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He woke in fire.Not warmth, not pain — fire itself.
It licked along his skinless frame, seeping into every nerve that wasn't there, a searing consciousness struggling to remember what it meant to breathe. The world around him pulsed in molten shades of red and black. Rivers of magma ran like veins through a hollow mountain, and the air hummed with whispers that were not wind but souls, torn and twisted, weeping beneath the heat.
Kaelen didn't know his name yet. He didn't know that he had once been human.All he knew was hunger.
Something deep in him — instinct older than thought — told him to reach, to consume the streams of flickering essence that danced at the edge of his senses. They called to him, luminous and fragile, drifting embers waiting to be devoured. When he tried, agony struck.
Chains of red light snapped tight around his spirit body.
He saw them then — sigils crawling like molten insects across his form. Each symbol pulsed with the same rhythm as the flames that surrounded him. Every time he struggled, the heat surged higher.
A voice drifted through the fire."Caught another wretch crawling out of the Spine, have we?"
Figures stepped through the haze — silhouettes of robed men, eyes glowing crimson beneath their hoods. One of them carried a staff of blackened bone, its tip burning with a silent flame.
"It's a newborn," another said. "Still pure. Didn't even take form properly yet."
Kaelen tried to move, to speak, but all that came out was a hiss — a breathless rasp that echoed inside the heat. The man with the staff pressed his palm forward, and a glowing seal imprinted itself upon Kaelen's chest.
The chains sank deeper.
The Flamebound Seal.
"Bind it and take it to the pits," the man ordered. "The Sect needs fresh souls for the next wave."
Kaelen's vision dimmed. His body — if one could call it that — was dragged through corridors of magma and stone. Along the way, he caught glimpses of others: countless spirits chained in clusters, whispering prayers to gods that had long since abandoned them. Some still clung to their human forms; others were little more than wisps.
And all above them, carved into the cavern ceiling, glowed a colossal rune — a sun of scarlet light. It pulsed like a heart.
Through it all, Kaelen remained silent, though fragments of memory flickered behind his thoughts — hands clutching a dying ember, a promise whispered in blood. But when he tried to hold onto it, the memory burned away.
When they finally stopped, he was thrown into a pit of obsidian ash. A thousand faintly glowing motes hovered around him — the remnants of devoured spirits.
"Welcome to the Ashen Spine," one guard sneered. "You belong to the Crimson Vale Sect now. Obey, and you may survive long enough to serve. Resist…" He chuckled. "…and you'll become kindling."
The chains tightened one last time, branding his consciousness with their pattern — a mark that thrummed like a heartbeat.
When the guards left, the world fell quiet.Only the rumble of molten rivers remained.
Kaelen lay still for what felt like hours, listening to the whisper of flames. Slowly, his senses began to return — not through sight or sound, but through resonance. He could feel the energy flowing through the caverns, vast and potent, like an endless ocean beneath the earth.
And within that current, he could see.
Fine, intricate channels of fire-essence wove through the walls — the meridian lines of the mountain itself. They pulsed in rhythm, drawing power from the earth's heart to the sect's forges above.
He didn't know how he could see them. But instinct told him this was no common sight.
Something deep inside him stirred — a quiet awareness, like a second soul awakening.The world shimmered, and for a moment, he saw the faint outlines of how energy moved: how the guards' spiritual flow coiled through their arms, how the seals burned into the stone drew power from deeper veins.
And then the whisper came.
Spectral Meridian Insight acquired.
Kaelen froze. The words weren't spoken aloud; they simply appeared — etched across the inner surface of his consciousness.
He didn't know what they meant. But he understood this much — it was his.
No one else in the pit reacted. They couldn't have heard it.
He tested the vision again, narrowing his awareness to a single flicker of light that passed through the ash. The moment he focused, lines unfolded — pathways of spiritual essence coursing through the mote's core. He could trace them, feel them, even understand them.
He watched how the energy moved — how it coiled, contracted, and dispersed — and something clicked.
If he could mimic that flow… he could feed.
The idea terrified him. And yet, as he hesitated, the hunger surged again — an ache so primal it felt like his being would crumble if he ignored it.
He reached.
This time, the chains fought him, their runes flaring red-hot — but he persisted. The ash around him began to swirl, drawn toward him by unseen gravity. The glowing motes trembled, their faint cries mixing with the roar of magma.
Then—
Devoured.
A single wisp vanished into him. Fire rushed through his being, scorching, wild — and for an instant, he thought he'd burn apart. But when the pain faded, he felt stronger. The flames that bound him dimmed slightly.
Inside him, a flicker of shape appeared — the vague outline of a serpent, dull gray, coiling deep within his consciousness.
He didn't understand what it was. But it watched him — silent, ancient, waiting.
The ash pit trembled as another wave of heat rolled through. Somewhere far above, gongs began to ring, signaling the start of the sect's daily rituals. He could feel power moving — thousands of disciples channeling energy through the mountain's veins.
He lifted his gaze toward the distant ceiling, where the great rune pulsed once more.
A thought came to him — clear, sharp, and defiant.If this was the sect that bound him, then he would learn how it worked.
He would learn its pulse, its structure, its secrets.
And one day, when those crimson flames tried to consume him again —he would devour them.
The serpent coiled tighter in his chest, as though it understood.
Kaelen smiled faintly — his first expression since awakening — and sank back into the ash.The fire didn't feel so suffocating now.It felt like home.