The name KaelArdent dropped like a spark into dry grass.
Every head in the square turned. The silence that followed was loud full of sharp breaths, shifting feet, and murmured prayers.
Kael didn't wait.
He turned and sprinted through the narrow alleys of Ashmoor, ducking past the back of the blacksmith's shed, his boots pounding dirt. He could feel it the core inside him flaring, urging him to move, to hide, to strike.
Above, the sky darkened unnaturally. Flames crackled on the boots of the Emberwood Sect's pursuers as they leapt into motion.
"Do not let the vessel escape!" Sister Vael's voice thundered across the rooftops.
Within seconds, three cultivators soared after him, their movements fluid and fast, trailing arcs of flame in their wake.
Kael reached the outskirts of the village and dove into the scorched brush beyond. His breath tore at his lungs, but he didn't slow. The forest offered cover, but not safety especially against flame cultivators who could burn it all down in seconds.
Think. Use the terrain. Don't run in a straight line.
He veered left, crashing through a thicket and stumbling into a narrow ravine where the stone turned black and cracked from old lava flows. He remembered this place a forgotten trench where children dared each other to search for "spirit bones."
Now, it might be his only chance.
Back in the village, SisterVael stood atop the central shrine, her eyes glowing with heat vision. She scanned the landscape like a hawk.
The artifact in her hand pulsed once, pointing northeast toward the ravine.
"Corner him," she ordered. "He's headed toward the Flame Scar."
One of her disciples frowned. "That place is unstable. Even we don't tread deep"
"Then let the fire claim him if it must," Vael snapped. "But bring me the core."
Kael reached the edge of the FlameScar a jagged gash in the land where ancient magma veins still pulsed beneath layers of obsidian rock.
His breath was ragged, his limbs aching. But more than that, his core was burning hotter than ever.
It was reacting to the land.
Kael dropped to one knee, pressing his palm into the black stone. Heat surged into his hand but it didn't burn. It welcomed him. The same sigils from the ruins shimmered faintly across the cracked earth, like a hidden script he was only now beginning to read.
He closed his eyes.
Show me. Please…
The world vanished into warmth.
For a moment, Kael stood in a void of fire and sky. Before him towered a massive wall of flame alive, breathing, divine.
A FlameGate.
And in its center: a single ember, pulsing like a heart.
"Claim it."
The voice returned not from outside, but from within his soul.
"If you run, they will burn you. If you fight, the world will fear you. So choose, Kael Ardent… what burns brighter: their fear, or your will?"
Kael reached for the ember.
In the real world, the stone beneath him ignited.
A pulse of flame erupted from Kael's chest, sending a shockwave outward. The ground fractured. Lava veins awakened. Flames climbed his back like a cloak, not consuming but empowering.
When the Emberwood disciples caught up, they stopped in horror.
"What… is that?" one gasped.
Kael stood slowly, eyes glowing like molten gold. The ember had sunk fully into his core. The FirstFlame was no longer just a whisper.
It was a voice.
"Step aside," Kael said, his voice deeper, layered with echoes.
One of the disciples laughed nervously. "You're bluffing. You don't even have a proper cultivation base. That's just raw power it'll burn you from the inside out."
Kael raised a hand.
The flame coiled like a serpent around his fingers. Then he unleashed it a spiral of condensed flame that cut through the air like a blade.
The disciple barely dodged. A nearby tree exploded in fire.
Kael didn't wait. He moved.
He wasn't fast yet but the flame boosted his steps, turned his instinct into motion. He slammed into the second disciple, igniting his robes. The man screamed and fell back, rolling to douse the fire.
Only one remained standing a tall woman with silver flame gauntlets. She didn't flinch.
Kael raised his fists.
The woman attacked first launching herself forward with a punch that cracked the stone where Kael had stood.
He ducked, then countered with an upward flame strike too slow. She caught his arm and threw him to the ground with bone-crushing force.
Pain exploded in his shoulder.
"You don't even know how to use that flame," she spat. "You're a mistake."
Kael coughed blood. But his fingers brushed the ember within again.
Not a mistake. A spark.
The flame flared.
Before she could land the final blow, Kael rolled sideways and let loose a burst of fire not at her, but at the ground. The explosion launched him backward, away from the ravine, into a thicket of tall stone spires.
A distraction. A retreat.
He vanished into the smoke.
Hours later, night fell.
Kael hid inside a hollowed cavern beneath a ridge of scorched trees. His body trembled with exhaustion. The power had faded. The ember was dormant again, resting after the surge.
He wasn't sure how he was still alive.
But one thing was clear he was no longer safe in Ashmoor. The sect would never stop hunting him. And now the world had seen a glimpse of what lived inside him.
He wasn't just a boy with a rare core.
He was a threat.
In a distant temple atop a sea of clouds, the Flame Oracle stirred from meditation.
She opened her eyes slowly.
"The First Flame…" she whispered.
Her disciples gathered nervously around her.
"It has awakened again. After a thousand years, it burns once more... but not in the vessel we foresaw."
Her gaze turned toward the east, toward the village of Ashmoor now just a flickering dot in the distance.
"A boy with no name in the stars... only ashes."
To be continued in Chapter 4 – "The Path of Cinders"