The falcon's message burned slowly in Liun's hands, its flame leaving no ash.
Eleven days.
That was all the time they had before the Divine Chain was unsealed… and the world changed forever.
---
Inside the war tent, tension snapped like drawn bowstrings.
Ranyi paced furiously. "We need a miracle. No—four miracles."
"We need a wall," Ning'er muttered, folding her arms. "Not just formations. Something bigger. Something… living."
Yan Wudi stared at the valley map, then slammed his fist into the stone table.
"No. We can't win by holding ground. Not against the Divine Chain. If that thing is what I think it is..."
He looked up, eyes grim.
> "We have to divide the chain before it reaches us. Break it before it breaks the world."
---
Shen Liun said nothing.
He stood still, eyes closed, breathing in the ember's warmth inside his chest.
> "A wall won't stop it," Aoshen murmured.
"But unity might."
Liun opened his eyes.
"We don't fight the Chain alone."
He pointed to the map. Three mountain ranges. Four shattered sects. One forbidden region marked only as The Hollow Sky.
"We spend these eleven days gathering the last pieces," he said. "The broken blades. The hidden masters. The sects too old to kneel."
Ranyi frowned. "They won't answer to anyone. Especially not a boy who burned an Immortal."
Liun gave her a small smile.
"Then we don't ask."
---
Day 1 — The Cradle of Iron
Liun's group rode fast across jagged terrain into the former lands of the Ironheart Sect, destroyed fifty years ago by Imperial decree.
The survivors had vanished into smoke and folklore.
But Liun carried the symbol burned into his arm—Ashen Verdict, and flame that did not fade.
At the cliffs of Skyshard Gorge, a storm of metallic Qi nearly shattered their advance party.
And then from the wind, a thunderous voice boomed:
> "Who dares bring flame into our sky?"
Liun walked forward, robes singed, and shouted up.
> "A man who forged it himself."
Silence.
Then slowly, figures emerged from the rock, iron-armored and aged by war.
An old woman, her left arm replaced by a forge-hammer, looked Liun in the eye.
> "If you lie, we kill you."
> "If you burn true, we follow."
Liun held out his palm.
The Cindervow ember flared softly.
And she knelt.
---
Day 3 — The Dead Lotus Lake
The lake was cursed. Poisoned Qi filled the air. No birds. No fish. Just ghosts.
Here, the Dreamless Sect once dwelled — cultivators who abandoned the body and trained entirely within the Soul Domain.
They were said to have vanished into sleep.
But when Liun stepped into the lake's edge and whispered, "I know what it is to carry a dream that burns," the surface rippled.
And out stepped a woman in flowing white, eyes glowing faint blue.
She was not alive. Not fully.
But she spoke.
> "Our minds are fractured. But our will remains."
> "We shall lend you our echoes."
And across the water, pale figures rose — soul-walkers, each tethered to forgotten power.
---
Day 5 — The Hollow Sky
The most dangerous journey.
A forbidden rift where reality itself twisted — once the site of a battle between three Immortals and something not of this world.
They called it The Wound.
No one returned from it.
But Liun did not hesitate.
He entered alone.
Inside, he saw visions — of his fiancée turning her back, of his father bleeding in the snow, of his own face burned and hollow.
> "You are not enough," a voice whispered.
"You never were."
And to that, Liun said nothing.
Instead, he lit his flame.
And whispered: "Then I'll become more."
The wound howled.
And gave him back a name.
---
He returned three days later.
Eyes darker.
Heart heavier.
But flame sharper than ever.
In his hand was a broken jade talisman etched with a symbol none had seen in centuries:
> Sovereign Flame.
And a voice followed him out of the rift.
> "One last favor. For the boy who dared to look truth in the eye."
---
Day 9 — Return to Hollow Wind Valley
The Ashen Camp had tripled in size.
Reinforcements flooded in: soul-walkers, iron-armored guardians, forgotten weapon masters, broken sect banners re-stitched and flying again.
They came with no illusions of safety.
Only purpose.
Shen Liun stood before them all.
> "We are not one sect. We are not one belief."
"We are ashes. We are fragments."
"But flame lives in fragments."
> "And when the Divine Chain comes—"
"We break it."
---
Elsewhere…
In the throne chamber of the Eternal Emperor, the floor split open.
Rusted chains rose slowly from the deep, glowing with runes carved by fate itself.
Each link whispered a name.
A soul.
A destiny.
And all of them pointed to one man.
> "Bind him," the Emperor said.
"Before he becomes more than flame."
"Before he becomes truth."