Yun."
Shen's old sparring brother. His first student. The boy he once trained before being cast out.
"I serve your father now," Yun said. "And he said if you cannot be turned—"
"Then I must be ended."
They clashed.
Yun was fast, his strikes like wind and water. Shen met him blow for blow, but he was slowing—fatigued from days of travel, the earlier poison toll still lingering.
A blade grazed Shen's side.
He staggered.
Yun raised his sword for the final strike—
Clang!
Lin Xiyan's blade met his mid-air.
Yun's eyes widened. "You—"
Lin didn't give him time to finish.
His next strike was blinding.
Clean.
Final.
The blade pierced Yun's chest—straight through.
Blood bloomed like a red lotus on his robes.
Shen shouted, "Lin—!"
Yun collapsed.
Lin stood over him, face unreadable.
"I warned you," he said quietly, "I would never let anyone take him from me again."
Shen reached him.
Lin turned, voice trembling but firm.
"I used to think killing was a line I wouldn't cross. But now I know… there are lines I'd cross without hesitation—for you."
Shen pulled him into his arms.
They stood together, surrounded by broken blades and fading mist.
Above them, the moon finally broke through the clouds.
And in its light, they looked ahead—to the mouth of Withered Orchid Valley, where truth, blood, and destiny waited.