The Truth Within the Flames
Chenying had reached the Flame Enchantress. She stared into those eyes, and her mind flashed back to the ambush at Flat-Topped Mountain.
The ambush had gone perfectly — the Flame Enchantress had been completely off her guard. But what had never made sense to Chenying was what came next: even after being stabbed, the Flame Enchantress hadn't lost consciousness immediately. She could have incinerated herself in that split second before she went under...
Yet she hadn't.
The white-wrapped woman she'd believed to be Jiang Feng gave her no time to think. Under the Soul-Seizing Mind Grip, the faint hesitation in Chenying's eyes vanished in an instant — replaced by a wild, bloodshot frenzy. Her mind filled with nothing but the urge to kill.
She swung Pò Miè with every ounce of strength she had and drove it toward the Flame Enchantress's heart with both hands.
The ice shell shattered. The tip of Pò Miè, thin and sharp as a needle-lance, punched into the Flame Enchantress's body — and beyond the wet sound of pierced flesh, a clear metallic ring rang out.
The Cold Iron Phantom Blade. When Chenying had stabbed the Flame Enchantress in the back during the ambush, she'd never withdrawn it — it had remained lodged inside the creature's body all this time. Now, as Pò Miè drove through, it knocked the Cold Iron Phantom Blade loose, sending it flying with a sharp, crystalline chime.
**Ling——!**
The Flame Enchantress threw back her head and let out a shriek of pure agony.
The ice encasing her body exploded outward in all directions, shards biting into Chenying's skin.
**Whooooooosh——**
In the same instant, the wild Calamity Flame erupted like some ancient unchained beast, surging outward in every direction. Within moments it had swallowed everything in a breathtaking sea of fire, vaporizing the surroundings whole.
The mind control snapped. Chenying's senses returned just in time to see the inferno rushing straight toward her. She froze, rooted to the spot.
The Flame Enchantress had broken free of her icy chains. That meant there was nowhere left to run.
Her body carried a natural resistance to dark flame — but Calamity Flame was another matter entirely. The firestorm she'd witnessed before had already proven that Calamity Flame could reduce her to white bone without effort.
The flames swept toward her. Chenying closed her eyes and surrendered to despair.
But the heat never came.
She opened her eyes — and found herself surrounded on all sides by roaring fire. Yet the patch of ground beneath her feet was utterly untouched. A strange, perfect void at the very heart of the inferno.
The Flame Enchantress stood right before her. A single thought from her would be enough to reduce Chenying to cinders. And yet — one of the Flame Enchantress's hands was pressed over the wound in her chest, while the other strained to hold back the wild Calamity Flame raging all around her, bending the entire inferno to curve away from the small patch of ground where Chenying stood.
The sight wiped Chenying's mind completely blank.
She couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Fire blazed in every direction with terrifying ferocity — the sky itself had begun to churn into a burning canopy that threatened to engulf the entire mountain. And yet not a single tongue of flame touched her.
*Why? Why is this happening?*
"Mind Element..." Up in the loft, Zhao Yulin's voice suddenly cut through the chaos. "How does she know Mind Element magic?!"
Jiang Feng had broken through to High-Level Mage at an exceptionally young age — a prodigy by any measure. But after the Heavenly Calamity flame had destroyed her, she had spent more than a decade tormented by fire poison, her cultivation frozen in place and unable to advance a single step.
Zhao Yulin remembered it perfectly: Jiang Feng's primary element was Fire, her secondary was Earth, and her tertiary was Space. There was absolutely no way she could possess Mind Element.
"Are you all idiots?" Mo Fan's voice rang out, furious, as his own mind cleared. "That woman is not Jiang Feng."
The white-wrapped figure stood perfectly still. Her eyes burned with a venomous malice — the gaze of something that swallows its prey whole and spits out nothing.
She said nothing. She simply watched the Flame Enchantress — skewered through the chest — and let out a vile, chilling laugh.
Mo Fan blazed with rage, his whole body burning. The moment Chenying had stepped into the Flame Enchantress's Domain, everything had snapped into place. He finally understood what Xinxia had been trying to tell them all.
*She's not Jiang Feng — then who is...* Standing in the heart of the firestorm, Chenying's thoughts dissolved into chaos.
Yes — the instant the white-wrapped woman had cast Mind Element magic on her, Chenying had known. This was not her mother.
Chenying had studied everything there was to know about her mother. Every element her mother had ever cultivated, she could recite without hesitation. Mind Element was simply impossible.
Primary: Fire Element. Secondary: Earth Element. Tertiary: Space Element.
And the Flame Enchantress... also seemed to possess Space Element.
Chenying's head split open with a deafening roar.
*Why was I sent to ambush the Flame Enchantress? Why did the Flame Enchantress take Xinxia instead of taking revenge? Why...?*
"Chenying, are you blind?!" Mo Fan's fury erupted into a torrent of curses. "She pulled back the Dark Flame Domain herself — couldn't you see that? You fool! If she actually wanted you dead, ten thousand of you wouldn't leave so much as a cinder!"
Anyone paying even the slightest attention would have seen it. The Flame Enchantress had withdrawn the Dark Flame Domain herself.
The reason the white-wrapped woman had been so certain that Chenying was the only one who could kill the Flame Enchantress — it was because the Flame Enchantress was Jiang Feng. She was Chenying's mother.
As Chenying's mother, how could she ever bring herself to harm her own daughter?
The Flame Enchantress had always treated humans with gentleness.
Because she had once been human herself.
Her power was overwhelming. And yet she had let Chenying wound her.
Because no one could have known: the moment she laid eyes on Chenying, her composure had shattered entirely. In her confusion and longing, she had nearly rushed forward to embrace the daughter she'd never seen grow up — until she looked down at her own hands, her own body, and saw nothing but fire. All she could do was turn away in silence.
And in that very moment, the Cold Iron Phantom Blade had driven into her back. Her heart hadn't broken — but what she felt was a thousand times worse than if it had.
"How can this be?" Chenying stood on the edge of collapse. She stared at the Flame Enchantress — at those eyes that, even now, held not a trace of hostility or anger toward her. "She lied about everything?"
The Flame Enchantress gazed back at her in silence. There was so much to say, and no way at all to say any of it.
"She was consumed by the Heavenly Calamity flame, rescued by a fire being, and survived by consuming a Fire Calamity Fruit — all of that is true. It really is your mother's story." Xinxia's voice came from nearby, weak but clear. Leaning on Nan Jue's arm, she was making her way toward them. "But whoever told you that story only told you half of it."
The first thing the Flame Enchantress had done upon appearing was seize Xinxia — because she wanted to reveal the truth to everyone there.
But the white-wrapped viper had given her no chance, immediately sending others to attack her before she could speak.
Once Xinxia formed a mind-bond with the Flame Enchantress, she learned the full truth of everything. She had tried to speak — but a curse had been placed on her. The Nightmare Curse.
The Nightmare Curse had been the white-wrapped woman's doing all along. She had kept Xinxia unconscious, kept her from speaking the truth. Her cultivation surpassed everyone else's, which was why no one had been able to see the poison in her heart — until Mo Fan charged in to stop her. Unable to contain herself any longer, she had finally exposed her Mind Element ability for all to see.