The cavern air grew still—thick with the breath of forgotten things.
Li Tianchen stood before the kneeling god statue, eyes locked on its chained arms. Even in stone, its resistance bled through.
He didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
He understood.
He was looking at the fate he'd been warned of. Not death. Worse—subjugation.
And he wouldn't kneel.
---
As his fingers brushed the base of the statue, a faint warmth spread up his arm.
Not painful.
Not gentle.
Just watching.
Then, from beneath the stone, a thin crack began to glow—faint orange, then bright crimson. The chains rattled once. Not by his touch. By will.
> "You have awakened what sleeps not in silence, Heavenless child…"
The voice didn't echo. It pressed. Inside his head, beneath his ribs, behind his eyes.
He didn't reply.
He'd learned silence had more power than shouting.
---
The glow spread outward in a circular pattern. Glyphs ignited across the floor, forming a ring of ancient flame.
In its center: Li Tianchen.
He clenched his fists. "What do you want from me?"
> "It is not what we want. It is what you've already taken."
He stepped back. "I didn't take anything."
> "You claimed the ember. You inherited the wound. You chose the blade."
The whisper faded. In its place, heat surged from beneath him—then shot into his chest like a spear of molten light.
Tianchen screamed.
For a moment, he wasn't in the cave.
---
He saw cities of flame suspended in the sky.
He saw beings with halos of light bowing before a throne of ash.
He saw the moment a sword pierced the heart of a god.
And he saw it all from within.
---
He dropped to his knees, panting. The burning faded—but not the memory.
It was no illusion.
It was a fragment. Of something older.
Something now inside him.
---
He rose slowly, the cracked blade at his back humming low, almost in approval.
The statue before him no longer glowed. But something had changed.
Its chains?
Gone.
The god no longer knelt.
Its head now faced forward.
Eyes open.
---
He backed away, breath shallow. The cavern trembled slightly. Then stilled.
Behind him, the tunnel he'd entered through had collapsed.
Only one way forward now.
Deeper.
---
Outside the temple, dark clouds gathered.
Far away, a monk with seven spirit marks paused mid-chant.
A scroll turned black at its edges.
And deep in the Cloudfire Sect, a bell rang twice—though no hand had touched it.
The flame that once shook the heavens…
had begun to move again.
---