The snow had not stopped since the Heavenly Envoy departed.
For seven days and seven nights, the Azure Flame Mountains lay draped beneath a layer of shimmering frost. The sect's sacred flames, once eternal and proud, now burned quietly beneath thin veils of ice, glowing like captured stars in crystal glass.
Disciples whispered that the heavens had cursed them. Others claimed it was a blessing — that the sect had entered an age of duality, of flame and frost.
Only Feixue knew the truth: this was not Heaven's will. It was hers.
---
Inside the Hall of Reflection, she sat cross-legged beneath a waterfall of molten flame that no longer burned. The water fell, glowing faintly blue, freezing mid-drop into delicate crystals that hovered in the air like glass petals.
Her cultivation had grown frighteningly fast — far beyond what the sect's teachers could comprehend.
Each breath she took rippled through the sect's spiritual veins, harmonizing flame and frost into a single current.
The sect's cultivators began to feel strange effects: fire techniques stabilizing faster, meditation growing deeper, inner demons silenced by serenity.
But beneath that harmony, something ancient stirred.
---
Deep under the sect's foundation — beneath layers of immortal stone and flame veins — lay a sealed cavern.
Inside slumbered a forgotten relic: an Ancient Flame Core, a piece of divine fire that once burned during the birth of Heaven itself.
It had been sealed for eons after turning unstable — its divine consciousness fragmented.
Yet now, under the influence of Feixue's aura, the seal began to crack.
Tiny webs of frost crawled across its surface, dimming its chaotic glow. The flames that once raged screamed silently… then began to sing — a hymn of ancient origin.
> "The Origin returns…" whispered the fragmented flame spirit. "The frost that remembers creation…"
And then, as if answering, a pulse of energy spread through the mountain, soft yet vast — like the first breath after a world's birth.
---
Above, the disciples felt it too. The earth trembled, their flames flickered, and every cultivator's core shivered.
Elder Mei Lian rushed to the Hall of Reflection, her face pale. "Feixue! What are you doing? The Flame Core is reacting!"
Feixue opened her eyes. In their depths swirled galaxies of light and frost.
"I am not doing anything," she said softly. "It's remembering."
Mei Lian blinked, trembling. "Remembering? What does that mean?"
Feixue looked upward, her gaze piercing the heavens themselves.
> "The flames here were not born from Heaven's will. They were born from me. This mountain once burned because of a spark I left behind."
Her words were calm — but their weight made even the Elder step back.
> "You… left behind…?" Mei Lian stammered. "What are you?"
Feixue stood slowly. Frost spread beneath her feet, silencing the trembling ground.
"I don't know yet," she murmured. "But the world does."
---
That night, the Azure Flame Sect glowed brighter than it ever had.
Half the mountains shimmered in azure fire, half glistened in silver ice — a perfect reflection of duality.
From the heart of the sect, a vast lotus of frostfire bloomed into the sky, stretching miles high, illuminating the entire realm.
Immortals from neighboring sects looked up in awe and terror.
> "The Azure Flame Sect has… awakened something divine."
"That light — it reaches even into Heaven's Gate!"
"What kind of power could defy divine law itself?"
And high above, in the Celestial Palace, alarm bells tolled.
The Immortal Emperor rose from his jade throne, his golden eyes narrowing.
> "So the flame of Heaven's birth has rekindled… by her touch."
He raised a hand, forming a sphere of divine sight — a mirror showing the Azure Flame Sect wrapped in its frozen glow.
Within that image, Feixue stood beneath the lotus, silent, serene, yet her presence eclipsed the entire mountain.
> "She is no anomaly," the Emperor murmured. "She is remembrance itself."
---
Back in the mortal realm, Feixue lifted her hand toward the lotus of flame and frost.
Snowflakes formed between her fingers, glowing faintly with strands of firelight.
For the first time, she smiled — faintly, wistfully.
> "So you remember me," she whispered to the mountain. "After all this time."
The lotus slowly faded into the night sky, scattering fragments of light like stars. The sect quieted again, but the disciples could not sleep. They could still hear a faint melody in the wind — an ancient, wordless hymn of creation.
---
Far away, in the depths of the Celestial Palace, Envoy Seraphis knelt before the Emperor once more.
> "Your Majesty," she said carefully, "the anomaly has not acted with malice. The balance between flame and frost in the mortal realm has stabilized. Perhaps she—"
The Emperor raised a hand, silencing her.
"Do not speak as if Heaven can coexist with what came before it," he said. "You saw what she awakened. The First Flame bowed to her will."
He turned away, his aura sharp as a divine blade.
"She is not of this era. If she continues to awaken, Heaven itself will tremble. Send the Celestial Judges. If she resists…"
A pause.
> "Erase the sect."
Seraphis's eyes widened, but she lowered her head. "As you command."
Yet in her heart, something rebelled — a faint echo of the awe she felt when Feixue's frost shattered her divine light.
> Erase her? she thought. Or protect her from the very Heaven that fears her?
---
That same night, Feixue stood alone atop the frozen lotus pond, gazing at the moon.
Her reflection stared back at her — but behind it, she saw flickers of memory. A throne of light. Stars kneeling. The sound of endless silence before creation's first breath.
A voice — her own, yet older — whispered faintly within.
> "Remember, Feixue…
The Heavens are your children. But they forgot their mother."
A single tear of silver fell from her eye — it froze before touching the ground.