A thousand banners snapped in the storm winds.
Ten thousand cultivators knelt beneath a burning sky.
And at the very center, atop the shattered altar of heaven—Ling Xuan stood alone.
His robes were torn.
His halberd dripped blood.
And his chest had been pierced clean through-impaled by the divine weapon of someone he once called brother.
"You…You too, Ziyan?"
His voice was hoarse, yet the fire behind it refused to dim.
Ziyan, clad in robes of gold and crowned with the crest of the Skyreach Alliance, stepped forward with the Void Halberd still pulsing red in his grip.
"You've hoarded the Embers of Eternity long enough, Ling Xuan. The Dreamflame Realm doesn't need kings anymore."
"Only dogs who obey."
The crowd below didn't speak. They didn't cheer. Their silence was worse than betrayal-it was approval.
Even Mu Qingxue, his own fiancée, looked away, her soft voice trembling:
"You were always walking a path above us. I… I never wanted to live in your shadow."
Lightning cracked across the void. The altar trembled.
Ling Xuan's blood spilled down the stone steps like crimson rain. But his eyes… they still burned.
"I raised this realm from ashes," he said, his voice now cold and clear.
"I led you through flame, through storm, through war."
"And now you strike me down… for fear of my flame?"
He laughed.
It wasn't madness. It wasn't rage.
It was prophecy.
He reached behind him… and crushed the final Dreamflame Seed within his palm.
A blast of white-gold fire erupted from his chest, tearing the clouds in half. The very laws of the realm buckled as his final Heaven Veil Flame tore through the sky, carving a scar that would never fade.
The Void Halberd trembled in Ziyan's grip. Even the gods above stirred in their sleep.
"Mark this day," Ling Xuan roared, standing tall even as his body dissolved into flame.
"The sky may fall. The stars may dim. But my flame… will return."
"And when it does… I will burn your lies to the root."
BOOM!
A vortex of fire engulfed the altar. The world shook. The dream realm shattered.
And from that blaze-a single ember drifted away, untouched by time, fate, or death.
That ember… became the spark of his rebirth.
The scent of blood…
The bitter taste of ashes on his tongue…
And the dull ache of betrayal still echoing in his soul. Ling Xuan gasped and bolted upright, his bare back scraping against cold stone. His eyes darted wildly, heart pounding like a drum of war. The world around him was dark—cracked stone walls, rusted iron bars, and the putrid stench of dampness.
"No… this isn't the Heaven-Cracking Altar…"
He touched his chest where the Divine Void Halberd had impaled him a century ago. Nothing. Just flesh, bone… and a faint warmth burning deep inside.
He was alive.
But… not in the same world.
This wasn't the soaring peaks of the Sovereign Flame Domain. This was something else-older, more… desperate. It took him moments to piece together the truth.
"A hundred years… I've returned."
Reborn in the body of a young boy-also named Ling Xuan, the shame of the once-prominent Ling family of Emberlight City. A cripple with sealed dreamveins. A boy mocked by all. Drugged and dumped in a prison cell by those who saw him as trash.
And now… those same cowards plotted to drink his blood.
Outside the cell, voices whispered.
"That kid's blood's soaked with fire marrow from all those useless pills. If we drain him after the cleansing brew purifies his veins… we'll awaken new powers."
"Yeah, Ling Wuji said once he's gone, he'll take over the main branch. We get what we want. He gets the family."
Ling Xuan's fists trembled. Not with fear-but rage.
"You wanted my blood… then you poisoned me, locked me here like livestock?"
"Wuji… you coward. Even after rebirth, I smell the same stench of betrayal."
He shut his eyes, pushing his divine sense inward. A surge of heat welcomed him—dozens of rare pill energies stagnating in his meridians, left unused by the previous owner of this body.
"These were meant to heal a cripple but unfortunately they failed because the cripple was weak. But I am not."
Ling Xuan grinned, fire dancing behind his teeth.
"You've gifted me a treasure trove… now watch how I burn them with it."
He sat cross-legged, drawing the first breath of Blazing Origin Flame Art, a forbidden technique he had created in his past life. With each breath, his blood shimmered, and flame particles rose from his skin like embers in the wind.
BOOM!
Qi surged through his veins like wildfire.
"First Level… Second… Third!"
The cleansing brew that was meant to soften his blood for extraction now became the perfect catalyst. His once-wasted body ignited from within-reforging itself with every heartbeat.
By the next morning, Ling Xuan had climbed to the Peak of the Eighth Qi Pulse Realm, one breath away from forming his first Dreamvein-a feat that the world deemed impossible for him.
The door creaked.
Two figures entered-Mo Feng and Shi Luo-the guards who planned to harvest me like a cow.
"Time's up. Drain him," Mo Feng sneered.
But they didn't see the glow behind Ling Xuan's calm eyes. They didn't feel the searing pressure building in the air.
"You're right," Ling Xuan said softly. "Time's up."
BOOM!
A flaming fist shot through the air, caving Mo Feng's ribs in one clean strike. He flew backwards like a rag doll, crashing through the cell wall and into darkness.
Shi Luo screamed. "W-what the hell?! You-!"
A spinning kick caught his jaw, cracking bone and leaving him bleeding on the floor.
"You tried to eat me alive," Ling Xuan snarled, stepping forward like a god of flame. "So why beg like a pig now?"
"I-I was just following orders! It was all Ling Wuji! He said you were a waste!"
"Did he now…" Ling Xuan's voice dropped cold.
With a casual flick of his wrist, flames engulfed Shi Luo's body. Screams echoed… then faded.
He walked out of the cell barefoot, fire swirling around his frame like a divine cloak. Each step sent heat pulsing through the cracked prison floor.
Emberlight had forgotten the one who once walked its streets in silence. But when the heavens tremble again, my name will once be remembered.
"Ling Wuji. You want the Ling family right?"
"Come take it from me yourself then."
He glanced toward the heavens.
"In my past life, I burned nine stars into the sky and lit the Dreamrealms ablaze."
"This time… I won't stop until even the gods kneel beneath my flame."