The sky bled orange above the edges of Varn.
No torches burned this high. No gates marked the border. Just jagged stone and silence — the cliff-line of the known world. Beyond it, nothing but floating debris and sky currents. Death for anyone without wings.
Ming stood at the edge.
The fire inside her had been quiet for a day. Not gone. Just watching. Letting her walk. Letting her breathe.
But she felt it now.
A stirring.
Like something preparing to speak.
Taren caught up behind her, panting. He was carrying too much. Still thinking like a student. Preparing for travel, not exile.
"There's nowhere to go," he said.
"There's everywhere to go," she replied.
He looked past her shoulder, saw only clouds and scattered rock floating like islands that forgot how to land.
"No one crosses this. No path. No rope. No platform."
"I'm not walking," she said.
And then she stepped off.
Taren didn't scream.
He just ran to the edge and stared.
Below, nothing.
Then — flame.
It didn't erupt.
It caught her.
A circle of fire bloomed beneath her feet — not burning the air, but bending it. Holding it. Cradling her. Her descent slowed. Her body hovered.
She didn't summon it.
It answered.
The circle flickered.
Then expanded.
She hovered down toward a floating platform — a broken piece of the world's ancient crust, forgotten by maps, shielded by turbulence.
She landed without sound.
And the second she did, the fire inside her opened its eyes.
The pain hit first.
Not sharp.
Wide.
Like her bones cracked inward.
She fell to one knee.
Not from weakness — from overload.
Lines of gold and white traced up her arms. Her mark flared again — and this time, burned into her skin like a seal rewriting itself.
Inside her mind, the world shook.
And then she heard it.
Not a voice.
Not Bo.
Not the flame.
Something else.
Something older.
🔥 [SYSTEM ROOT FOUND]
🔥 [VESSEL IDENTIFIED: "MING LI"]
🔥 [INITIATING FLAME VEIN RESONANCE]
She gasped.
Words formed behind her eyes. Not written. Etched. As if seared into her brain with fire itself.
🔥 NAME: MING LI
🔥 FLAME VEIN CAPACITY: 19% Awakened
🔥 SYSTEM CORE: UNSTABLE (Dual Source Detected)
🔥 PRIMARY SIGNATURE: "BO" (Dormant)
🔥 SECONDARY SIGNATURE: UNKNOWN (Locked)
🔥 FLAME COMMAND LEVEL: 1
🔥 SYSTEM RESPONSE: RECOGNITION GRANTED
Then silence.
She tried to breathe.
Her chest rose too fast. Her eyes stayed wide. The sky above shimmered.
And then the system whispered something else.
Not data.
Not numbers.
A sentence.
"You are not like them. They shaped flame. You were shaped by it."
She pressed her palm to the ground.
Fire answered.
Soft. Alive.
The platform itself lit up — lines, glyphs, not in the Sect's language, but something older. The entire floating stone began to move — not upward, but outward. Sliding through the air toward a string of nearby isles no one had mapped in centuries.
Taren was still standing at the cliff's edge when a bridge of fire extended to him.
Not a rope.
Not stone.
A path.
He stepped onto it slowly, jaw clenched.
"You said you weren't walking."
"I'm not," Ming said. "It is."
He followed without speaking again.
When they reached the center of the platform, the glyphs underfoot pulsed.
And the system returned.
🔥 [UNLOCKED: ANCESTRAL DOMAIN: ORIGIN FLAME SHRINE]
🔥 [BONUS: +1 COMMAND SLOT]
🔥 [NEW STATUS: FLAMECHOSEN (Unconfirmed)]
🔥 [WARNING: SECT ECHO TRACE DETECTED]
Ming stood taller.
The pain was fading.
But the weight was not.
Taren looked around. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere the Sect forgot on purpose."
"What do we do now?"
Ming turned to the edge.
The wind had changed.
Her flame had grown.
And the system wasn't silent anymore.
She looked down at her hands.
They weren't glowing.
But they weren't still, either.
She raised one.
A symbol appeared — hovering above her palm, just for her eyes.
🔥 [FLAME COMMAND: IGNITE CORE]
🔥 [COST: 8% Vein Burn]
🔥 [DANGER: MEMORY BLEED POSSIBLE]
🔥 [PROCEED?]
She hesitated.
Then spoke one word:
"Yes."
The fire erupted.
But it didn't lash out.
It folded inward — around her body, around her mind.
And it didn't hurt.
It opened her.
For the first time, she saw it — a glimpse, no more than a second, but enough:
A memory not hers.
A war.
Flame cities falling.
People screaming.
A girl with silver fire tearing through the sky while everything below begged for mercy.
And the second voice inside her — not Bo, not the system — spoke.
"That was the last one who carried me."
"She chose vengeance."
"What will you choose?"
Ming opened her eyes.
Taren was staring at her.
So were the flames.
She didn't answer the voice.
Not yet.
But the system did.
🔥 [DECISION: DEFERRED]
🔥 [REWARD: SYSTEM ACCESS FULLY GRANTED]
🔥 [WELCOME, CARRIER OF THE FORGOTTEN FIRE]