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[White Embers Sect – Inner Territory]
From a bird’s-eye view, the White Embers Sect looked like a celestial forge carved into the heart of Ember Rise Mountain. Etched into lava-scarred cliffs and suspended across flame-breathing chasms were flame-hardened pagodas, meditation caves, and crystalline training halls glowing with warm amber light.
Beneath the ground? Tunnels pulsed with Ashglass Veins, the spiritual lifeblood of the mountain — fragments of a once-living Flame Dao Beast that perished eons ago.
To join the sect was to be branded by fire — to temper body and will alike.
At the very top of the mountain lay the Emberheart Citadel, where the core council governed in silence.
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[Emberheart Citadel – Council Chamber]
Within a circular obsidian chamber, ten stone seats formed a ring around a white-blazing fire suspended in midair — the Heartflame, a living remnant of the sect’s founder.
Only four seats were currently filled.
Elder Ruoyan, the voice of the ceremony, sat on one side with furrowed brows. Flames weaved through his long white beard, casting wild shadows on the table. “The boy didn’t just suppress the flame array. He inverted it.”
“Voidroot,” muttered Elder Lingya, a cold-eyed woman wrapped in frost-silk. “Such an anomaly has not appeared since the Ash Sovereign Era.”
Across from her, Elder Heng, whose molten veins were visible beneath translucent skin, shook his head. “We cannot jump to conclusions. He may simply carry a cursed seed. Let him cultivate naturally. If disaster brews, it will reveal itself.”
> “And what if it doesn't?” asked a fourth voice — soft, but resolute.
A woman stepped out from the shadows of an unoccupied seat. Long violet robes, hair woven with glass threads, and a third eye closed upon her forehead.
High Elder Yanyue.
Once known as the Flame Oracle of the Inner Sects, she had not spoken publicly in years.
> “That mark on the boy’s hand… The Black Lotus… I’ve seen it once before in the ruins of the Withered Reign Sect — just before their dimension collapsed.”
The room fell into silence.
The Heartflame pulsed.
> “Let him remain,” she continued. “Let him train. Let him rise.”
> “And when he remembers who he is… we’ll decide whether to embrace him or end him.”
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[White Embers Sect – Outer Disciple Region | Following Morning]
Kael found himself assigned to Ember House, one of the lesser outer disciple residences built from cooled obsidian and engraved with low-tier flame gathering formations.
His room was bare — a bed of spirit wood, an old training mat, and a cracked window showing the distant pillar of flame that lit the sect’s core.
He didn’t complain. He’d slept on stone floors colder than this.
> “Congratulations on surviving,” came a mocking voice.
A youth leaned against the doorframe, dressed in crimson robes with a flaming saber strapped to his back.
Jin Huai, mid-level Ember Vein disciple. A noble clan son known more for his petty jealousy than talent.
> “A peasant with no backing making such a scene at the Awakening Ceremony? You must think yourself special.”
Kael turned toward him, face calm. “Should I?”
The boy’s smirk faltered. For just a moment, his saber trembled.
“...Tch. Watch your back.” Jin left without another word.
Kael shut the door. Behind him, his hand clenched slightly — the Black Lotus mark flickered under the skin like a dream refusing to fade.
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[Flame Meditation Grounds – Later That Day]
The Flame Meditation Grounds were massive open-air platforms surrounded by floating stone rings, where disciples meditated under hanging embers called Soul Sparks.
Each Soul Spark was a remnant thought of a previous elder — burning eternally, offering insight to those who could match their frequency.
Kael sat down quietly, eyes half-closed.
He reached within.
He followed the path Elder Bai once taught him:
Inhale the earth, exhale the fire… anchor to breath… listen to the silence…
But there was no fire.
There was only…
…void.
A silence too deep.
A stillness that pulsed.
A weightless… watching.
And then —
A voice inside his soul.
> "You carry the seed... Forgotten... Buried... but not dead."
Kael gasped.
The embers around him shifted. Soul Sparks dimmed. One shattered completely.
Across the platforms, elders monitoring the session stiffened.
> “That boy…”
“His mind touched a forbidden frequency.”
“What insight did he glimpse!?”
Kael stood, sweat beading across his brow, heart racing.
“What was that…?”
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[Unknown Location – Somewhere Beyond the Sect]
In the cracks between dimensions, within a drifting shattered realm cloaked in eternal dusk, a figure stirred.
He sat cross-legged atop a floating shrine shaped like a severed skull, surrounded by incense made from Flesh Dao incense, his eyes glowing with burning crimson runes.
A Shadowmarked Cultist, eyes bound by cursed thread, gazed into a pool of black mercury. The reflection? Kael — sitting beneath the Soul Sparks.
> “The Voidroot awakens… and with it, the Seed of Eternity pulses once again.”
Behind him, dozens of masked figures kneeled in silence. Their robes bore the sigil of a half-burnt lotus strangled by chains.
> “We have waited… we have planned…”
“Let the White Embers coddle him.”
“We… will claim him.”
The mercury twisted.
A single eye opened within the pool — dark violet, slit-pupiled, ancient.
It blinked once.
And the pool boiled.
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