Two days later.
The Eastern Flame Sect bustled in its usual rhythm—disciples sparring in courtyards, elders giving sermons under sun-soaked terraces, flame bells tolling every six hours. To an outsider, it was a realm of discipline and harmony.
But beneath the surface, something stirred.
Disciples whispered of strange heat rising from the southern ridge at midnight. Of talismans burning to ash before they were activated. Of sparring grounds where flame techniques failed mid-cast and left their casters coughing up soot.
They were right to fear it.
For Shen Yao had begun forging a flame that listens
Within the roots of the Ash-Slumbering Tree, deep in a hollow chamber only the dead had walked before, Shen Yao sat cross-legged. His robes were soaked in sweat, clinging to his skin like molted bark. His fingers trembled, not from exhaustion—but from the tension of control.
Before him floated a flicker. No larger than a candle's heart. Pale orange on the outside, black at its core. It did not dance. It did not waver.
It watched The Silent Flame Seed.
His unique flame root—something not even the Divine System could mimic, for it had never been birthed in Heaven's scrolls and now, it responded to something deeper than fire essence.
It responded to intent.
Shen Yao inhaled slowly, drawing fire essence from the surrounding ash veins, letting it circulate through his Cinder Veins before filtering it into the silent flame.
He had done this seventy-nine times.
Failed seventy-eight but this time, the flame did not resist.
It flickered—once and then it changed.
[Infernal Immortality System: First Soulbrand Ritual successful.]
[Skill unlocked: Whisperbrand Flame — Allows user to embed a silent brand into targets via spiritual proximity. Activates under one of three conditions: betrayal, divine intent, or karmic inversion.]
Shen Yao exhaled—a cold, dry breath.
His palms opened.
The flame floated into them.
It did not burn.
Instead, it vanished into his skin like a serpent curling into bone.
A brand without presence.
A sword without a sheath.
That night, Shen Yao approached Yun Cheng.
Not with flames and rage but with a smile. The kind of smile only a regressor could wear—the smile of a man who knew the outcome of a story still being written.
Yun Cheng stood at the edge of the training courtyard, alone, practicing form-slicing with a double-ringed flame blade.
He turned as Shen Yao arrived, mask of brotherhood slipping into place.
"Senior Brother Yao," Yun Cheng said, tone respectful. "I wasn't expecting company."
"Neither was I," Shen Yao replied. "I've been thinking… about the old days."
"Ah… the Red Mist Trials?" Yun Cheng chuckled. "That was five years ago."
Wrong. It's three. But I suppose you're not counting this life accurately.
Shen Yao's smile sharpened.
"I remember you saved me once. When that fire wraith tried to possess my spine."
Yun Cheng paused, frowning slightly. "Did I?"
"You did." Shen Yao stepped closer. "And now I owe you. So I've prepared something in return."
He extended his hand.
In it rested a small talisman—shaped like a bird with folded wings, its surface layered with strange, jagged calligraphy that did not shimmer like spirit script.
It was muted, quiet and ancient.
Yun Cheng took it.
"What is it?"
"A Flame Listening Talisman," Shen Yao said softly. "Only works once. It activates when someone speaks your name with divine intent. Like if a Celestial Sect assigns you a sin seal. It burns before they reach you."
Yun Cheng's fingers twitched. "That's… extremely rare."
"It's extinct," Shen Yao corrected him. "I rebuilt the concept from what Elder Mo said in his fifth lecture."
Yun Cheng blinked.
"You remembered that?"
"I remember everything especially betrayal."
"What?" asked Yun Cheng.
"Oh! Nothing "
As Yun Cheng walked away, Shen Yao turned his gaze to the darkening sky. The Whisperbrand Flame had already embedded itself.
He hadn't lied.
It would burn the moment divine intent touched Yun Cheng's name but it would do far more than that. It would record the voice that spoke the name and burn the karmic echo into Shen Yao's ledger.
Now, every divine dog that whispered of him would leave their scent. And one by one, he would hunt them through the layers of Heaven itself.
That evening, Shen Yao returned to his secluded chamber. Lian Xue waited outside, holding a scroll with trembling fingers.
"You asked for the internal disciple roster," she said. "Here. I marked the ones who are likely spies."
Shen Yao flipped through it.
Eight names.
Six were familiar.
Two had died before their betrayal.
He marked them with black ink then he circled one name in red: Yu Henshao.
"He's not a spy," Lian Xue whispered. "He's worse. He knows and does nothing."
Shen Yao's eyes narrowed.
"Inaction is sometimes the deepest cut."
"Will you kill him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Shen Yao looked toward the flame lanterns flickering along the corridor. "Because I need a witness. Someone with eyes and guilt but no courage. Someone Heaven will mistake for an ally… until it's far too late."
Lian Xue bit her lip. "And me?"
"You're different."
Her heart seemed to skip.
"Why?"
"Because you burned for me once," Shen Yao said. "Now, you'll burn with me."
Again Lian Xue didn't understood the meaning behind Shen Yao's words.
Later that night, Shen Yao lit a single incense stick inside his chamber. He knelt beside it, staring at the rising smoke. It curled like flame, twisted like memory.
He remembered the screams.
The tribunal of fire.
The Divine Pillars encircling him.
Yun Cheng's face — calm as always — standing behind the execution flames.
"You should've just followed the script."
That voice. That tone.
Script.
He spat.
"I write my own now."
And somewhere deep in his soul…
The Immortal Flame Mark pulsed.
Faint. Dormant.
But listening.
[System Notification: Karma Identified
Voice Signature Linked: High Priest of Celestial Archive. Entry added to Sinflame Ledger.]
[Soulburn Access Unlocked.]
[Next Flame Resonance Node now traceable.]
Shen Yao stood.
Tomorrow, Yun Cheng would leave for his 'divine errand' and Shen Yao would follow.
Not to stop him but to light a trail of cinders from the heel of Heaven's boot to the ash throne he would one day claim.
Fire listens. Fire remembers. And Shen Yao's flame had just begun to speak in the tongue of karma.