Chapter 331 – The Invasion of the Ice Folk, Reborn in the Flame - Part 3

Two full months slipped by.

The year’s final snows still fell when the gate of the first township crashed inward.

Two pale‑skinned men in beast‑hide cloaks shouldered the shattered halves aside as though they weighed nothing. Behind them strode a brute scarred with corded muscle, hefting an axe wider than a cartwheel.

“From today on,” he bellowed, voice echoing down the streets, “you belong to

me!

”

Soldiers and wandering martial artists tried to form a cordon. One glance at the pair carrying the gate—living siege engines—left them pale with shock.

“Wh‑who are you?” the ranking sergeant quavered.

“We are the Flamekeeper Tribe, your new masters!” the axe‑giant roared. “Any man who can fight, who dares resist, step forward! I’ll wait!”

Soldiers in armor and heroes of the jianghu came in flocks, and they fell. No duel lasted more than a heartbeat; bodies littered the square, blood pooling, severed limbs and burst skulls strewn like offal. The giant’s interest faded; he hadn’t even warmed up.

He raised the axe. A hundred more hide‑clad warriors filed in behind him.

Then, there was a glint of steel.

From a distant watchtower, a heavy arbalest bolt streaked toward the giant’s face...and bounced away like a grass straw.

The axe giant touched the spot, still bored, and looked at the tower.

It was solid enough, he reckoned, worth hitting at least once.

“RAAAAHHHH!”

A cyclone of muscle and fur whirled across the square.

Under the stunned gazes of soldiers and heroes alike, the tower snapped in half and tumbled.

The axe giant stamped, the earth trembled, and he took to the sky. He met the hidden black‑armored commander in mid‑air and cleaved him apart. When he landed, a crimson mist geysered outward.

The Nine Flames invasion of Cloudpeak Province had begun. And with it, the distant thunder of Li Yuan’s heart fire burned ever brighter.

“Hahahaha!”

Only now did the axe‑wielding giant look satisfied. He turned to his tribesmen and roared, “This town is ours. Tonight we feast! Food, women, gold, whatever you grab first is yours!”

“Thank you, Chieftain!”

The tribesmen behind him flooded into the frontier township, looting at will. They had brought burlap sacks and rope for just this purpose. Anything they fancied went into a sack and over a shoulder, anyone they fancied was trussed up and claimed on the spot.

Before long, the streets rang with screams. The shrill ones came from women, and the agonized from men. It was the same scene everywhere the invaders marched.

Of the nine tribes of the Nine Flames, six had ridden out—Bronze Clad, Blood Arrow, Trueflame, White Stag, Red Crystal, and Flamekeeper.

The other three stayed behind to guard their homeland.

Even the weakest among the six, the Flamekeeper Tribe, was unstoppable here. A single clan meant over a hundred sixth rank warriors led by a fifth rank chieftain. In a barren place like Cloudpeak Province, such strength was crushing.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Half a month later.

A group of tribesmen from the Nine Flames seized the town where Jen’gal Snow lived. Climbing the nearby slope, they discovered her tiny cottage.

“Huh? Looks like one of our own lives up here.”

“Hey, woman. What tribe are you?” one of them asked.

“Trueflame” Snow replied.

“This is Red Crystal territory now,” the man said. “Go join your people.”

“I will not,” she answered quietly. “I’m waiting for someone.”

Tribal law forbade infighting among the Nine Flames while abroad, so the scouts reported to the Red Crystal chieftains.

Messengers were sent to the Trueflame camp, and soon fellow tribesmen arrived to question Snow.

“Stop waiting,” they urged. “That man is dead. The gods cursed him; he’s burned to ash. Waiting is pointless.”

Snow only shook her head and remained before the weather‑beaten cottage, silently guarding the moment her beloved would return.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Another month passed.

Outside the black market ghost domain, Li Yuan had been seated for weeks—no food, no drink, yet unmistakably alive.

Flames licked every inch of him without consuming him, burning as the Trueflame Tribe’s flame burned. It needed no fuel, destroying nothing. Anything placed on that fire, be it food or iron, cooked or melted in moments.

The blaze formed an egg‑shaped cocoon around Li Yuan, as though something new were incubating within.

Yan Yu allowed herself a hint of relief, but she never stopped watching. If the fire raged out of control, she would drag him back inside and drown them in Yin.

The Yang energy pouring off him had grown so intense that even she felt threatened. She was certain that Li Yuan could easily crush Feng’er, the rouge peddler, or ice coffin ghost, provided he finished fusing with the flame.

Just then, two figures appeared on the snowy path. It was Sheng'er and a puppet escort. The girl’s unhappiness showed plain on her face.

“What’s wrong?” Yan Yu asked.

“Big Sis sent me home,” Sheng'er huffed, dropping onto a rock at the border of the black market ghost domain. “She says I can’t visit Tang Sect for a while.”

“Did people invade from the far west?” Yan Yu asked.

“Mama, how did you know?” Sheng'er blinked in surprise.

Yan Yu handed her a sealed letter. “Take this to Nian Nian.”

Sheng'er’s grin returned. “Great! If I’m delivering a letter, she can’t chase me away.”

She tucked the envelope inside her robe, cast a worried glance at her burning father, and asked, “Papa...?”

“He’s fine,” Yan Yu said softly. “Just normal cultivation. Off you go.”

In Sheng'er’s eyes, her parents were invincible, so she obeyed. The puppet trotted after her as she tossed her hair. At once, a flock of crow took wing, forming a black cloud that bore her aloft.

“Don’t use the crows!” Yan Yu called. “Keep a low profile!”

“I’ll land after the next ridge!” Sheng'er shouted back, already soaring beyond the trees.

Yan Yu watched her vanish into the grey sky, then turned again to the towering cocoon of flame. Worry flickered in her dark gaze. But she stood her post, waiting for the flame to decide whether it would destroy her husband or let him be reborn.

She glanced at Li Yuan and murmured, “What you were worried about...has truly come to pass.”

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

June arrived.

By early summer, the snows of Cloudpeak Province had melted away, and the invaders had finished sounding the depths of their new playground.

They realized they were, for all practical purposes,

unstoppable

. Where once an entire tribe’s full military manpower—chieftain plus a hundred warriors—took a town, now a dozen tribesmen could sack one, so long as they were not worn down first.

At last, they began to meet

peculiar

resistance—poisons, hidden mechanisms, flying needles, puppets. The tricks cost them lives, but not many.

The frontline triumphs made the warriors still stuck on the Evernight tundra restless.

Another wave of tribesmen stormed out.

Soon, the invasion force of the Nine Flames traced the real threat to an organization called the Tang Sect. Its headquarters was based in Coiling Dragon City.

Hundreds of tribesmen stormed Coiling Dragon, seized a haul of Tang disciples and discovered casks of fine liquor. They downed the lot in drunken celebration.

Without warning, the poison bloomed. Every drop of wine had been laced.

Puppets and Tang Sect disciples burst from hiding outside the walls, cutting down anyone who tried to escape.

From a lonely crag in crimson robes, Tang Nian watched it all. The poison was her own blend of burning heart flowers and soul rot grass.

Burning heart flowers could inebriate sixth or even fifth rank martial artists, robbing them of coordination.

Soul rot gross was a precious sixth rank poison herb. It was incredibly toxic, even fatal, but took time to take effect. So a wary warrior could fend it off.

Together? The two herbs made a deadly concoction.

That night 126 tribal warriors died, an unheard‑of route. And the survivors were driven from Coiling Dragon under a storm of blades, puppets, and aristocratic troops. Tang Nian never once stepped onto the killing ground; she directed the board from safety.

All brawn and no brain,

Tang Nian mused.

They’ve never tasted how dark and cruel a human heart can be.

She fingered the sealed letter from Li Yuan, then slipped it back into her robe.

I can handle this invasion without Pops.

Tang Nian’s smile curved like an icy scythe. “Time to show them the most terrifying thing in the world.”

A disciple beside her asked, “Master, what is it?”

“Muscle,” Tang Ling answered solemnly.

Tang Nian lifted the girl’s chin with one crimson‑tipped finger. “Wrong, Ling Ling. The most frightening thing...is the

human heart.

”

She clapped once. A wide‑eyed woman was led forward. She was Cloudpeak Province’s infamous bandit, untouchable until today. In truth she was an undying husk, easy to track once you knew whose domain the Ghost Street belonged to.

Tang Nian leapt from her puppet, powdered the woman’s face, and slowly reshaped her into her own image. Then she slit the woman’s tongue and pierced both eardrums.

“If someone

defects

now,” she said cheerfully, “and offers this Great Matron Tang to the invaders, won’t they welcome her as a friend? And then...we can poison them again.”

Tang Ling stepped forward, fists to chest. “Master, let me go.”

Tang Nian studied her, let the smile fade, and nodded. “Come back alive, and you will be the next sect master of the Tang Sect.”

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

July came.

By midsummer, the tribesmen of the Nine Flames had been tricked and ambushed until their confidence wavered; the dead now numbered over 400. The casualties weren’t higher only because every vial of sixth rank poison hadn’t been used up.

August arrived. The 400 losses stung yet remained bearable. The tribes of the Nine Flames struck back in the battle of

Great-Horse Gorge.

The Tang Sect and the great clans of Cloudpeak Province were beaten.

September approached. Autumn came early. Amid swirling dead leaves, Tang Nian finally relented and sent Li Yuan’s letter to the Nine Flames. The courier was flayed and hung for all to see. The message was refused.

Come late September, the frontier lay in turmoil.

And that was the very moment, after nearly ten full months seated in flames, that Li Yuan’s eyes opened. The egg-shaped blaze poured back into his flesh like a red tide, leaving his body flawless, unscarred, radiant with new power.