Dawn broke with a strange hue—orange bleeding into deep violet—as if the heavens themselves sensed a storm was on the horizon. The mountain peaks of the northern ranges shivered beneath the wind, their silence not from peace, but from anticipation.
Jinhyuk stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the valley below. His blade, now eternally etched with azure flame, was sheathed but still warm against his back. The Trial of Ash and Bone had changed him—not just in strength, but in clarity. He wasn't just a reincarnated master anymore. He was a living legacy of powers once thought dead.
Below him, scattered among pine groves and winding paths, lay a small village that wasn't on any map—Fanghill. Remote. Unassuming. And yet, buzzing beneath the surface with energies far too ancient for such a humble place.
"Are you sure this is where the next shard will appear?" Jinhyuk asked, not turning around.
A soft rustle of cloth came from behind him. Hayeon stepped forward, her silver veil fluttering in the wind. "I'm not sure of anything anymore. Only that every fragment of the Celestial Flame you awaken draws something… darker closer."
Jinhyuk glanced sideways at her. Her face was tired—eyelids slightly puffy, lips tight with worry. She had stood beside him for weeks now, never faltering, never questioning.
He appreciated that.
"You can still leave, you know," he said quietly. "This storm… it won't spare anyone."
"And miss the fun?" she smirked, brushing her long hair behind her ear. "Besides, I'm tired of living in fear. If I'm going to burn, I'd rather burn standing next to someone like you."
His throat tightened at her words, but he said nothing.
From the other side of the clearing, a low whistle broke the tension. Kang Jinsu appeared, leaning against a tree, chewing on a stalk of grass like always.
"You two get all sentimental every time we get near danger," Jinsu grinned. "You realize there's a bounty hunter encampment less than five kilometers from here, right? And guess whose face is on the top of their wanted list?"
Jinhyuk raised an eyebrow. "Yours?"
"Ha-ha. Very funny."
But beneath his usual humor, Jinhyuk noticed the subtle edge in his posture. Everyone had started to feel it—the tension. Something was shifting.
Hayeon nodded. "It's not just bounty hunters. The Heaven's Fangs have mobilized too. The last scout I sent out never returned. And… Seiryun was spotted near the Yul Forest."
That name struck like a gong.
Seiryun. The so-called rising star of the Southern Lotus Sect. Cold, brilliant, and unrelenting. And Jinhyuk's rival in this life.
The last time they crossed paths, it had ended in shattered ground and unanswered questions.
Now, Seiryun was moving again.
"Then we need to get to Fanghill before he does," Jinhyuk said, his voice low. "The second Celestial Flame shard is hidden beneath that village. And if he gets it first…"
"We lose the only chance we have at restoring the Flame," Hayeon finished.
Jinhyuk turned toward the winding path that led down to the valley. His hands itched for battle, but more than that, they yearned for understanding. Each piece of his past came with burdens—and awakening them meant shaking the foundations of the Murim world itself.
As they descended, the smell of smoke tickled his nose.
Jinhyuk paused. His eyes narrowed.
"Do you smell that?"
Jinsu crouched, eyes scanning the trees. "Campfire. But not just one. There's a dozen sources."
"They're already here," Hayeon whispered.
Then the screams began.
Down in the valley, Fanghill burned.
Jinhyuk shot forward, feet silent, movement fluid like a shadow dancing with wind. Behind him, Hayeon and Jinsu followed without hesitation.
As they reached the outskirts, the truth became clear—masked mercenaries had stormed the village. Their armor bore the symbol of a silver fang—Seiryun's private militia. They weren't just looking for the shard.
They were erasing witnesses.
"Go left!" Jinhyuk barked.
Hayeon vanished into the smoke, blades flashing. Jinsu dove into the fray with a roar, his staff spinning like a cyclone.
Jinhyuk's focus narrowed on one figure in the center of the chaos—a tall warrior in dark robes with cold, calculating eyes.
"Seiryun…" Jinhyuk whispered.
But as he charged forward, something unexpected happened.
The man turned—and it wasn't Seiryun.
It was someone else.
Someone… disturbingly familiar.
The man smirked. "You don't remember me, do you, Jin Hyuk?"
Jinhyuk froze mid-step. "Who are you?"
The man held out his hand. A flame danced in his palm—not azure, but deep violet.
"I was your brother once," he said softly. "In your first life."
And then the flame exploded outward.
The explosion split the air with a shrieking howl. Violet flames twisted like serpents through the sky, igniting rooftops and snapping trees like twigs. Jinhyuk barely leapt back in time, the force of the blast sending him crashing through a crumbling cart. His arms came up instinctively, forming a barrier of spiritual qi to shield against the residual heat.
The world shook.
The man—no, the specter from his past—stood calmly in the heart of the inferno. His robes flared around him, untouched by the chaos, and the violet flame curled around his arms like an extension of his soul. He wore no mask, no deception. Just a face that bore an uncanny resemblance to Jinhyuk's old self.
Older. Sharper. Tainted.
Hayeon landed beside Jinhyuk, coughing from the smoke. "Who the hell is he?"
"I don't know…" Jinhyuk whispered, teeth gritted. "But he knows me."
Jinsu's shout echoed from somewhere to the right. "They're retreating! Something's wrong—these guys are running like it's the end of days!"
Jinhyuk didn't move. He kept his eyes locked on the violet-flamed warrior. "He said he was my brother."
Hayeon's eyes widened. "You had no siblings."
"In this life, no," he muttered. "But in the one before... I never truly remembered everything."
The man raised his hand again, summoning another torrent of violet fire—but this time, it didn't attack.
Instead, it formed a symbol in the sky.
A lotus of seven burning petals.
Hayeon inhaled sharply. "That's the mark of the Forbidden Flame Sect."
"That sect was destroyed centuries ago," Jinhyuk said.
The man finally spoke, voice carrying unnaturally through the smoke. "You remember so little, brother. And yet, you carry the Flame of the Celestials like a badge of honor. Do you even know what it truly is?"
"I know enough," Jinhyuk shot back, standing slowly. "Enough to protect the people you're trying to hurt."
The man's face twisted—not in anger, but in something more chilling.
Pity.
"You were always the favorite," he said softly. "Always the one the elders protected. But you abandoned the truth. You let them seal our lineage. And now you stumble through this second life, clinging to scraps of power while the world burns."
"Who are you?" Jinhyuk demanded. "What's your name?"
The man's eyes flickered with fire. "Yulheon."
The name struck something deep in Jinhyuk's soul. An ache. A whisper of a memory from long ago—two boys standing at the edge of a cliff, swearing to protect something together.
"I watched you die," Yulheon said. "I watched the Sect burn. I watched the world forget us. But I did not forget. I remembered. I endured. And now…"
His hand extended toward the center of the village.
"I will take what's rightfully ours."
Beneath the earth, something responded.
The ground shook. Ancient glyphs lit up around the shrine hidden beneath Fanghill—symbols from an era even older than the Murim clans. The air shimmered with ethereal pressure. The second shard of the Celestial Flame was awakening.
"No!" Jinhyuk leapt forward, a flash of blue flame exploding from his blade. "You're not taking it!"
Yulheon smirked, violet fire rising to meet him.
The two forces collided mid-air—azure and violet—clashing with a thunderous boom that split the clouds. Spiritual energy surged outward in a dome, ripping apart trees and sending soldiers flying like leaves in a hurricane. At the center, the two brothers danced a deadly duel.
"You've grown strong, brother," Yulheon whispered mid-swing. "But you're still holding back."
Jinhyuk's blade twisted, sliding down Yulheon's wrist. "And you're still drunk on vengeance."
They clashed again.
And again.
Every strike illuminated the truth—this wasn't just a battle for the Flame. This was a battle for legacy. For memory. For two lifetimes that had diverged in tragedy and now collided with fate.
But as they fought, the glyphs beneath them pulsed faster.
The shard was awakening on its own.
"No…" Hayeon gasped, her eyes locked on the light emerging from the shrine. "It's… too soon! It's unstable!"
Jinhyuk's instincts screamed. He broke from Yulheon and slammed his blade into the ground, creating a barrier of blue light around the shrine.
"You'll destroy everything if you force it open!" he roared.
Yulheon laughed. "Then let it burn!"
The shrine cracked.
And from within…
A third flame emerged.
Not violet. Not azure.
But silver.
The sky above split. A wave of unnatural silence rippled through the valley. Every bird, every beast—stilled.
The shard had awakened. But something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
The silver flame pulsed like a heartbeat, rising above the broken shrine in a twisting, ghostlike spiral. It was unlike any spiritual energy Jinhyuk had felt before—neither divine nor demonic. It was cold, ancient, and unknowable. The temperature dropped, frost lacing the grass under their feet despite the lingering embers of battle.
Everyone froze.
Even Yulheon stepped back.
"What is that?" Hayeon whispered.
Jinhyuk didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because for the first time in years—no, lifetimes—he felt fear.
The silver flame hovered between the brothers like a silent judge. Its light cast no shadows. It moved as though alive, observing, thinking. And then, with a sound like a deep sigh from the heavens, it expanded, bathing the battlefield in blinding light.
The world disappeared.
And then, came the visions.
Jinhyuk stood before a mountain of bones. The sky bled red. Cities floated, crumbled, and burned in a sunless void. Around him, warriors screamed—faces familiar and long dead—his harem members, comrades, enemies, and… himself.
He stumbled back into reality, gasping. His heart pounded. His hands trembled.
"Did you… see that?" he asked, looking to Hayeon.
She nodded, pale and shaken. "That was… the future?"
"Or the past," Yulheon said, staring at the silver flame with newfound reverence. "No. That was truth."
The silver flame dimmed, retracting into the shrine like a sleeping god retreating into its dream. In its wake, only silence and scorched earth remained.
The valley was ruined.
The enemy soldiers had retreated entirely—frightened by the unnatural display. Even the boldest among them had dropped their weapons and fled.
But Jinhyuk wasn't relieved.
Not even close.
Yulheon's body flickered as he stepped back, expression unreadable. "You're not ready for what's coming, brother. But you'll need to be."
He began to fade, his body wrapped in violet fire. "I'll give you time. Not out of mercy… but out of necessity."
"Wait!" Jinhyuk shouted. "What is the silver flame?! Why does it show that vision?"
But Yulheon was already gone.
The last echo of his voice drifted on the wind.
> "Because you were never the chosen one, Jinhyuk. You were merely… the gate."
Silence followed. Thick. Oppressive.
Hayeon stepped beside him. "He's gone."
Jinhyuk nodded. "But the shard is still here. And something tells me it's not done with us."
He stepped toward the shrine, placing a hand against the warm stone. The silver glow pulsed faintly beneath his fingers, like the beat of a buried heart.
He would need answers.
And fast.
Because if the vision was true… then the war they were fighting now was nothing compared to what was coming.
---
Two days later, in the heart of the Imperial Capital, beneath a jade palace carved from starlight and moonsteel…
A council gathered.
Figures robed in colors of the celestial clans—gold, crimson, jade, and midnight—sat around a sigil-etched table. In the center hovered a projection of the silver flame, captured through forbidden divination techniques.
A woman with eyes like starlight leaned forward. "It's awake."
Another voice, old and crumbling: "The Gate is open. The fragments are stirring."
A third, cloaked entirely in shadow: "Then it begins. The True War."
---
Back in Fanghill, Jinhyuk stood alone at the edge of the village, staring at the ruins below and the sky above. His robes were tattered, his blade chipped. But his resolve had never been clearer.
He had seen a glimpse of the end.
And he refused to let it come to pass.
Even if it meant facing his own brother again.
Even if it meant unraveling the truth of his reincarnation.
Even if it meant becoming something greater than a cultivator.
Something… divine.