"The forge beneath Emberheart was never built for weapons. It was built to hold what weapons could not kill."
— Elder Yun, speaking in secret to the last Flamekeeper
The air grew heavier as Shen Li, Lan Xueyi, and Elder Yun descended the mountain's forbidden path.
This was no ordinary passage. It was a spine of the sect—older than the main halls, carved when Emberheart was still fire and rebellion.
Wards flickered to life as Elder Yun's presence brushed against them, some bowing, others resisting before yielding to the heir's flame.
The stone was scorched black from ancient heat. The very air crackled, charged with leyline energy that hadn't been channeled in decades.
"Why was this place sealed?" Shen Li asked.
Elder Yun didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he paused before a gate shaped like a furnace mouth, bound in nine rings of iron. "Because what was once forged here began to burn the hands of its masters."
He placed both palms against the outer seal. Fire and memory surged through the metal. The lock clicked open.
Beyond it, the air shifted.
It was hotter—but not alive.
It was the heat of something trying not to wake.
They stepped into the Hidden Forge.
The chamber was vast, circular, and eerily silent. Pillars shaped like dragon bones circled the room, glowing faintly with residual qi.
But the forge itself—once central to the sect's rise—was dark.
And yet, it breathed.
Each pulse of leyline energy echoed from beneath it, like a heartbeat trapped in stone.
Lan Xueyi turned, gaze sharp. "This forge isn't just a smithing hall."
"No," Elder Yun confirmed. "It was a seal. A prison."
Shen Li approached the anvil.
Carved into the surface was a name: Yi Wuren.
His father's rival. The exiled flame.
Or… perhaps, the unconsumed one.
Shen Li spoke, voice tight. "What's buried here?"
Yun looked at him.
Then lowered his voice. "Your father's greatest failure."
Elder Yun knelt, drawing flame sigils across the forge floor. They pulsed red, then white, then dimmed.
He reached into his sleeve and withdrew a vial of dark glass.
Inside: a flicker of fire, trapped like a heartbeat.
He passed it to Shen Li.
"This is the last fragment of your father's soul-flame," Yun said. "It was sealed before his death. He meant to use it to reinforce the seal below—but he died before it could be done."
Shen Li's hands tightened around the vial. It was warm. Familiar.
"What do I do with it?"
"You complete what he could not. Or… you burn the seal and learn what he feared."
Lan Xueyi stepped closer. "And if he feared wrong?"
Elder Yun's gaze flicked to her.
"Then the truth will burn us all."
Shen Li looked at the forge.
Looked at the flame.
Then, with steady hands, he cracked the vial and let his father's soul-flame fall into the heart of the anvil.
For a moment, nothing.
Then…
The forge screamed.
Flames erupted—not red, but violet.
Not fire, but ghostfire—the kind that burns not flesh, but soul.
The room shook. Symbols along the walls lit up in sequence. And beneath their feet, the ground cracked.
The forge split in two, revealing a stairway descending into darkness.
From that abyss, a single breath rose.
Old. Faint.
But alive.
Lan Xueyi unsheathed her blade, frost rippling down her arms.
Elder Yun whispered, "He's still there."
"Yi Wuren?" Shen Li asked.
Yun's face was unreadable. "Or what's left of him."
A voice echoed up the stairway, slow and dry.
"Who wears the fire that burned me?"
Shen Li stepped forward.
"I am Shen Li. Son of Yi Zhen."
There was a pause.
Then:
"Then you are not my enemy. But you are his heir. And that is worse."
A shape began to rise from the smoke below—cloaked in black flame, with eyes like dying stars.
Lan Xueyi raised her sword.
But Shen Li held out his hand. "Wait."
The figure paused at the base of the stairs.
"You've unsealed me. You've broken the pact. Do you know what price your sect paid to bury me here?"
"No," Shen Li said. "But I'm ready to find out."
Yi Wuren smiled.
And the mountain shook again