Three days after Tenji's spark lit on the southern hill, it began to echo.
Not loudly.
Not with firestorms.
But in the silence between rituals.
In the Vale of the Eighteen Scrolls, a Soulfire Judge paused mid-recitation. The glyphs beneath her feet unraveled.
In a drifting monastery once loyal to the Reclaimer flame, six disciples found their paths unreadable.
In the distant Northforge Sect, an apprentice failed to ignite her third-circle soulflame—but didn't panic. She simply said:
"Then I'll light something else."
Back at the Soul Flame School, Wei Lin gathered with Lao Yun and Shen Tai at the archive chamber.
They stared at the growing anomaly report:
🔹 Path: Unbound Root (Tenji)
🔹 Disruption Class: Moderate
🔹 Influence: Passive, Widening
🔹 Flame Sync Status: Not Possible
🔹 Legacy Connection: None
🔹 System Response: Undefined
🔹 Suggested Action: Observation only
Lao Yun closed the scroll.
"He's not doing anything."
Wei nodded.
"That's why it's working."
Shen Tai stepped forward.
"The others want to define it."
"Because if he lights a full flame without a past…"
"…then flame might not need memory at all."
Wei said nothing.
But the weight in the air made one truth clear:
Tenji's spark threatens everything.
Not with destruction.
With irrelevance.
Far away, beneath the fractured stars of the outer wastes, Tenji crouched beside a shallow flamepit.
He had no cultivation map.
No technique matrix.
Not even a soulwheel.
But he remembered the feeling of fire on his fingers.
And he whispered:
"I don't know what I'm doing."
"But I don't want to stop."
The flame pulsed once.
And stayed.
In the ruins beneath the Old Court…
The ash throne flared gently.
A voice not heard in eons said:
"Not chosen. Not sent. Not born of loss."
"But he burns still."
"Let them come now."