Chapter Seven: The First Heaven Bleeds
The clouds above the Jade Pavilion darkened. Not with rain—but with reckoning.
Atop Heaven's first spire, beneath banners sewn with constellations and fate-script, the news spread like wildfire across the divine halls:
The child lives.
The heir of storm and fire. The last scion of Lianhua.
He breathes.
And worse—he remembers nothing.
---
Tianzuo stood at the edge of Mount Chijing, the winds biting, the clouds thin as parchment beneath his feet. His armor was tattered. His left sleeve torn, revealing the golden scar that coiled up his forearm—the seal he had placed on himself when he chose exile.
He had felt the rupture the moment Mingyao crossed the Gate of Ashes. Something within the world stirred.
The First Heaven had noticed.
The air shifted.
He turned.
The wind screamed as a figure tore through the clouds behind him, crashing into the mountain with the force of a falling star. Stone cracked. A tree exploded into splinters.
The god stepped forward, helmeted in black steel, eyes burning red.
"Mosha," Tianzuo said quietly.
"Brother," came the reply—a voice like iron grinding against rock. "It has been centuries. You look tired."
Tianzuo said nothing. He'd once trusted that voice. They had stood side by side in battles older than time. Had shed divine blood for mortals who no longer remembered their names.
But now, Mosha's axe was unsheathed.
"You should not have kept him alive."
"You don't know what he is," Tianzuo said. "What he could become."
Mosha tilted his head. "I know exactly what he'll become. A godkiller. Like his mother."
Tianzuo's jaw tightened.
"Ah," Mosha said, smiling bitterly. "There it is. That tremble. You still mourn her."
"You killed her."
Mosha shrugged. "She was warned. She turned her back on Heaven. On us."
"She loved mortals."
"She loved you," Mosha spat. "And because of that, the skies bled. Entire constellations fell. You broke the Accord for her, Tianzuo."
Tianzuo stepped forward, each motion precise, like a blade sliding from its sheath.
"I would break Heaven itself to protect my son."
"Then you are no longer one of us."
The wind died.
Then Mosha struck.
---
Steel roared.
The mountain shattered.
Tianzuo dodged the first swing, his cloak exploding behind him. He drew his blade—Tianwen, forged from starlight and sorrow—and met Mosha's axe in a spray of sparks.
They collided midair, divine power crackling like chained lightning. The clouds themselves twisted from the impact.
"You were always her shadow," Mosha growled, striking again. "But now you crawl in it."
"I am what you made me," Tianzuo replied, parrying the strike and driving his elbow into Mosha's ribs. "What your 'justice' created."
Mosha grunted, sliding back. "Don't act like you weren't smiling when she burned the Tenth Sky."
"She burned it to protect your victims!"
Mosha's eyes flared. "They were mortals! They were meant to worship—not rebel!"
The wind rose, howling as the heavens dimmed. Mosha raised his axe, its head gleaming with the blood of forgotten gods.
Tianzuo raised Tianwen, his own aura flaring—a brilliant arc of storm and flame.
Their weapons met again—and the First Heaven shook.
---
From the Jade Pavilion, Nüxi watched the clash through a pool of seeing light.
Around her, the high gods murmured. Whispers of treason. Of purge. Of a new war in the making.
"Shall we intervene?" one asked.
"No," Nüxi said. "Let them bleed."
She turned to the lion-headed god who had once demanded Mingyao's death.
"Send word to the other heavens. The First Flame has reignited."
"And the boy?"
"Let him see what we do to traitors."
---
On the battlefield, Tianzuo was breathing hard now.
Mosha was unrelenting. His axe had torn through the mountainside, reducing trees and stone to ash. Every strike was a memory. A scar.
"You can't win," Mosha said, slamming his axe into the ground, causing the peak to quake. "The heavens will fall on you. And when they do, your son will die—like his mother."
Tianzuo froze.
Mosha smiled. "She begged, you know. When we dragged her from the garden. When the other gods pierced her wings. She begged us to spare you. Begged us to let the boy live."
He stepped forward, slowly.
"She cried your name before the end."
Tianzuo's hand trembled.
Then he raised his blade again—eyes full of flame.
"You shouldn't have said that."
---
The storm broke.
Tianzuo moved like a thunderclap, closing the distance before Mosha could react. Tianwen flashed, slicing through Mosha's pauldron and carving into his chest.
Mosha roared in pain, staggering back. Tianzuo didn't stop.
He drove his knee into Mosha's jaw, spun, and brought his sword down in an arc of white-hot light. The blade bit deep into Mosha's shoulder—cleaving halfway through.
Blood—divine blood—splashed across the stones, glowing gold.
Mosha gasped. "You would kill your own kin?"
"You did," Tianzuo said coldly. "You just never used a blade."
And with a final cry, he twisted the blade—
—and ended it.
Mosha collapsed, the axe falling from his hand. He stared up at the swirling sky as his body dissolved into light.
"I'll see her again," he whispered, voice fading.
Then he was gone.
---
Silence fell over Mount Chijing.
Tianzuo stood alone, surrounded by ash and smoke. His hands trembled. His sword was slick with god-blood.
And he knew the cost.
By killing Mosha, he had crossed a line no god could return from.
He was now an enemy of the heavens.
So was his son.
---
Far below, in a quiet village nestled between dying forests, Mingyao woke with a start.
The pendant on his chest was glowing hot. His dreams had been fire and screaming skies—visions he could not place. Of a woman burning. Of a man with silver eyes dying in thunder.
Yanshi sat by the window, sharpening her blade.
"You felt it too," she said.
He nodded. "My father… something happened."
She looked out toward the distant peaks. "It wasn't small. The sky bled a little."
He rose, rubbing his face. "Then we can't stay here."
"No," she agreed. "They'll be coming."
He looked at her. "Will you keep running too?"
Yanshi sheathed her blade and met his gaze. "No. I think it's time we start fighting."
---
Back in the Heavenly Court, Nüxi stood before the thrones.
"It has begun," she said. "The First Heaven has bled. The traitor god has slain his kin."
"What of the Storm Heir?" a voice asked.
She closed her eyes. "We will give him a chance. Let him prove who he truly is. Mortal… or monster."
"And if he chooses wrong?"
"Then the Heavens shall burn again."
---
And deep within the ruined chambers of the Eighth Sky, in a prison made of silence, a chained figure stirred.
Its mouth opened, whispering a name.
Mingyao.
And the chains cracked—just a little.
---