*Chapter 55: Ashes of Victory**

The silence that followed the bandit leader's annihilation was deafening. Li Tian lay on his back in the mud of the riverbank, the Aeternum Core's scar on his chest cold and lifeless, its once-vibrant light reduced to a dull, ashen gray. The villagers' voices reached him as though through water—muffled, distant. Lin's small hands pressed against his arm, shaking him, but even the boy's cries sounded worlds away.

*"Gege…"* Xiaoling's voice, a fragile thread in the void. *"You… did it…"*

He wanted to answer her, to ask if she was still there, but his throat burned as if filled with embers. Above him, the sky churned with smoke, blotting out the sun.

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### **The Weight of Survival**

Meiying's face swam into view, her features blurred at the edges. Her remaining hand gripped his shoulder, her bow slung across her back like a relic of another life. "Tian. *Tian!* Look at me."

He blinked, his vision sharpening. The village—*their* village—was gone. Where the granary had stood, only blackened beams remained, jutting like broken teeth from the earth. The forge was a skeletal ruin, Wen's prized anvil melted into a twisted lump. Bodies lay half-buried in the debris: Old Nan, the weaver, crushed beneath a collapsed wall; Jiro, the youngest of the hunters, his face frozen in a scream.

Lin tugged at his sleeve, tears carving clean streaks through the soot on his cheeks. "Grandpa Wen… he's not moving."

Li Tian staggered to his feet, his legs buckling as the Core's absence screamed through his meridians. Meiying caught him, her arm a vise around his waist. "Easy. You're not healed."

He pushed forward anyway.

Wen lay near the forge's remnants, his branch-leg snapped, his chest caved in by a fallen beam. The star-iron ingot—the one he'd guarded for decades—clutched in his hand, its celestial glow extinguished. Lin collapsed beside him, pressing his doll into Wen's lifeless fingers.

"He said… he said the star-iron was for me," the boy whispered. "For when I took over the forge."

Li Tian knelt, the weight of Wen's death crushing him more thoroughly than the bandit leader's flames. The old blacksmith had been a constant—a gruff, steady presence who'd taught Li Tian to mend ploughshares and temper steel long before he'd ever held a spatial staff. Now, he was gone, and the forge's heartbeat with him.

Meiying's voice cut through the grief. "We need to regroup. The Flame Emperor's scouts will come sniffing once they hear of this."

But the villagers weren't listening. A woman cradling her burned child turned on Li Tian, her eyes wild. "You did this! You brought their wrath down on us!"

Others took up the cry, their voices sharp with anguish.

"Where were you when the Shadowspawn came? Now you return only to bury us!"

"The Core—it's cursed! It's killing him, and it'll kill us too!"

Li Tian didn't flinch. Let them rage. Let them blame. They weren't wrong.

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### **The Burdens of Power**

Night fell, and with it came the cold. The survivors huddled around makeshift fires, their breaths pluming in the frigid air. Li Tian moved among them, though every step sent jagged pain through his Core-scarred chest. He staunched wounds with strips of torn cloth, splinted broken bones with charred timber. Meiying shadowed him, her silence a shield against the villagers' glares.

A child whimpered—a girl no older than Lin, her arm blistered by fire. Li Tian reached for her, but her mother pulled her away. "Don't touch her! Your hands are stained."

He withdrew, his fingers curling into fists. Xiaoling's voice flickered, weaker now. *"They fear what they don't understand… but they'll see, Gege. They'll see."*

Would they?

By the third fire, he found Lin. The boy sat alone, Wen's star-iron clutched to his chest.

"He promised to teach me," Lin said, not looking up. "How to make swords that could cut through Shadowspawn armor. Now it's just… *this*."

Li Tian sat beside him, the Core's scar throbbing. "The star-iron isn't just metal. It's a memory. Of the sky's gifts. Of *him*."

Lin's small shoulders shook. "What good are memories if they don't keep us safe?"

The question hung in the air, unanswered.

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### **The Ghosts of Dawn**

At dawn, they buried their dead.

The graves were shallow, dug into earth still warm from the fires. No one sang the traditional mourning hymns; the village's songkeepers had perished in the granary. Instead, Meiying stepped forward, her voice rough but clear.

"Wen of the Star-Iron Forge," she began, "who gave his life to shield his kin. Jiro of the Hunt, whose arrows never faltered. Old Nan, whose looms wove the cloth that warmed us…"

Li Tian stood apart, the villagers' distrust a wall he couldn't breach. As Meiying spoke, he traced the names of the dead in the ash: *Xiaoling. Mother. Father. Wen.* A litany of ghosts.

A hand touched his arm. Lin held out the star-iron, his eyes red but dry. "You should take it. Grandpa would've wanted you to have it."

Li Tian hesitated, then closed the boy's fingers around the ore. "Keep it. When the forge is rebuilt, you'll need it."

"Rebuilt?" Lin's voice trembled. "How?"

Li Tian turned to the ruins, the Core's scar pulsing with a faint, stubborn light. "Stone by stone."

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### **The Flames of Resolve**

That night, Li Tian climbed the hill overlooking the village. The survivors slept fitfully below, their fires flickering like earthbound stars. Meiying joined him, her silhouette sharp against the moonlit smoke.

"The Flame Emperor's scouts are already here," she said, nodding to the horizon. A distant figure melted into the shadows. "They'll report your weakness."

"Let them." Li Tian's grip tightened on his staff. "The village stays. I'll make sure of it."

Meiying snorted. "With what? That dying relic? You can barely stand."

He glanced at her. "You stayed."

"Someone has to keep you from martyring yourself." She paused. "And the boy… he believes in you. They all do, even if they're too scared to say it."

Below, Lin stirred in his sleep, the star-iron gleaming faintly beside him.

Li Tian's hand drifted to the Core. Its light, though dim, still held a spark. *"We're not done yet,"* he thought, and for the first time since the battle, Xiaoling's voice answered—not as an echo, but a whisper.

*"No… we're not."*

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