It started with a whisper through the slums.
A tremor beneath the ruins. A flicker in the chi-current of the lower stacks.
Then the wind shifted—not because of weather, but because of pressure. A sudden inversion in the flow of energy, like the city itself bracing for impact.
Every fighter still breathing in the wreckage of Neo-Ilium felt it in their bones.
Sunblade had returned.
He didn't descend like a soldier.
He cut his way in.
A streak of chi light cleaved through rooftops and towers alike. He moved faster than sound, every step burning patterns into the world. No announcements. No declarations. Just velocity and verdict.
The Inquisitor had come for Jian Lin.
Jian had barely made it two blocks beyond the shattered Ash Rows when his HUD flared red.
[ALERT: INQUISITOR SIGNATURE LOCKED][DISTANCE: 200 METERS | CLOSING RAPIDLY][ENGAGEMENT STATUS: IMMINENT]
His breath caught.
The map encoded in Kai's chip pulsed in his palm, half-complete, not yet unfolded. He ducked into an alley, vaulted a broken stairwell, and scaled a conduit pipe with shaking hands.
But the name in his HUD wouldn't disappear.
Kavien SunbladeRank: Inquisitor, Black TierLicense: Active Combat Override
And he was accelerating.
They met on the edge of a rooftop shrine, beneath a skyline split between blinking ruins and corporate glow.
Jian landed hard, rolled, came up in a guarded crouch.
A moment later—no noise, no warning—Kavien landed in front of him.
The rooftop buckled beneath the impact. Jian felt the vibration in his teeth.
Kavien was thinner than before. Hardened. Gone were the polished crimson robes and gold-tassel insignias. Now he wore the black matte combat weave of a Hydracores Inquisitor—stitched with null-thread silk and chi-dampening runes.
He looked at Jian with the cold precision of a tool inspecting an error.
"You're still breathing," Kavien said.
"You're still talking," Jian replied.
Kavien's eyes narrowed. "You broke protocol. Burned the Foundry. Defied ten licensing contracts."
"I wrote something they couldn't license."
Kavien didn't respond.
He moved.
The first strike blurred the air—Heaven-Line Fang, executed in four directions simultaneously. Jian ducked the vertical sweep, twisted his ankle on the landing, and barely brought his arm up in time to deflect the follow-through.
He backpedaled.
Kavien was already repositioning—flowing into Chrono-Thread Palm, delayed chi impact that detonated after contact. Jian blocked, but the explosion went off mid-roll.
He landed hard. Ribs screamed.
[CHI REVERB DETECTED – BRUISING ESTIMATED: MODERATE]
Kavien pressed forward, hands behind his back, moving like a ghost of corporate precision. Each strike was a datafile with perfect punctuation. No improvisation. No waste.
Jian couldn't win on rhythm.
So he didn't try.
He broke it.
He pivoted on a crack in the roof. Slipped deliberately.
Kavien's punch missed.
Jian answered with an elbow he hadn't planned, one born in the moment, with terrible balance and even worse form.
It hit anyway.
Kavien staggered, blinking.
"You're fighting without code."
"I'm fighting without permission."
They crashed through the rooftop, landing amid the wreckage of a half-collapsed shrine bazaar. Scattered stalls, shattered prayer drones, broken chi-lanterns.
Kavien landed in a crouch, chi flickering gold-blue around his shoulders.
Jian stumbled into a roll, came up wheezing.
[IMPACT ABSORPTION: INSUFFICIENT][RECOMMENDED ACTION: SURRENDER]
He spat blood.
"Nope."
Kavien tapped his left forearm. A scroll disc flared to life.
[CORPORATE LICENSE: STARFALL REDIRECTION v5.1 – ACTIVE]
A sequence of angle-shifted attacks came at Jian in a barrage—fists snapping diagonally, knees striking through false gaps, chi arcs twisting at ninety-degree offsets.
Jian took three before he could even process the pattern.
His left shoulder burned. His right leg went numb.
[WARNING: CHI SYNC 52%]
He wobbled.
Then smiled.
Because he recognized the rhythm now.
Too perfect.
Too rehearsed.
So he reached back into the oldest part of himself.
Not White Needle. Not Rooted Thread. Not even Glassfire Pulse.
But the sloppy footwork of a street fight at midnight. A bar brawl. A slip-step. A cracked rib punch that shouldn't land—and did.
He threw it.
It connected.
Kavien reeled back, shocked.
"That's not a style."
"It is now."
They fought across four districts.
Each block was a new battleground.
The scrapyard—Jian used broken wiring to redirect chi echoes. Kavien neutralized it with phase-step deflection.
The flooded underpass—Jian kicked through water to veil his movement. Kavien struck through the reflection.
The vertical arc lift—Jian dropped into a spiral descent, bouncing off support beams. Kavien met him midair with a chi-locked clinch.
Every time Jian landed a hit, Kavien adapted.
Every time Kavien adapted, Jian rewrote the answer.
By the time they reached the slum's abandoned signal spire, Jian's arms hung like iron. Blood soaked his sleeves. His chi trembled in his veins like unstable current.
Kavien stood untouched.
Or so it seemed.
Until Jian looked closer.
One eye flickered.
One leg glitched—just slightly—on impact.
Perfect scrolls don't falter.
But copies do.
Jian grinned.
"You're mimicking better than ever."
Kavien tilted his head.
"But?"
"You don't write your own moves, do you?"
He stepped forward.
"I do."
Jian let go of his fear.
He moved into open stance—unguarded.
Breathing with purpose.
The final strike came from the core of his chaos—an unlicensed technique that pulled pieces from every fight he'd ever survived.
A reverse shoulder spin, half-glide into a rising elbow that pivoted on pain instead of chi.
It was too slow.
Too ugly.
Too impossible.
It landed.
Kavien flew backward, crashed through a barrier wall, and slid down in silence.
Jian limped toward the exit.
He didn't check to see if Kavien stood.
He knew he would.
But this time… the Inquisitor didn't pursue.
He simply watched.
Wiped the blood from his lip.
And said:
"The Corps will bury you."
Jian didn't look back.
He whispered to himself as he vanished into the smoke.
"Not before I finish the scroll."