The chamber beyond the guardian's gate smelled of ash and rain—ancient fire long extinguished, and something newer, like earth stirred by memory.
Faint glyphs pulsed along the walls, not glowing but resonating—as if reacting to Sun-Ho's presence.
At the center stood a stone altar, split in three parts. Within the cracks, moss had grown.
But upon its face…
A sigil remained intact.
A flame curled upward, not wild like fire or scattered like wind, but poised—cradled in leaves.
So-Ri stepped forward, brow furrowed. "That's not Na-Eun's."
Sun-Ho's breath caught.
"No," he said. "It's mine."
---
He brushed the stone clean with his sleeve. Beneath the soot and time, script had been carved in two hands. One sharp and martial. The other curved and soft.
Yul-Rin leaned in. "Dual authorship?"
Ji-Mun tilted his head. "Read it aloud. You've got that 'former demigod memory' thing, right?"
Sun-Ho gave him a look but obliged.
> To the flame that will rise when I fall.
Guard the forgotten. Tend the roots beneath war.
When the skies no longer know my name, build again—not loudly, but wisely.
Let mercy be your sword.
He swallowed.
Then, beneath that:
> Verdant Flame—born of ash, fed by kindness, hidden by necessity.
---
Ma-Rok crossed his arms. "A sect?"
Ji-Mun blinked. "Hold on. You had a secret sect founded after you died?"
Sun-Ho didn't answer right away.
He pressed both palms to the stone.
Memories swam—partial, fragmented. A follower. A healer. A boy who had survived the valley and gathered those who remembered Hwan-Seok not as a warlord, but as a protector before the fall.
He had told them to forget him.
But they hadn't.
They built the Verdant Flame—not to avenge him, but to preserve his mercy.
---
A compartment clicked open beneath the altar.
A scroll, wrapped in green silk, lay within.
Sun-Ho unrolled it.
Ink had faded, but the message endured:
> The Council of Embers scattered. We took different names. Hid in gardens, temples, schools.
If this reaches your hands, let the flame be reborn. But not as fire. As growth.
Below that, seven signatures—each followed by a symbol. Some unfamiliar. One bore a crane. Another, a willow tree.
Yul-Rin stepped back. "This wasn't a sect for war. It was a sect for healing. For balance."
Sun-Ho nodded. "Their strength was in what they didn't raise. They protected villages. Smuggled knowledge. Prevented cycles from repeating."
So-Ri knelt beside him.
"You're going to rebuild it."
He didn't answer.
But he set the scroll aside and touched the flame sigil once more.
> "I swore once to burn the world clean. I failed."
He looked to Yeon, watching quietly from the edge of the circle.
> "Now I swear to nurture what was nearly lost."
---
A gust passed through the chamber—not wind, but energy. Ancient. Approving.
The glyphs lit up one by one, forming a ring around the altar.
Yul-Rin stepped back. "The basin is reacting."
So-Ri frowned. "Or acknowledging."
Sun-Ho's qi pulsed outward gently—not a surge, but a signature.
The sigil flared—and then seared itself into the back wall of the cavern, now visible to all.
Not as a banner.
As a seed.
---
As they exited the lower chamber, Ji-Mun kept glancing behind them.
"You're aware this now makes you the founder of two sects, right?"
Sun-Ho arched a brow. "Not exactly something I want announced."
Ji-Mun mimed zipping his mouth. "Cross my heart."
He paused.
"...But you are going to name me Deputy Elder of Snacks, right?"
Ma-Rok groaned.
---
That evening, they camped at the edge of the basin, just beyond the distortion zone. The air felt cleaner—like the land itself had sighed in relief.
Yeon sat close to Sun-Ho, practicing breathing forms with the wooden sword resting across his lap.
"You said it wasn't about revenge," Yeon murmured.
"It's not," Sun-Ho replied.
"Then what's it for?"
Sun-Ho looked into the flames of the fire.
"For remembering. For protecting what might be forgotten."
Yeon nodded. Then added, "Can I join it?"
Sun-Ho turned. "The Verdant Flame?"
Yeon nodded again.
Sun-Ho hesitated. "It's not about being strong."
"I know."
Sun-Ho studied him.
Then smiled.
"Then you already understand the first lesson."
---
Far away—beyond three ridges and two watching towers—a figure dressed in grey robes stepped into a mountain shrine and whispered into a copper mirror:
> "He found it."
From the mirror, a voice rasped:
> "Then he must forget it again. Or be buried with it."
The mirror shimmered.
> "Verdant Flame must not rise. Not when the Five Clans still bleed from what it once protected."
---
End of Chapter 122 – Seeds of a Lost Sect
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