---
The winds over the Southern Trident Sea whispered again—this time with voices. Old ones. Forgotten ones. Names that had not been uttered in centuries.
Deep within the Jade Serpent Branch, Elder Ning stood before the sacred Flame Obsidian Tablet. Its cracked surface pulsed faintly, radiating an ominous heat. His aged fingers hovered above it, the skin on his palm tingling as if it touched ancient fire.
> "Again," he murmured. "It stirred again."
He pressed his hand against the tablet. Memories surged through him—not his own, but echoes embedded in the flame's soul. Images of battlefields where blood fell like rain, of a name burned into the sky, and of a figure with chains coiled around his soul, vanishing beneath the roaring sea.
But this time, a thread connected it all. A thread that glowed with soft silver light.
A girl.
A young disciple, barely beyond her mortal years, had spoken his name aloud—Ash—and the world had responded.
Even the ancients had warned:
> "Should the world speak his name unbidden, the wheel shall turn again."
Elder Ning stepped away from the tablet, his face paler than before.
He didn't fear the world burning. He feared who might reignite the flame.
---
[Far Beyond – Blackflame Island]
A place not found on maps, not marked in sect records, and not spoken of in most languages.
Blackflame Island.
Shaped like a clawed hand reaching from the sea, it had long been abandoned by both man and beast. No wind howled here, no birds flew overhead, and the ocean itself seemed to avoid the shores.
At the center of the island, a crater smoldered eternally with crimson flame—fire that never dimmed, never cooled, and never consumed anything… except time.
Beneath that crater, sealed beneath dozens of ancient arrays, buried in a maze of formations that twisted across dimensions, he slept.
Or perhaps, he waited.
---
[The Sealed Dreamer]
Chains forged from void iron, phoenix bone, and divine jade held the figure's limbs in place.
He floated, his long black hair coiling around him like seaweed, eyes closed. His chest barely rose.
But inside his mind, the world was not still.
Inside, he dreamed.
> In the dream, the sun shone through the leaves of a distant courtyard. Twin moons blinked in the sky like lazy eyes. He sat beside someone—someone younger, hungrier, and full of laughter.
"Why do you always sharpen that blade?" the boy had asked, his eyes fixed on the strange curved sword by his side.
The older one chuckled. "Because it doesn't like being dull."
"Blades can have opinions?"
"They can. If you listen long enough, they speak. Most people just don't want to hear what they say."
The boy fell silent, then smiled. "If mine spoke, it'd probably just complain I'm weak."
"You are," the older one said with a smirk. "But you'll get stronger. You've got... stubbornness."
"…Is that a compliment?"
He laughed again. "Maybe."
> The dream shifted.
Time fast-forwarded. They weren't in a courtyard anymore.
They stood on opposing cliffs—ash covering the ground, fire burning in the sky, the ocean split by a blade's impact.
"You betrayed everything!" the younger one shouted, blood dripping down his chin. "You destroyed an entire kingdom just to reach a higher realm!"
"No," the older one replied, his voice deeper now, heavy with sorrow. "I sacrificed everything so the heavens would finally listen."
"They never will."
> "Then let me teach them fear."
The two clashed—sky turned crimson, oceans cried, stars blinked away.
---
(The First Stirring)
Back in the sealed chasm beneath Blackflame Island, one of the ancient chains cracked.
Not broke. Not shattered.
But cracked.
A fine hairline fracture danced across its length. The sealing formation flickered. Only for a second.
But it had never done so before.
---
[Present ]
Lian Yu woke with a jolt.
Her room in the Mist Petal Pavilion was still dim. The morning sun hadn't risen yet. But her body trembled as if lightning had passed through her.
She clutched the sheets tightly, her breath shallow, her mind racing.
That dream… no, that vision.
It wasn't hers. It couldn't be hers.
She had seen two figures—one like a blazing star, the other like a quiet moon. She had felt their emotions, their bond, and their eventual destruction.
Most of all, she remembered a name whispered in the dream.
> Ash.
But it was not spoken with fear. It was spoken with grief.
"Who are you…?" she whispered, touching her forehead. "Why did it feel like I knew you?"
She stood slowly, stepping out onto the small balcony that faced the sea.
The wind was still.
The waves were calm.
But the air was… heavy.
She wasn't a genius like the core disciples, nor did she possess some divine bloodline.
Yet, her instincts screamed: something ancient had shifted. And somehow, she had stirred it.
---
[Back in the Sect ]
Elder Ning summoned three silent figures, their black robes fluttering like crows in a storm.
"She must be watched," he said .
"But not touched," one of them replied.
"Correct," Ning confirmed. "Not unless she descends the wrong path."
"And if she does?"
Elder Ning looked out the window, where thunder clouds rolled across the distant horizon.
> "Then… let us pray we're wrong about the name she spoke."
---