Chapter 34: Ember’s Call

  “When the fme consumes the sky, will you burn with it—or guide it?” — Unknown

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  The sky was crimson.

  As the Astral Express descended, a sea of smoke and fire sprawled across the horizon. From the clouds, they saw it all—cities burning, volcanic fissures glowing like scars across the nd, and Abyssal corruption twisting the terrain beneath like living tendrils of shadow.

  The warmth wasn’t just heat.

  It was war.

  Inside the cabin, the crew stood ready—gear polished, weapons in hand, eyes focused.

  Kiana stretched her arms, crystal rose still nestled against her chest—its warmth steady, a gift from Elysia that reminded her who she was. Her baseball bat, charred and reinforced with traces of voidsteel, rested on her shoulder like an extension of her will. The training she'd endured with the adepti in Liyue pulsed in her breath—deep, focused, grounded.

  “Hah. Finally. Something I can smash without holding back.”

  Elysia twirled her bow between her fingers, her eyes narrowed.

  “Let’s make it beautiful, won’t we?”

  Lumine was silent. Her sword rested against her back, a faint hum of elemental resonance swirling at her fingertips. Her gaze burned.

  At the front, Noah stood like a statue—lightsaber hilt clipped to his belt, the Void Archives pulsing at his side.

  “This isn’t a mission,” he said softly. “It’s a war. And we fight to protect—not conquer.”

  The Astral Express roared lower, cutting through clouds, fmes reflecting off its hull.

  The nd of Natn awaited.

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  The moment the Express nded outside the fortress city of Caldria’s Heart, war greeted them.

  Explosions rocked the distant mountains. Fire and smoke coiled in the sky. Warriors of Natn fought tooth and nail against Abyssal monstrosities—creatures born of corruption, forged in fire, and wrapped in void.

  Without a word, the four leapt into battle.

  Noah hit the ground first, his lightsaber igniting with a hiss of radiant gold. His presence rippled outward—calm amidst the chaos.

  “Push forward. Watch each other’s fnks.”

  Kiana blinked into reality beside him, blue eyes gleaming—not with rage, but with crity.

  No longer a battle between Kiana and Sirin. They were whole. They were one.

  Her bat hummed in her grip, alive with voidlight—voidsteel veins glowing across its length. It vibrated as if it too was ready to speak.

  “Let’s tear these freaks apart,” she said.

  The bat echoed with a pulse of pyful malice: “Time to py.”

  She twisted through the battlefield in a fsh, void rifts opening in her wake as she bent reality, her swings warping the air and severing monsters in elegant arcs. With every strike, her bat shifted—momentarily sprouting prongs or expanding like a gravity anchor, channeling void energy through kinetic bursts.

  Training from Liyue flowed through her muscles—her breath synchronized, her footwork grounded. Her battle was precise, fierce, and poetic. And this time, her power didn’t scare her.

  It answered her..

  Elysia moved like a dancer born of stars and starlight—each step purposeful, each twirl ced with elegance. She flowed through the chaos like silk in a storm, firing pink crystalline arrows that arced through the air like brushstrokes across a canvas. Wings froze mid-beat and shattered like gss under moonlight. Her ughter rang through the battlefield—not mocking, but fearless, radiant, full of life.

  “Let’s put on a show they’ll never forget~” she sang, voice as melodic as it was resolute.

  Her arrows didn't just pierce—they sang. Each one shimmered with yered magic, a fusion of ice and fme that danced in perfect unison. She pirouetted past a lunging beast, loosed an arrow that curved like a comet, and let it split its target cleanly. Her aura, glowing softly with crystalline fragments of Origin, painted every motion in poetry.

  She didn’t fight to destroy.

  She fought to remind the world that even in ruin… beauty still reigned.

  Lumine dashed through chaos, her bde glowing with a symphony of five elements—Anemo, Geo, Hydro, Dendro, and Electro—each shifting with seamless grace.

  Lumine became a living symphony of elemental harmony—her steps painting the battlefield with strokes of mastery. She pivoted with the wind as Anemo swirled to lift her above enemy strikes, only to descend with Geo crashing around her, forming shields that rippled with protective force. Her bde shimmered blue and swept through with Hydro, water ribbons trailing behind as they sliced through fire and ash. Dendro burst forth with every grounded spin, vines coiling around corrupted limbs and bursting into bloom with timed elegance. Then—Electro surged. Her strikes arced in violet lightning, dancing through the enemies she had already entangled, igniting reaction after reaction in perfect sequence.

  Her stance remained calm. Her breathing, centered. Her power wasn’t a storm—it was a tide.

  And in the heart of battle, Lumine became the bance of the world itself.

  Every ssh was art. Every step—controlled.

  And Noah?

  He was the center of their storm.

  His saber ignited with a brilliant white-blue hue as he moved like flowing resolve—cutting through the chaos with elegance and weight. Each step was deliberate. Each swing, a lesson in restraint and control. His presence wasn’t loud, but it bent the battlefield around him.

  A corrupted give came down—he caught it mid-air with the Force, twisting it sideways and sending its wielder crashing into the earth.

  With his free hand, he beckoned. The Void Archives rotated and shifted, a fsh of ancient knowledge channeling a kinetic bst that cleared the fnks.

  Around him, they circled—Kiana’s chaos, Lumine’s flow, Elysia’s grace. And in the heart of it all, Noah stood—anchoring them with silent confidence.

  They didn’t need to speak.

  Because in that moment, they weren’t individuals.

  They were harmony.

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  From the ridge came a roar.

  A monstrous figure rose—twisted Abyss flesh melded with bckened armor. Wings of magma. A fused abyssal bde dragging through the earth.

  The ground shook as it approached.

  Soldiers of Natn faltered.

  But the four… they didn’t flinch.

  “Together,” Noah said.

  No other words needed.

  They moved.

  Lumine surged forward, raising a Geo barrier just as the beast’s bde crashed down.

  Kiana blinked behind the creature in an instant, sshing into its joints with honed precision—her blue eyes burning like stars, eyes that no longer hid any part of herself.

  Elysia danced sideways, releasing a glowing barrage of arrows. One struck the void-core in its chest. Another pierced through a molten wing.

  And then—Noah reached out with the Force.

  The earth trembled as the beast’s massive body rose off the ground—suspended midair by unseen strength.

  Noah’s voice echoed through their shared bond:

  “Now.”

  Kiana teleported above it, firing void spears into its skull. The bat spun in her hand mid-air, its surface flickering with unstable void energy.

  “Batter up,” she whispered.

  With a deep breath drawn from her adepti training, she focused her center, channeled her pulse into the voidsteel core, and smmed down with all her might. Her bat transformed in an instant—momentarily growing jagged crystalline spines as void energy erupted in a shockwave.

  The blow cracked against the creature’s skull like thunder. The shockwave tore through the creature’s core—fusing with Elysia’s arrow, Lumine’s elemental ssh, and Noah’s rising bde.

  Void met star. Fme met memory.

  And everything colpsed in brilliance.

  Lumine rocketed upward, her sword bzing with all four elements, delivering a downward cleave.

  Elysia fired a final, crystallized arrow—shattering the corrupted core.

  Noah leapt st, saber cleaving the darkness in two.

  The explosion that followed lit up the ridge with white-blue light.

  Dust settled.

  Ash fell like snow.

  The four stood in silence—breathing as one. Moving as one. Eyes locked in unspoken trust.

  One of the warriors nearby whispered in awe:

  “They move… like they share a single soul.”

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  After the battle, the group was led into the war camp behind Caldria’s Heart.

  Tents lined the charred stone. Bckened banners waved in the heat. Wounded soldiers trained in silence. Children hid behind barrels, eyes wide—but watching. There was fear, yes. But there was also something else. Fire that hadn’t been extinguished. The same kind of fire that refused to die, even when the world burned.

  The camp hushed as they passed—whispers trailing behind them, heads turning. These weren’t just strangers from beyond the sea. They were warriors who had fought like legends.

  At the center of the camp stood Mavuika, Pyro Archon of Natn.

  She stood , armor red as embers, her crimson hair tied back with singed thread. Her eyes burned like the core of a forge—unyielding, unafraid. Her very presence bent the air around her.

  She looked at them not as gods, nor as soldiers—but as kindred fme.

  “You fight like warriors born of fme,” she said, her voice low and rough, like coal cracked beneath steel. “But you burn with something older—like a star that remembers its birth. The Abyss fears that fme… even if it does not yet understand it.”

  Kiana stepped forward beside Noah, her bat slung over her back, the rose at her heart still glowing faintly.

  “You saw what we are,” she said. “We don’t back down. We don’t burn out.”

  Elysia added, “We’ve faced illusions, voids, and things that would’ve shattered most. But we’re still here.”

  Lumine nodded. “And we’ll keep walking. As long as there’s a path forward.”

  Noah stepped forward st. His saber extinguished, but his posture resolute.

  “We go where the stars lead us. And right now—they led us to you.”

  Mavuika studied them all with quiet fire in her gaze.

  Then she nodded once. No bow. No fanfare. Only respect.

  “Then you stand with us. Welcome to Natn’s final line.”

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  That night, the soldiers sang songs—songs that echoed through the canyons.

  Lumine sat beside a young boy and made butterflies from Electro sparks, earning a quiet giggle.

  Elysia spun tales of sky chariots and battles in ice paces, adding dramatic fir to every word.

  Kiana… arm-wrestled half the camp. She lost some. But she ughed through all of it.

  Noah sat beside Mavuika near the central fme.

  “They’ll remember you, you know,” she said.

  “I’m not here to be remembered,” Noah replied. “I’m here to make sure they live to remember themselves.”

  She smiled, slow and warm.

  “You burn quietly, Captain. But your fme is no less bright.”

  “Then let’s burn the way forward.”

  The fire crackled between them.

  Above… the stars shimmered.

  But Kiana’s eyes narrowed toward the northern horizon. Lumine rose beside her, the wind catching her cloak. Elysia followed their gaze—silent, alert. Noah stood st, his hand resting near his saber, gaze heavy.

  The air shifted.

  A cold, dark pulse rolled in from the far north, carried like smoke across the scorched wind. In the distance, silhouetted against the stars, the fortress of bck fme stirred.

  Noah spoke, voice low. “It’s begun moving.”

  Void Archives pulsed at his side.

  “Signal confirmed. Entity: Bck Fme Bastion. Threat level: Absolute.”

  The Bck Fme Bastion awaited.

  And the war had only just begun.