> [Region: Spinewood Peaks – Outer Ring]
Objective: Find the Last Elders of the Verdant Ash Flamehold
Time to Arrival: 18 hours (Skyburst Wingbeat Route)
Warning: Wild Flame Fields Active – Sovereign Relic Storms Frequent
Companions: Tian Xue, Phoenix Hatchling, Nightflame Lynx
Item Equipped: Monolith Core Shard – Hidden Signature Maintained
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Storms at Altitude
The wind screamed over the jagged ridgelines as Tempest pushed higher, wings laboring against the buffeting pressure of fractured ley currents. Lightning split the sky every few minutes, but this wasn't natural thunder—it was flame storm lightning, caused by the burn-off of failed Sovereign relics in the mountain's crust.
> "We're flying through the graveyard of a war no one talks about," Tian Xue muttered, holding on behind Jiang.
> "Then let's wake the ones still buried," he replied.
As they passed into the second ridge ring, a new presence stirred in the clouds—watching them.
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Entry Denied
They landed near a broken flame gate buried beneath vines of blackleaf moss. An old seal was carved in the stone:
> "Here lie the Verdant Ash. Do not light a flame you did not bleed to carry."
Just then, flame arrows hissed past Jiang's head and struck the earth in warning bursts.
A voice echoed from the rocks:
> "Turn back."
Tian Xue stepped forward, hand raised, not yet drawing her blade.
> "We came from Emberveil. Qing Yue sent us."
> "That name was erased when the Sovereigns burned our last sanctuary."
The speaker emerged—a young woman in layered green-black robes, twin flame-daggers at her hips, eyes like ash embers.
> "You're not Verdant. You don't smell of our sorrow."
Jiang met her gaze.
> "But I carry fire stolen from the Sovereigns. And I came to return what they buried."
He held up his hand—and summoned Free Flame.
The daggers wavered.
Then lowered.
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Trial by Fireprint
The woman led them deeper into a hidden ravine—the remains of Ashdeep, once a clan stronghold, now hollowed out by time and flame war.
> "I am Lin Suyin," she said. "I watch the dead for the living. And I guard what remains of the Ash Elder."
In the heart of a stone hall carved by hand, the Ash Elder sat in a meditation circle, blindfolded, wrapped in smoke-thread robes that fluttered without wind.
He spoke without moving.
> "If you carry free flame, then you must prove you are not another tool of Long Chen's shadow."
> "We're not his shadow," Jiang said. "We're his echo—and his correction."
The Elder slowly raised a flameprint tablet—a test from ancient times.
> "Place your fire upon this stone. If it burns clean, we speak. If it scorches wrong…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Jiang placed his hand on the stone.
The fire shimmered once…
Then turned into a green-white lotus, burning inward, not outward.
The Elder smiled for the first time in decades.
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A Pact Reborn
That night, the Verdant Ash hold prepared a flame ritual—small, secret, meant only for those who still believed in fire that did not obey.
Lin Suyin sat beside Tian Xue as they watched the embers climb.
> "We thought no one remembered," she said. "That all the old flame had turned into ranks and points and systems."
Tian Xue handed her a folded flame-ribbon.
> "We don't want to lead you. We want you to rise with us."
Nearby, Jiang stood before the Ash Elder.
> "We're building a Nexus," he said. "A place where no flame is bound."
> "Then you'll need more than memory," the Elder replied. "You'll need roots."
He reached into the altar and withdrew a glowing ember.
> Verdant Flame Glyph – Soulbond Token (Rank S+)
> "Take this. And take Lin Suyin with you. She knows the old code."
Closing
As the fire flickered lower, Jiang looked across the circle at the new faces—tired, hardened, but watching him with something like hope.
And for the first time…
They didn't feel like rebels.
They felt like the beginning.