They hid for three weeks in the cavern before the Sect's official announcement came.
The announcement, delivered by courier to every settlement within a hundred miles, was carefully worded: "Liriel Ashenbrand, former student of Moonveil Sect, has been declared a fugitive from justice for the unauthorized cultivation of forbidden Resonance. Any information regarding her whereabouts should be reported to the Sect immediately. Citizens are advised to avoid her. She is extremely dangerous."
There was a reward attached—enough money to make most people very motivated to help capture her.
But it also meant something else: the Sect had officially given up trying to arrest her quietly. Which meant the situation had escalated far beyond what the Council could handle internally.
"They're going to make a move," Liriel said to Kael, reading the announcement where they huddled in the cavern's deepest chamber. This space was different from the passages they'd traveled through—it was deliberately carved, with ancient symbols covering every surface. "The Council is going to do something dramatic to prove they still have control."
"Like what?" Kael asked. He was sitting across from her, and she could see the toll this week had taken on him. He was thinner, his eyes darker, his Resonance more fragile. Anchoring her, stabilizing her, was burning through his reserves at a terrifying rate.
"The annual Sect Tournament," Liriel said. "It's in two weeks. Every advanced student from neighboring sects and academies will attend. If the Council announces that a dangerous rogue cultivator has been sighted near the Sect, they can mobilize the entire cultivator community to hunt for me."
"Which means we need to run further," Kael said.
"Or," Liriel said quietly, "we go toward them instead."
Kael stared at her. "That's insane."
"Probably," Liriel agreed. "But think about it. The Council is expecting us to flee. Yun is expecting us to run far enough that the seal will fully break when I get too far from the Sect's wards. But what if we returned? What if I entered the tournament?"
"As what? A mysterious wanderer?" Kael asked. "You'd be recognized immediately."
"I could change my appearance," Liriel said, and even as she said it, she could feel her Void Resonance offering options. The power could reshape her physical form, could make her unrecognizable even to those who had known her well. "I could take a new name. Enter as an independent cultivator. And then I could use the tournament to spread word that I'm not some slavering monster to be hunted down."
"You'd still be captured the moment the Sect realized who you were," Kael pointed out.
"Unless I was strong enough that they couldn't capture me," Liriel said. "Unless I could demonstrate that Void Resonance isn't inherently destructive. That I'm not going to destroy the world."
"That's incredibly risky."
"Everything is risky now," Liriel said. She reached across and took his hand. "I'm destabilizing faster. Even with your anchoring, I can feel the Void growing stronger every day. In another week, maybe two, I won't be able to control it. It will consume me completely. So we can run, and hope we find somewhere far enough away that the seal doesn't break, or we can face this."
"We can face this," Kael said, but he sounded terrified.
The preparation for the tournament took ten days.
Liriel used her Void Resonance to reshape her appearance—darkening her hair from black to deep purple, lightening her eyes from dark brown to pale silver, and adjusting her features just enough that she wouldn't be immediately recognizable. Kael forged documentation papers using contacts he had on the outer settlements, creating a false identity for her: Lyra Nightwhisper, an independent cultivator from the northern mountains.
As they prepared, they also trained. Not the gentle, controlled training that Yun had offered, but something rawer and more desperate. Liriel was pushing her power further and faster, learning to weaponize Void Resonance in combat applications. She learned to create waves of destructive energy, to move with impossible speed, to read an opponent's Resonance and find their weaknesses.
By the time they left the cavern, she was strong enough to terrify even Kael.
The Sect Tournament was held in the great arena at the heart of Moonveil Sect, a space carved from the living mountain and open to the sky. When Liriel first saw it, she felt the power of it like a physical blow—thousands of cultivators gathered in one place, all of them vibrating with Resonance, all of them creating a resonant field that was almost tangible.
She could feel the Council members watching from their elevated platform, could feel their attention like spears. But with her changed appearance and false documentation, they had no reason to suspect her.
The tournament bracket was announced, and Liriel found herself matched against an array of opponents: cultivators from other sects, nobles testing their power against the best the Sect had to offer, and the occasional merchant or warrior who had somehow accumulated enough Resonance to be dangerous.
Her first match was against a cultivator from the Emerald Spring Sect—a woman named Meilin who specialized in water-based techniques. The match lasted approximately thirty seconds. Liriel moved faster than Meilin's eyes could follow, and she struck with a wave of Void Resonance that left Meilin unconscious but alive.
The crowd went silent. Then it erupted.
By the end of the day, everyone in the tournament was talking about the mysterious warrior from the northern mountains. The one with silver eyes and purple hair who seemed to move through space itself.
Her second match was more interesting. She faced a young man from the Crimson Fang Sect, someone who had clearly trained his whole life to be a killer. He was good—fast, precise, ruthless. Under other circumstances, he might have been a serious challenge.
But he was fighting Void Resonance.
Liriel didn't need to move fast or strike hard. She simply let the Void wrap around her like armor, and then she walked forward while he threw everything he had at her. Fire, ice, sharp wind—all of it broke against her defenses like waves against stone.
When he realized he couldn't win, he tried to surrender. But there was something primal awakening in Liriel now, something that smelled fear and wanted to pursue it. For a moment—just a moment—she considered finishing him anyway, consuming him, adding his Resonance to her own power.
Kael, watching from the crowd where he'd managed to get a seat, sent a spike of counterbalancing Resonance through their bond. It was like someone grabbing her hand as she reached for something forbidden.
Liriel stepped back. The Crimson Fang cultivator fled the arena with his life.
But she could see, in the faces of the Council members, that they were beginning to understand.
By the third day of the tournament, Liriel had won fourteen consecutive matches without breaking a sweat. She was developing fans—people who would come to watch her fights specifically, who cheered her name even though they believed her to be someone else. The bookmakers who took bets on tournament matches had started putting odds on whether anyone could beat her.
More importantly, she was running out of opponents her apparent strength level.
Which meant she would eventually face someone from the upper ranks—the Master Teachers, or even the Council members themselves.
But before that could happen, the arena lights flickered and the Council's Head Elder stepped forward.
"We have an announcement," the Elder said, his voice magically amplified across the entire arena. "Due to an emergency situation, we are suspending the remainder of the tournament. All competitors are to remain in the Sect's guest quarters. This is a security measure, and we ask for your cooperation."
The crowd began to murmur, confused. Liriel felt Kael's alarm spike through their bond.
"There is a dangerous criminal in our region," the Elder continued. "Void Resonance user named Liriel Ashenbrand. She is extremely powerful and extremely unstable. If you see her, notify the guards immediately. Do not attempt to apprehend her yourself."
There was a moment of absolute silence in the arena.
Then, slowly, Liriel felt the Council's attention swing toward her.
The Head Elder's eyes widened in recognition. He had seen her during the Awakening Ceremony. He knew the shape of her face, even if the coloring was different.
Liriel stood, and her false appearance began to shimmer. There was no point in maintaining the illusion anymore. She let her hair return to black, let her eyes return to their natural brown, and felt the Void Resonance stop trying to hide.
"I am Liriel Ashenbrand," she said, and her voice carried across the entire arena with the power of Void Resonance behind it. "And I'm here to tell you that I'm not the monster the Council wants you to believe I am."
The guards moved forward, but Liriel didn't run. Instead, she turned to face the crowd directly.
"They tell you that Void Resonance is destructive. That it consumes those who wield it. That it destroyed the Order of Eternal Night." She raised her hand, and Void Resonance coalesced there, taking the shape of a rose made of starlight. "But what they don't tell you is that the Order fell because they didn't have someone to teach them balance. Someone to show them that power doesn't have to be consumption."
The rose bloomed fully, then fell apart into harmless particles of shadow.
"I'm that someone," Liriel said quietly. "And I'm asking you: will you believe the Council's fear, or will you believe what you see before you?"
For a moment, nothing happened. The crowd was frozen between two competing impulses—the comfort of accepting authority, and the temptation of believing in something unprecedented.
Then Kael stood up.
"I believe her," he called out. And his Resonance blazed with enough power that everyone could sense his strength. "Kael Stormborn, heir to the Stormborn clan. I stand beside this woman."
The arena erupted.
Some people rushed the exit, frightened. Others began moving toward Liriel, not in hostility but in curiosity. And a few—a surprising number, actually—simply sat back down, as if they wanted to see where this went.
The Council didn't stay to watch any longer. The guards formed a perimeter around the arena and began herding the crowd toward the exits, while the Head Elder reached out with his Resonance to grab Liriel—
And found himself slammed backward by a force that moved like living shadow.
Master Yun stood in the path between Liriel and the Council, his eyes glowing with ancient power.
"She's right," Yun said quietly. "And it's time everyone knew the truth about this Sect."