It began with a massacre.
A scouting band of demons, black-armored and flame-blooded, entered the southern reaches of the Scar Plains seeking a boy and his companion. They expected a struggle. They brought bone-forged nets and blood-ink seals.
What they did not expect—was to be erased.
Their remains were found at dawn: ash scattered across glassed stone, weapons melted into slag. A single mark had been burned into the earth at the center of the site:
天 — Heaven.
It was not the gods who made the mark.
It was him.
Mingyao.
---
They came in greater numbers after that. Whole legions. Horned war-beasts. Smoke-shrouded summoners chanting spells in a dozen forbidden tongues. The Crimson Court had declared Mingyao a threat—not a prize.
He was no longer their "lost heir."
He was the Fissure Child.
The one who could break both heavens and hells.
The one who needed to die.
---
He and Yanshi ran. They fought. They hid. For four days and nights, they crossed the ragged highlands, pursued by black-winged hunters whose screams cracked stone.
On the fifth day, it happened.
A blade came from nowhere.
Whistling like wind through bone.
Yanshi shoved Mingyao aside—took the graze herself. She landed in the dirt with a cry, bleeding from her side.
The demon assassin appeared from the cliff's edge, cloaked in crimson scales and wielding a scythe of silver bone.
"You are not ready," the demon hissed. "And so you will not be allowed to become ready."
Mingyao stepped forward. Something had changed in him since the temple.
His eyes glowed—not red, not white—but both.
"I didn't ask permission."
He raised his hand—and fire spiraled from his palm, laced with golden runes.
The demon leapt.
The sky cracked—
And a second blade cut through the air.
This one was silent.
Precise.
Lethal.
The demon's head fell before he touched the ground.
Behind the body stood a man clad in flowing grey silk, face veiled, hair like shadow, blade steaming with blood.
"Still reckless," he said calmly. "But no longer helpless."
Mingyao stared. "You—"
Liuxian nodded. "It has been some time."
---
They sat beneath the roots of a thunder-pine as Yanshi's wounds were bound.
Liuxian moved with quiet efficiency. Every motion precise. Every gesture respectful.
"You saved us," Mingyao said.
Liuxian glanced at him. "I killed a threat. That is what I do."
"Why are you here?" Yanshi muttered, teeth clenched. "You tried to kill him before."
"I was a weapon," Liuxian said softly. "Bound by Heaven's order. Now I am… no longer."
"You broke the Seal of Command?" Mingyao asked.
Liuxian nodded. "It broke when Mosha fell. His death shook more than the divine hierarchy. It fractured oaths I thought eternal."
He looked at Mingyao fully now.
"You've begun to change. Not just in power—but in presence. You're not just a child between worlds anymore."
Mingyao looked away. "I didn't want any of this."
Liuxian's voice lowered. "And yet the skies burn red for you."
He knelt.
Both knees.
Then bowed his head.
"I pledge myself to your path, Mingyao. Not as an agent of Heaven. But as your protector."
Yanshi blinked.
Mingyao froze. "You don't even know what my path is."
Liuxian smiled behind his veil. "No. But I believe you'll make one."
---
The sky did burn red that night.
Not metaphorically—but literally.
In the Celestial Spire, surrounded by floating palaces and chained stars, the divine regent Nüxi stood on the balcony of the Lotus Citadel.
Her expression was unreadable.
Below her, a mirror of stormclouds revealed the mortal world—and the boy who now walked it with a demon girl and a traitor assassin.
She raised her hand.
Flames curled around her fingers.
Golden. Eternal. Unforgiving.
"The child of the Gate now walks under the protection of Heaven's sword," she said.
A dozen angels knelt behind her, their faces hidden behind porcelain masks.
"He has killed one of our own. Mingled his blood with cursed fire. Broken the threshold of the Fallen Star's temple."
Her eyes narrowed.
"He is not the future. He is the fracture."
She lowered her hand.
"Let it be known—from this breath forward, Tianzuo, his spawn, and all who aid them… are enemies of Creation."
---
In the forest below, far from Heaven's reach, a small fire crackled beside Mingyao's sleeping form.
Liuxian stood watch while Yanshi rested, her head leaning against a rock, her blade tucked in her lap even in sleep.
The assassin moved silently, as always, but his mind stirred.
He could still hear Nüxi's voice echoing in the corners of his thoughts.
She would not stop.
She could not.
The divine order required equilibrium. The Child of Both Suns was not equilibrium.
He was transformation.
Liuxian looked at the boy and wondered—how long could one soul stand between gods and monsters before becoming one or the other?
---
At sunrise, the sky bled.
A symbol appeared in the clouds: a divine sigil burning with heavenlight.
Mingyao stood beneath it and read it aloud without meaning to:
> 命斷 — "All fates broken."
He felt the mark sizzle into his bones.
He was now outlawed by both courts.
"Seems like your list of friends is shrinking," Yanshi said dryly as she stretched.
Mingyao smirked. "Then I'll just have to keep the ones I've got alive."
Liuxian said nothing—but his hand rested on the hilt of his blade, ever-watchful.
---
That evening, they crossed a field of dragon-grass and reached the cliffs overlooking the Scarlet Divide—the old warfront between the demon generals and the eastern gods.
Burned banners still lay there. Skulls embedded in stone.
Yanshi walked slower here. Her shoulders were tense.
"My father died here," she said.
Mingyao turned. "Fighting the gods?"
"No." She paused. "Fighting other demons. He tried to stop the slaughter of mortals. Said we had become worse than what we were made to fight."
Liuxian's gaze flicked toward her. "What was his name?"
"General Ryoshin. The Ash-Breaker."
Liuxian gave a rare nod. "He fought well. I remember him."
They stood in silence for a moment, the wind howling between the bones of fallen titans.
Then Mingyao spoke. "They all want me to be something."
He looked at the red sky. "Heaven wants me to vanish. Hell wants me to burn. But what if… I don't want either?"
Yanshi met his gaze. "Then carve something else."
Liuxian sheathed his sword. "They will fear you for it."
"Let them," Mingyao whispered. "Let them fear change."
---
And far away, hidden deep within the Weeping Catacombs, a woman cloaked in black feathers raised her hand over a pool of silver blood.
She smiled as Mingyao's reflection rippled on the surface.
"The sky burns, child. But soon, the stars shall fall."
And behind her, the prison doors of the First Gate groaned—
Unsealing.
-