Free Web NovelChapter 277: Chapter 277: The Phoenix Brothers
The attacks did not stop. In fact, they grew worse.
Every time Ruoxi moved to a new shelter, the growls of polluted beasts followed her within days. Whether she was in a crowded place or a hidden house, the monsters always found her.
It did not make sense. In a sea of people, the beasts would ignore everyone else just to lunge at her.
Ruoxi stood over the corpse of a massive polluted wolf, her breathing ragged. Her white rabbit ears were stained with soot. She looked at the crowd of survivors behind her...people she had just saved and saw the fear in their eyes. But it was not just fear of the monsters; it was fear of her. freёweɓnovel.com
"They are not just wandering," she whispered to herself, wiping blood from her cheek. "They are hunting. Someone is leading them to me."
As her power grew, so did her influence. She had saved hundreds, and those hundreds turned into thousands. They called her the Saint of Purification. She had followers now...powerful orcs who swore to protect the light she carried.
But even with a small army at her back, Ruoxi felt a cold void in her heart.
Months turned into a year. Then two. There was no sign of the golden griffin. Every time a scout returned from the polluted zones, Ruoxi’s heart would leap, only to crash again when they shook their heads.
She was a leader. She was a savior. But at night, she was just a woman staring at a cold bed, wondering if her husband was dead or if he had simply lost his way in the darkness.
One evening, a group of village elders and powerful warriors approached her. Their leader, a man with greedy, lingering eyes, bowed low.
"Lady Ruoxi," he said, his voice dripping with false respect. "Your son...he is growing fast. A child with his father’s blood and your light...he is a treasure. We should take him to the inner sanctum. For his ’protection,’ of course."
Ruoxi felt a chill run down her spine. She saw the way they looked at her son, little Xing Yan. She could almost see the greed in their eyes.
Were they eyeing her as a piece of candy, someone they could control however they wanted?
That night, Ruoxi sat in the dark, clutching her son to her chest. The boy looked so much like his father...the same stubborn jaw, the same steady eyes.
"I cannot keep you here," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The path I have to walk...it is covered in blood and shadows. If they find out you are my weakness, they will break you to get to me."
She called for two people she trusted above all others: an old couple, Elder Han and his wife. They were retired warriors, powerful and silent, who owed Ruoxi their lives ten times over.
"Take him," Ruoxi commanded, her voice cracking. "Go to the farthest edge of the ruins. Change his name. Never tell him who his mother is unless the world is safe again."
The old woman took the sleeping boy from Ruoxi’s arms. "And you, My Lady? You will be all alone."
Ruoxi stood up, her small frame looking impossibly tall in the moonlight. Her rabbit ears stood straight, alert and cold.
"I am not alone," she said, though her heart felt like it was tearing in two.
"I have my anger. And I have a world to clean. If those people want to use me, let them try. I will become the sun that burns them all."
As the old couple disappeared into the night with her heart’s only joy, Ruoxi did not cry. She could not afford to.
She picked up her weapon and looked toward the horizon, where the darkest polluted zone lay.
"Li Wei...wherever you are, I hope you are fighting...fighting for our future," she murmured.
"Because from today on, I will stop running. I am going to find the person who sent those beasts, and I am going to turn their world to ash."
She turned back toward her people, her eyes glowing with a terrifying, holy light. The gentle girl who hit a silly griffin with her fists was gone. In her place stood the first Queen of the New World.
The world began to change under Ruoxi’s touch. What started as a desperate struggle for survival turned into a holy crusade. She marched through the gray wastes, and where she stepped, the black rot in the soil withered.
She liberated besieged cities and purified dying villages. Thousands knelt as she passed, calling her name like a prayer. She was their queen, a beacon of light in a world of darkness.
But the light was lonely.
During the siege of a crumbling volcanic fortress, Ruoxi found them: two brothers trapped in a cage of enchanted obsidian. The younger one, a small boy no older than her own son, was curled into a ball with a dirty face.
The older brother, Fang Yan, stood over him, his body bloody and broken, still baring his teeth at the monsters even though he could barely stand.
They were from the Phoenix clan, who were rare, powerful, and hunted.
With a wave of her hand, Ruoxi vaporized the iron bars. The purification light did not just kill the guards; it also healed the brothers’ wounds.
The little boy, Fang Feng, looked up at her with wide, teary eyes.
Without a word, he lunged forward and wrapped his small arms around Ruoxi’s waist, burying his face in her robes. He smelled of smoke and fear, reminding her so sharply of the son she had sent away that her heart physically ached.
Fang Yan, the elder, knelt so hard his knees cracked against the stone.
"My life was forfeit," he rasped, his voice thick with devotion. "Now, it belongs to you. My flames will burn only to clear your path, Lady Ruoxi."
As the years pressed on, the three of them became inseparable. Fang Feng followed Ruoxi everywhere. If she sat to plan a campaign, he was at her feet. If she slept, he curled up at the door like a loyal chick following its mother hen.
In his laughter and his stubbornness, Ruoxi found the echoes of the life she had lost. She began to care for him not as a follower, but as a mother.
