> [Location: Emberveil Nexus – Soul Recovery Chamber, Hall of Threads]
Time Since Extraction: 13 Hours
Recovered: 12 Initiates (Age Range: 13–17)
Special Note: 1 Initiate Detected with Unknown Flame Architecture – System Classification: "Unquantifiable"
---
Awakening
The Hall of Threads was quiet, lit by soft-blue flamebeads. The rescued initiates lay in stasis circles, monitored by Nexus medics and Lin Suyin's interface glyphs.
Jiang Han stood near the central ring, where one girl—barely fifteen—tossed restlessly in her sleep.
She wore Sovereign restraints around her wrists, long since cut off. Her flame pulsed wrong—not chaotic, not corrupted… but alien.
Tian Xue joined him.
> "She's the one?"
> "Suyin says her flame structure doesn't follow thread law. It doesn't layer. It folds."
> "Meaning?"
> "Meaning she isn't just unregistered."
> "She's impossible."
---
Her Name is Su Lian
The girl woke slowly, eyes the color of starfire—silver streaked with ocean flame.
She looked at Jiang, then Tian Xue.
And whispered:
> "Are we safe?"
Jiang crouched down.
> "You are now. I'm Jiang Han. This is Tian Xue."
She blinked. "I know your name. You were in the lockdown lists. The one with the chaos flame."
> "And you?" Tian Xue asked. "What did they lock you up for?"
Su Lian looked at her hands.
> "I built a system."
---
The Spark Blueprint
In the strategy chamber, Su Lian sat beside a projection flame, drawing flame code glyphs in the air.
Her architecture wasn't made of threads or pulses.
It was loops. Self-sustaining runes that rewrote their own permissions.
> "I called it the Echo Net," she explained. "It was supposed to give low-rankers access to small upgrades in a shared pool."
> "The Sovereigns called it 'illegal replication.' Said it weakened the hierarchy."
> "They shut it down… and locked me away."
Jiang stared at the code.
> "This could give anyone a fighting chance."
> "It could also crash the entire system if misused," Lin Suyin added grimly. "It's flame socialism."
> "It's hope," Tian Xue said. "If we use it right."
---
Echo Net: Experimental Integration
Yan Feng, Lin Suyin, and Jiang debated for hours before testing a controlled version of Su Lian's structure.
The result?
It worked.
Jiang's minor movement thread increased by 0.8%—not much, but permanently.
And it had cost him nothing.
Instead, it was pooled from unused ambient flame, drawn from the Nexus itself.
> [System Integration Notice: "Echo Net Node" Added to Emberveil Network]
Nexus-wide buff activated: Shared Talent Pool Efficiency +2.1%
Su Lian stepped back from the projection.
> "I never wanted to lead a war."
> "But if this helps you win…"
> "Then I want to help burn their story down."