In the drowned sanctum below the Pavilion — where the Crown's mark throbbed like a pulse caught between two worlds — Feng Xian stood motionless, his breath shallow, eyes glazed in meditation.
But the silence around him was lying.
His soul surged, spiraling deeper into the Crown's flame-born core, where memory and vision swirled — and somewhere above, stone met steel, and pain cracked through the flow.
A flash —
A streak of motion.
Vorrin's blade. The Stone-Beast's blow.
Feng Xian gasped, his connection tethered through fire, earth… and something else.
"He's fighting."
"For me."
The Crown's sigil burned across his back, and through it, he felt Vorrin's defiance. Not in words, but in ripples. Determined breath. Refusal. A memory of oceans choosing to rise against cliffs.
A flare of heat surged through his limbs — not his own, not from the Seed core… but from the Leviathan's gift, half-slumbering in his blood.
It stirred.
No flame survives alone.
No stream cuts stone without knowing where to flow.
He stood.
Around him, the sacred chamber groaned — flame-veins along the walls pulsed in response, reacting to his rising will. And in the distance — muffled by stone, water, and ancient bindings — the echo of Vorrin's cry rang out:
"You must go further. The Crown will not wait for the untested!"
The stone beneath Feng Xian's feet trembled.
From within the sanctum, a new path revealed itself — a hidden descent — glowing with symbols that hadn't responded to the Pavilion in centuries. The Crown was awakening again. And with it, something older… listening.
"I'm coming," Feng Xian whispered, fist tightening.
"Hold, Vorrin. Hold the line just a little longer."
And with fire at his heels, he stepped into the deeper flame.