The Phoenix of the Slums

The sun rose over the ruined southern ridge of Tiangang, washing the desolate hills in pale amber light. Wind howled through the skeletal remains of forgotten buildings, pushing fine red dust into the air. It caught the morning light like embers rising from a dying pyre.
Tianming stood alone at the edge of the ridge, eyes closed, listening.
He could hear the world differently now. Not just through his ears—his skin vibrated faintly with the pulse of the earth, and the wind carried whispers that hadn’t existed before. The Sovereign Flame within him wasn’t just a weapon. It was an ancient consciousness—silent for now, but not asleep.
Behind him, Fang Yao crouched beside a pile of rusted metal parts, building something crude but effective: a perimeter sensor. “We’ll get about twenty minutes' warning if anyone tracks our trail here,” he said, snapping a wire into place.
Xiaoqing paced restlessly beside a collapsed pillar. “We can’t just keep running. Sooner or later, the Lotus Remnant will redeploy. If they realize what Tianming took…"
Tianming opened his eyes. “They will.”
Xiaoqing hesitated. “Then we need to strike first. Before they recover. We have momentum—let’s not waste it.”
Fang Yao scoffed. “You want to charge their entire southern command? What are you gonna use—good intentions?”
“No.” Tianming turned. “We use him.”
Fang Yao’s brow furrowed. “Him who?”
“The Crimson Broker,” Tianming said. “Wei Long wasn’t the top of that network. There’s someone else coordinating Lotus intelligence, moving assets in and out of Tiangang. A courier of blackmail, secrets, and assassination orders. The man they call the Ashen Messenger.”
Xiaoqing’s eyes widened. “He’s real?”
“I’ve heard whispers,” Fang Yao muttered. “A ghost in the wire. No known face. But he leaves a calling card.”
Xiaoqing nodded grimly. “A red wax seal stamped with a lotus buried in ash.”
Tianming pulled something from his coat and tossed it to them.
A coin-sized metal disk, matte black, etched with red wax on one side.
“Wei Long had it in his private vault,” Tianming said. “Tucked inside a notebook filled with dead-drop coordinates and ciphered notes. I cracked one of them last night.”
He stepped toward a small table they'd set up from scavenged scrap, where an old map of Tiangang lay spread.
“There’s a transfer point just outside the city. A dead subway line, Level 9—deep underground, in a forgotten station called Baiquan. The Ashen Messenger’s next drop is scheduled for tonight. Midnight.”
Fang Yao leaned over the map. “Level 9’s completely off-grid. Haven’t been maintained in over fifty years. The entire section’s supposedly collapsed.”
Xiaoqing smirked. “Which is exactly why someone like him would use it.”
Tianming looked up. “We intercept the drop. But we don’t just take the intel. We plant a message.”
Fang Yao raised an eyebrow. “To who?”
“To whoever’s above him. Maybe even Madam Yurei herself.”
Xiaoqing’s expression hardened. “You want to bait her?”
“Yes,” Tianming said flatly. “We need to start pulling threads. And she’s at the center of this web.”
Hours later, after careful prep, they moved.
Their path took them through the shattered industrial blocks, past rotting train cars, derailed monorails, and entire neighborhoods lost to time. The further they descended, the more surreal the world became—murals from another era, symbols of a government that had long fallen, and graffiti in dozens of dialects warning of shadows beneath the city.
By dusk, they reached the rusted gate of Level 9.
The door was fused shut, but Fang Yao had explosives.
A small shaped charge later, the path opened with a blast of hot, stale air. The scent of mold, old grease, and decayed metal hit them like a wall.
“Charming,” Xiaoqing muttered, stepping into the darkness.
The trio descended through shafts of flickering light until the station revealed itself—silent, drowned in darkness, its pillars covered in soot and grime.
A single bench remained intact. On it sat a silver case.
Tianming approached slowly.
He placed a palm on it—no explosive signature, no traps. Just a clean container. Inside: an envelope, a crystal memory shard, and another ash-lotus seal.
“He hasn’t picked it up yet,” Xiaoqing whispered.
“Then we’re early,” Tianming replied.
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a new shard—one Xiaoqing had helped him forge. It was filled with false intel, carefully mixed with genuine information—enough truth to be believable, but poisoned in the right places.
He placed it beside the original.
Then he etched a single word on the envelope:
I’m coming for her.
As they prepared to leave, something changed.
The air grew cold.
Xiaoqing spun, raising her pulse rifle. “We’re not alone.”
From the end of the platform, a figure stepped out of the shadows.
Tall, lean, wearing a trench coat soaked in soot. A metal mask covered his face—faceless, with no eyes, no mouth, just a blank slate with ash-streaks etched into its surface.
The Ashen Messenger.
Tianming moved first.
In a blink, he closed the distance, his movements sharper, faster now with the Sovereign Flame humming beneath his skin. His palm lashed out with a burst of pressure that would’ve broken a normal man’s ribs.
The Messenger swayed back like smoke. Effortless.
Then retaliated with a flick of his wrist.
Tianming barely had time to duck as a thin silver wire snapped through the air. It sliced a steel beam behind him like paper.
Fang Yao charged in from the left, plasma blade igniting with a high whine.
The Messenger vanished—literally. He dissolved into ash, scattering across the platform in a burst, reforming behind Xiaoqing.
But she was ready.
She unleashed a sonic charge that disrupted the particles, forcing him back into physical form.
Tianming pounced.
He struck the Messenger in the chest, and this time, he felt resistance. A pulse of flame leapt from his hand into the mask—searing red-orange fire that engulfed the stranger’s face.
The mask cracked.
The Messenger hissed in pain, reeling. But instead of fleeing, he dropped something.
A canister.
It exploded into thick smoke, filling the station in seconds.
When it cleared, the Messenger was gone.
But the mask fragment remained.
Tianming picked it up, still warm in his palm. Inside the cracked piece was a symbol.
A lotus…
Inside a falcon’s claw.
Xiaoqing’s voice shook. “He’s not just Lotus. He’s tied to the Black Falcon Circle.”
Fang Yao swore. “We’ve stirred a hornet’s nest.”
Tianming clenched the shard tighter. “Good.”
He turned toward the shadows.
“Let them come.”