The twelfth wing unfurled with a screech that pierced soul and sky. It was not phoenix, not divine, not abyssal—it was something else. Liu Shen's pupils contracted as the malformed wing bathed the battlefield in radiant corrosion. Wherever its light touched, both corrupted and pure phoenixes alike cried out as their flames withered into silence.
Even Meixing staggered, shielding her eyes.
"This is no divine gift," she muttered. "It's a parasite... from beyond the Abyss."
Ravahn's grin turned jagged. His veins glowed with threads of golden luminescence, but instead of holiness, it radiated hunger—a celestial virus feeding on the vessel it sought to perfect.
"I offered them myself," Ravahn said calmly. "The Sky Lords needed a conduit to wield what they could not contain. I became the bridge. I embraced the Purifier Flame."
Liu Shen's breath stilled. He'd heard that term only once—within the broken texts of the Abyssal Archives.
Purifier Flame. A forbidden essence said to originate from a place before time. A flame that didn't burn—it erased.
With a single flap of the new wing, Ravahn vanished.
The world blinked.
Liu Shen was sent flying, blood bursting from his mouth as he smashed through a pillar of charred stone. His demonic qi trembled under the pressure—the impact had ignored his defensive layers and gone straight for his core.
This wasn't speed. It was reality displacement.
Meixing moved. Her shadow threads lashed out, forming a dome around Liu Shen to buy a moment. Lei Qing soared overhead, forming a lightning spear to pierce the wing's glow—but the spear dissolved before impact, leaving only silence.
Ravahn hovered above, not even striking.
Merely being was enough to twist the laws of cultivation around him.
But Liu Shen rose again.
Bleeding, shaking, but furious.
His body cracked. The Third Beacon surged at his back, its runes flaring in abyssal script. "So they've turned you into a cage," he said. "And you're proud of it."
Ravahn raised a brow. "I chose this path freely."
"No," Liu Shen said, voice low. "You were broken. And they offered you power so you'd forget who you were."
A faint tremor passed through Ravahn's expression.
Then, without a word, he launched forward again.
This time, Liu Shen met him directly—not with brute force, but with soul resonance. The Abyssal Beacon's memory pulse activated, binding his demonic core to the memories of the Phoenix Rebellion.
Flames of the past returned.
Images of Ravahn—whole, proud, leading the charge beside Liu Shen—manifested mid-battle. Their old moves, their synchronized strikes, played out like echoes. For a heartbeat, Ravahn hesitated as the truth clawed at his mind.
That moment was enough.
Liu Shen struck—not to kill, but to awaken.
He slammed a hand into Ravahn's forehead, releasing a memory seal stored since the fall of the Sovereign Court.
The light from Ravahn's corrupted wing flared wildly—then cracked.
He screamed—not in pain, but in confusion.
Fragments of forgotten days rained from his eyes. The Purifier Flame wavered.
The corrupted phoenixes faltered across the field.
Meixing gasped. "It's working. He's remembering."
Ravahn dropped to one knee mid-air, wings spasming. The eleventh wing folded inward. The twelfth began to flicker.
But the battle wasn't over.
A voice descended from the scar in the heavens—cold, metallic, ancient.
> "Stability breach detected. Host mind unstable. Commencing overwrite protocol."
Liu Shen's eyes widened. "No..."
From above, a divine array formed—celestial code descending like glowing chains aimed at Ravahn's skull.
They were going to overwrite him entirely.
"Ravahn!" Liu Shen shouted, but the corrupted phoenix convulsed, tearing at his own chest.
"I—won't—be—your puppet—again!"
He roared, blasting away the descending light, but it slowed him. The Purifier Flame reignited in desperation.
Liu Shen turned to Meixing. "Now! The Shadow Seal!"
She didn't hesitate. A black lotus bloomed in her palm—the Ninth Shadow Seal, a technique meant to isolate divine interference.
She hurled it at Ravahn.
The lotus struck just as the celestial chains reached his body.
Everything exploded in a cascade of darkness, light, and fractured memories.
When the smoke cleared, Ravahn was gone.
Only a crater remained—smoldering, unstable, echoing with a single phrase:
> "I remember…"
The corrupted forces retreated as their anchor vanished. The skies healed a little—but the scar remained open.
And Liu Shen knew:
The heavens were no longer just watching.
They were intervening.