For days, Liang escaped to the frozen forest. The hut's air had grown thick with Gen's silent, simmering anger, a pressure that made the walls feel close. Training alone was a bitter routine, but it was the only space he could breathe.
He found a small clearing where the wind had carved the snow into smooth ridges. He began his forms, moving his hands through the currents of air. This was the work of **Shidow**. He was not reinforcing his body. He was listening to the world. He felt the push of the wind, the stillness between the pine trees, the deep, sleeping cold of the stone beneath the snow. To master the elements in his Kalash, he first had to understand their language.
When he finally stopped, a fine layer of frost coated his robes. He sat in the snow, the chill biting through his clothes, and pulled the scroll from his inner pocket.
He unrolled it. The parchment felt too light for the knowledge it held.
He had not looked at it since Xian gave it to him. But the memory of the last few days was a constant presence. The terrifying sight of Gen's transformation. The raw power of the Sanguine Paradise that had allowed him to trade blows with Buqu. At night, Liang saw it again—the adult strength in Gen's movements, the way he had moved like a seasoned warrior, not a wounded boy.
*Gen is too proud to accept a hand. And I am… what am I?*
He looked up. Above the black branches, the grey sky held the four distant, unwavering lights of the Damocles.
He wanted to stand next to Gen. Not behind him. He wanted his own name to hold weight.
The thought was a quiet, persistent ache. Lorel had fought Nix. Duo Yi had been there. Li Zhan, in his own way, had played a part. History would only tell one story: Gen Jiang against the Divine General. Liang wanted to face Buqu with his friend, but a deeper part of him wanted his own story to be told. Was that wrong? If he were stronger, he could protect them. Gen, Lorel, Chubbs. He could stand without feeling the ghost of his own weakness. He could find *her*. He could be a protector, not a follower.
*Lia.*
Her face in his memory was from a different world—a simple inn, a smile that was not a weapon, a kiss that had stolen his breath. Where was she now? To find her, he would need to become someone who could cross the hellscape their world had become.
His jaw tight, Liang read the scroll.
The method was clear. Introduce a catalyst. Carve a "Willful Sentence" into your own Qi pathways with a specific, painful intent. In return, gain immediate access to three Wheels: **Wudow, Zhadow, Miedow.** The Dark Wheels.
*Yaun.*
The name was a cold stone in his gut. Not just a corrupted cultivator. The man who had tried to kill Madame Su with the help of Kirin. After Gen defeated him in the Jade Palace, broken by the loss, Yaun had sought a shortcut. He had tried a method like this one. Liang had seen the result—a body contorted by power it could not hold, a soul unraveling from the inside. A tragic end born of pride and desperation.
"No," Liang said to the frozen air. "I will not walk that path."
He focused a thread of **Shidow**, making the air around his fingertip hot and dry. He touched the edge of the parchment. It blackened, caught, and burned quickly to a crisp, fragile ash that dissolved on the wind.
*Gen must never know.*
The memory of Madame Su, pale and lifeless after thefight, was a scar on Gen's heart. If Gen saw this darkness in Liang's possession, it might break something between them forever.
*It is just knowledge. Foul knowledge. I have the Miracle Fire. That has to be enough.*
He needed to clear his head. He cast his senses outward, his **Shidow** brushing against the sleeping forest. Then he felt it—a spike of panic, a bloom of cold, sharp Qi. A fight.
Liang moved. He used **Shidow** to pull himself forward, his feet whispering over the snow-crust. He landed on a low, thick branch.
Below, a cultivator stumbled backward. His left arm was gone at the elbow, the stump wrapped in a frozen, bloody rag. "I will come back for you!" he snarled, his voice trembling. "You will pay!"
Between him and the tree line stood a girl. Black hair tied back. Her posture was still, balanced. In her right hand, she held a sword made of solid, shimmering blue light. A perfect, lethal construct of **Zhidow**.
The man turned to run.
The girl moved.
She did not run. She appeared. One moment she was ten paces away, the next she was directly in his path, her movement a silent, seamless blur. Her sword-arm extended. A line of crimson opened across the man's chest. He fell, his breath sighing out into the snow. The blue sword vanished.
She did not look at the body. She turned to leave.
But somehow She stopped.
Her head tilted. and her gaze lifted. It found Liang in the tree with the certainty of a compass needle finding north.
Liang's breath caught.
It was her. But her eyes were wrong. The girl he remembered had eyes full of fierce light. This girl's eyes were like chips of winter sky—clear, beautiful, and empty of any warmth he knew. *Lia.*
He saw it. A flicker. A tiny fracture in the ice of her expression. Then it was gone, sealed over.
She shifted her weight, ready to depart.
"Lia!" The name burst from him.
She was gone. She melted into the shadows between the trees as if she had never been solid.
"LIA!" Liang shouted. He jumped down, his boots crashing through the snow. He ran, his heart pounding against his ribs. "It's me! Liang!"
He found nothing. No sound, no footprint, no trace of her cold, sharp Qi. He skidded to a halt, his chest heaving. The forest was silent. "Lia…" he whispered. The word was a raw, hurting thing.
***
Deep in a cavern behind a curtain of ice, the girl landed without sound.
Far away, a faint echo of a shout trembled in the frozen air. In her chest, a feeling stirred. It was small and old, like a buried seed.
An old man sat by a low fire, running a cloth along the length of a simple, unadorned sword. He was short, his body lost in layers of worn robes. A thick, silver scar ran from his hairline down through his left eyelid, sealing it shut. He did not look up.
"Come, Lia," he said. His voice was the sound of gravel underfoot. "Eat."
Lia bowed, the motion exact. "Yes, Master."
"Remember why you are here," he said, the firelight glinting on the sword's edge. "You are here to learn. The past is a chain. To forget is to be free."
She straightened. Her face was calm, a still surface.
"I have no relationship with that person."
She said it clearly. A lesson recited. A truth she was practicing until it became real.
Liang returned to the village as the short winter day faded into a deep blue dusk. He pushed open the hut door, letting in a gust of frigid air.
Inside, the tension was a living thing. Lorel sat in her usual corner, her hands folded, not speaking. Chubbs sat by the fire, poking the logs with a stick as if trying to physically stir the stagnant atmosphere. The moment he saw Liang enter, he stood up.
"Where have you been all day? We were all worried." Chubbs's voice was uncharacteristically sharp, his theatrical warmth stripped away by genuine concern.
Gen and Lorel both shifted their attention to Liang. He walked to the hearth and sat on the floor beside them, but he did not lean into the warmth. His face was pale, edged with a strange, hesitant energy.
He looked directly at Gen. "I saw her, Gen. She was just there. I promise, I did see her."
Gen was silent for a moment, his mind searching through the fog of his own frustration. Then it hit him. *Lia.* Back then, after Varja dead, Liang had refused to follow her, choosing to stay with Gen instead. Gen remembered his promise in the Sky Ocean, that he would let Liang go if the chance came again. Had he done so? He had forgotten. Or perhaps he had simply never accepted that Liang might one day leave his side.
"Are you sure about that?" Gen said, his voice low. "I mean, the last time we saw her was over a year ago."
Liang sighed, a sound of pure exasperation. "I am certain of what I saw."
Lorel joined in, her voice quiet but clear. "What was she doing so far from the Four Kingdoms? And specifically, what is she doing *here*?"
Chubbs crossed his arms, his brow furrowed in thought. "You said she wielded a sword, right? But from what I remember, she did not look like a sword master a year ago. However, it is not impossible. She has changed over this period of time, same as us."
Liang stood up, a sudden, angry motion. "I know what I saw!" His voice was too loud for the small hut. He turned his gaze back to Gen, his eyes searching his best friend's face for clarity, for belief. "Right, Gen?"
Gen wanted to tell him he was right. That it was indeed her. But the probability… Meeting the girl he'd left behind a year ago, in this broken, remote mountain range? How did she reach this place alive? Furthermore, there were many girls in the world who knew swordsmanship. Perhaps in the cold winds, he hadn't seen right. Perhaps his mind had shown him just what he wanted to see.
Liang watched the doubt crystallize in Gen's eyes. His shoulders slumped. He let out a bitter laugh, the sound hollow. "That is indeed you, Gen Jiang. You really think no one can be happy, since you and Lorel cannot be."
Gen bailed his fist. "Shut up!"
Liang didn't shout back. He just looked at Gen, his expression a mixture of disappointment and a deep, personal hurt. Then he turned and left the hut. He did not go to their shared room. The door slammed shut behind him with a final, echoing crack.
Lorel stood up, her own face stung by his words. But beneath the hurt, she understood the raw feeling behind them. She moved to follow him, but by the time she reached the door and looked out into the swirling snow, Liang was already gone, vanished into the twilight.
Chubbs's gaze slipped between Lorel and Gen. He cleared his throat. "Gen, Liang is your friend. You cannot act like this just because you cannot move anymore. We have all been together through—"
"Shut the hell up!" Gen snapped, his temper flaring white-hot. "I did not ask for your opinion."
Chubbs's expression darkened, but he was too thick-skinned to react with more than a slow, weary shake of his head. He looked at Lorel. "My lady, this fool is a lost cause." He did not slam the door. He simply walked out, closing it softly behind him, leaving a silence more profound than any noise.
Lorel stood in the center of the room, lost. Gen sat stiffly in his chair, unwilling to look at her, at the empty spaces where their friends had been. No words passed between them for several long minutes. The only sound was the crackle of the fire, which now felt like it was burning down the walls of the world they knew.
For the very first time, Liang and Gen had argued, and it wasn't about the Damocles, or strategy, or a Divine General. It was about a girl, and a promise, and the simple, brutal act of believing a friend.
Gen couldn't tell why, but he felt a rift had been sewn between them. Whether he could close it again, he did not know.