The heat of the lower mines never faded.It clung to Kaelen's skin like breath, seeping into his bones until warmth and pain became the same thing.
Days passed. The newly manifested spirits returned to their labor — repairing the molten conduits that ran like arteries through the sect's underbelly.
Kaelen worked in silence. Every strike of his hammer sent tremors up his arm, every breath carried the taste of ash.But he wasn't really focused on the ore. His mind had been turning ever since the Test of Flesh.
The way that formation burned into him. The way the silver flame had answered it.There was something there — a resonance, a pattern beneath the pain.
At night, when the overseers left, he began tracing it.
He sat in the corner of his small cavern cell, the air still shimmering from the day's heat.Before him lay a shard of black metal — a remnant from the vein channels the miners repaired. The surface was etched with faint runes that pulsed with emberlight.
He ran a fingertip over them, feeling how they vibrated faintly, as if alive.
The serpent stirred within him, curious.
"These runes…" Kaelen whispered, "they're breathing. Pulling energy in, letting it out. Like a heart."
The walls around him hummed faintly, and he realized — the entire sect was built upon this design. Runes inscribed into stone and metal, each one feeding energy upward to the main halls.
It wasn't just architecture. It was a living organism.
He leaned closer to the shard, watching the runes pulse in rhythm. His own faint blue essence flared to meet them, and for a second — just a second — the runes answered.
The emberlight turned silver.
A soft hiss escaped the shard, followed by a sudden heat that seared his fingertips. He jerked back, but instead of pain, he felt something drawn in — a faint stream of warmth rushing into his veins.
The serpent coiled tighter in his core, whispering approval.
Kaelen stared at his hand. Faint tendrils of smoke curled from beneath his skin. When he focused, he could see them — thin, glowing threads running up his arm, tracing along his veins like molten rivers.
"Ash veins…" he murmured.
The name came instinctively, as if whispered by something older than memory.
He exhaled slowly. The energy was faint, unstable — but real. The shard had responded to his essence, not the other way around. That meant he could feed from the runes themselves.
A dangerous realization.
Over the next few nights, he practiced.
He learned that each rune carried its own rhythm — inhale, exhale, rest — and if he matched that rhythm, he could pull the energy inward without setting off alarms.
But it wasn't easy. The runes bit back if he drew too greedily. Twice, his fingertips blackened and peeled from backlash. Once, a thread of energy surged too fast and left him coughing blood.
Still, he persisted.
Because every session made the serpent stronger. Every breath fed that faint blue ember inside his chest, pushing back the gray haze of spirit weakness.
The serpent no longer whispered only in fragments. Its voice began to shape words.Feed slowly. The runes watch. The fire remembers.
Kaelen didn't question how or why. He only listened.
By the end of the second week, his control had sharpened. The ash veins beneath his skin glowed faintly even in daylight, hidden beneath a thin illusion of flesh.
But secrecy was vital.
In the sect, power without permission drew attention — and attention meant danger. The hierarchy was ruthless, built like a pyramid of flame.
At the bottom: Forged Souls — those who'd barely survived the Test of Flesh, like Kaelen. Tools, miners, servants.
Above them: Bound Acolytes — spirits given flesh by an elder's rune, allowed to train openly.
Then came the True Disciples, chosen by elders themselves — capable of shaping their own flame.
At the top stood the Ascended Embers — cultivators who'd merged their spiritual cores with the sect's own volcanic heart.
It was said that once they reached that level, their bodies turned half-lava, half-light — and their hunger could consume entire souls in a breath.
Kaelen didn't know if that was true. But he did know this: every level demanded a toll. The Devouring Flame Technique wasn't just a method of cultivation. It was a pact — trading pieces of the soul for strength.
The serpent's whisper returned, quieter now. All flame devours. Learn what to feed it.
He stared into the faint light flickering across his palm. "Then I'll feed it what burns least."
That night, as he knelt beside the molten conduit, a shadow fell over him.
He didn't turn. The footsteps were too light to belong to an overseer.
"Still working after hours?" The voice was low, careful.
Kaelen turned slowly. A young woman stood near the archway — her robes gray like his, but cleaner. Her form shimmered faintly, her manifestation more stable than most.
Her eyes, though, betrayed caution.
"Who are you?" he asked softly.
"Lira," she replied. "Outer Work Division, second cell."
Kaelen nodded. "You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you." She stepped closer, her gaze flicking to the rune shard near his hand. "That's restricted material. If the overseers catch you—"
"They won't."
Her lips pressed into a thin line. "You think you're the first to try stealing flame from the mountain? Most end up ash before dawn."
Kaelen didn't answer. He didn't need to. His silence said enough — he'd already done it, and survived.
Lira studied him for a moment longer, then exhaled softly. "Whatever you're doing, don't do it near me. I don't want to be burned for someone else's curiosity."
She turned to leave.
But before her shadow faded, she paused. "If you can really pull energy from the runes… you might want to stop before the Blood Scribe finds out."
Kaelen frowned. "The Blood Scribe?"
Lira looked over her shoulder. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The one who writes the runes into the mountain. He feels when something feeds wrong. And when he does, he comes to see why."
The air between them grew heavy.
Then she was gone — a flicker of gray light swallowed by the molten haze.
Kaelen stared at the rune shard, its faint silver glow now dimmed.
"The Blood Scribe…" he murmured.
The serpent stirred uneasily, its scales brushing the edges of his soul.
Do not draw his gaze.
Later, as Kaelen closed his eyes and sank into his inner world, he saw it clearly for the first time.The hollow void where his soul should have been was now crossed by rivers of silver flame — the ash veins spreading slowly outward.
And at the center of it all, the serpent coiled around a single ember, watching.
When Kaelen opened his eyes again, he whispered, "We'll need more power before they notice."
The serpent's eyes glimmered faintly in the dark.
Then feed only when the mountain sleeps.