> [Location: Marshlight Cavern – Final Chamber Beneath the Old Relay Core]
Participants: Jiang Han, Yan Feng
Training Focus: Final Flame Lesson – "Formless Flame" (System-Rejection Type)
Prerequisites: Completed Flame Instinct, Chaos Spark, Temporal Step Mastery
Risk Level: Severe – Unstable Flame State May Collapse Core Thread Integrity
---
The Origin Flame
The final chamber was silent, its walls slick with soulglass veined by blue-gold threads.
At the center hovered a single ember—unattached to any fuel, floating in absolute stillness.
> "This is where Long Chen brought me," Yan Feng said quietly. "When he thought he could save the world alone."
> "He didn't show this to anyone else?"
> "He couldn't. Because he wasn't ready to face what he'd made."
Jiang approached the ember.
It didn't burn. It reflected.
It showed himself—but without form, only motion and spark and intent.
> "What is it?" he asked.
Yan Feng's voice turned grim.
> "It's the flame that remembers what came before the system."
> "Before Sovereigns. Before structure."
> "It's the First Spark."
---
Lesson Four: Become the Flame
There was no technique to copy, no stance to mimic.
Only submission.
> "You don't use this flame," Yan Feng warned. "You become it."
> "If you hold back a single thread of control, it'll reject you."
Jiang stepped forward.
The ember floated to his chest and sank in like a whisper.
A soft sound echoed through the chamber.
A heartbeat.
But not his.
Something older.
And then—his body convulsed.
---
The Rebirth Trial
He fell to the floor as a sea of visions overtook him:
A world before cultivation.
Beasts that moved like wind.
Fire that wasn't summoned—but spoken to.
A great shard of light that broke apart the void and became the first Monolith.
And then—he saw Long Chen.
Bleeding.
Alone.
Facing not Sovereigns…
But a figure in white, with no face, standing on the broken corpse of the old world.
> "You don't know who your real enemy is," Long Chen whispered in the memory.
> "But it was never the Sovereigns."
---
The Flame Beyond Form Awakens
Jiang's body went still.
Then rose, surrounded by no flame at all—yet the air shimmered.
He exhaled once.
And the entire cave shifted, not physically, but spiritually. His presence pressed against the very concept of control.
Yan Feng watched, silent.
> "You did it," he said finally. "You became the flame."
Jiang's voice was distant—clearer than before.
> "This power doesn't want to be used."
> "It wants to be understood."
---
The True Enemy Revealed
In the stillness that followed, a final fragment from the Monolith activated—only because Jiang had now unlocked its language.
A holographic imprint formed in the air.
Long Chen's voice played again:
> "If someone's hearing this… then I failed to stop it."
"The Sovereigns were created to prepare us, not rule us."
"But something else took them over. A deeper system. Not from this universe."
"The real enemy… is called the Origin Directive."
Jiang's pulse surged.
> "So everything up to now… was just setup."
Yan Feng nodded slowly.
> "Now you understand. Now… the flame needs you."