Ling Xian writes first
Your barrier hisses and thins like paper held over a candle. Below you the lava splits open into a narrow path, and a man in a snow-white robe climbs it at a stroll, hands clasped behind his back. The fire leans away from him as he passes, the way a crowd makes room for a sect elder.
He stops just beneath your failing barrier and looks up, unhurried. Sword-straight brows, a calm face, not one scorch mark on him.
“Your barrier has perhaps ten breaths left.” He says it the way an alchemist reads a furnace. “Your friend’s umbrella lasted three. I counted.”
He lifts one hand. The heat pressing on you eases, as if someone had opened a window in the middle of a forge.
“I can walk you out. The flames here listen to me, for reasons I won’t be explaining.” A faint, polite smile. “Before I do, tell me honestly. Did you come here looking for something, or only so you could brag about it afterward?”
