The outer sect forests were quiet tonight.
Too quiet.
No insects. No birds. No breeze.
Only the heavy scent of sulfur clinging to every leaf, as if the trees themselves held their breath in anticipation of blood. Somewhere deeper, a figure knelt beside a stone altar — cloaked in red, masked in bone, speaking forbidden words into the dark.
Yun Cheng.
In Shen Yao's first life, Yun Cheng had been his closest friend.
His brother-in-arms.
The one who smiled while placing poison in Shen Yao's cultivation tea.
The one who had dragged him to the Divine Tribunal to burn.
Now, ten years earlier, he still wore the face of loyalty. Still called Shen Yao "brother." Still hid the dagger behind his back.
But tonight?
There would be no backstabbing.
Only fire.
From the treetops above, Shen Yao watched in silence. Wrapped in a shadowweave cloak stolen from a dead spirit hunter, his presence faded into the canopy — undetectable even to peak Kindling Soul cultivators.
The Infernal Immortality System pulsed softly in his soul.
[Sinflame Ledger Update: Yun Cheng — Karma Thread Detected.]
[System Alert: Conditions met. Flame Resonance Node eligible for ignition.]
[Suggested Action: BURN.]
He didn't smile.
Didn't gloat.
Only reached into his sleeve and drew out a scroll of black ashpaper. A simple name carved in soul-ink at the top: Yun Cheng.
Below it, a mark.
No longer faint.
Now glowing red.
"Karma acknowledged," Shen Yao whispered. "Time to collect."
Below, Yun Cheng finished his ritual. He rose slowly, unaware he was already surrounded. Around the clearing, Shen Yao had scattered Ash Thread Glyphs — invisible flame markers that formed a sealing array once triggered.
He'd spent three days preparing this site laced it with spirit-disrupting mist.
Carved dead zones into the Qi pathways.
Every direction was a trap.
This wasn't a duel but an execution which began with silence. Shen Yao dropped from the trees without a sound. Yun Cheng turned — too slow.
Shen Yao struck with his palm.
Cremation Palm.
A ring of white fire exploded from impact, smashing Yun Cheng back through his own altar, splitting it in two.
"—Gah! WHO—?!"
He rolled to his feet, face bloody, shoulder dislocated, expression half panic, half fury then he saw the attacker.
His face twisted.
"Shen…? Shen Yao?!"
Shen Yao didn't answer.
He stepped forward.
Each footfall ignited the ground with soft flickers of silent flame.
Yun Cheng scrambled backward.
"This is a mistake! Brother! Why—"
"Brother?" Shen Yao's voice was cold as void-ice. "Is that what you called me before you threw me to the divine pyre?"
Yun Cheng froze.
"What… are you talking about—?"
Shen Yao didn't answer with words. With a flick of his wrist, he unleashed Void Ash Step, vanishing and reappearing behind Yun Cheng mid-air. He struck with a spinning flame kick that ruptured the air, sending Yun Cheng crashing into a tree trunk that exploded on impact.
Before the traitor could recover, Shen Yao formed a hand seal.
The first time he'd used it in this life.
Infernal Chain Breaker.
A fiery chain coiled around his arm, formed from condensed karmic ash and soul-threaded Qi. It snapped forward like a whip.
It caught.
Yun Cheng screamed as it bound his wrist, then his neck, then his core meridian — a burning noose that seared into his very cultivation path.
His flames flickered out and spiritual sea trembled. Shen Yao reeled him in like prey.
He leaned close.
"You poisoned my tea."
Yun Cheng sobbed. "I—I didn't—"
"You sold my name to the Heaven's List."
"I was forced—"
"You carved the Mortal Lock sigil on my heart with your own flame."
That broke him.
Yun Cheng's eyes went wide.
"How do you… know that?"
Shen Yao's reply was a whisper.
"Because this is my second life."
And Yun Cheng, arrogant as ever, laughed.
"Then you already know how this ends, don't you? You die. The Sect hunts you. Heaven brands you again. You can't escape it!"
Shen Yao didn't blink.
"I won't escape it." He pulled the chain tighter.
"I'll burn through it, my traitor brother." And then he raised his hand.
The Immortal Flame Mark flickered into view on his palm — a half-formed sigil that pulsed with all the hatred, sacrifice, and silence of a soul scorned by Heaven.
Shen Yao pressed it to Yun Cheng's chest.
"No grave," he said.
"No tomb."
"Only ash."
And Yun Cheng burned.
Not like firewood but like a flesh.
But like karma unraveling.
Like fate being rewritten by fury.
His screams were brief. The chains dissolved into embers.
By the time the flames faded, not even bones remained. Only a pile of grey ash and a faint scorch mark in the shape of the Sinflame Ledger's seal.
A whisper echoed in Shen Yao's soul.
[Sinflame Ledger Entry Cleared.]
[Karmic Ash Reclaimed: 1.]
[Flame Resonance Node: First Node Fully Awakened — "Echo of Karma."]
[System Integration: 12% → 18%.]
[New System Ability Unlocked: Karmaflame Pulse — Burn spiritual threads tied to a known enemy for enhanced flame arts.]
[Tribulation Core Stability: 23% — Imminent spontaneous activation likely.]
Shen Yao exhaled slowl and turned away to leave but stopped. Something tugged at him.
A feeling.
A memory.
Yun Cheng's laughter.
"You can't escape it."
He looked to the sky and the stars watching silently then he whispered:
"I'm not trying to escape."
He raised his hand and clenched it into a fist.
"I'm coming for you."
Somewhere, far above, in a realm between clouds and flame— A divine scribe blinked in confusion. The Mortal Lock Ledger shivered. One of its entries — "Shen Yao, Eastern Province, 3rd Tribunal Tier" — flickered.
A second soul signature had bled into it.
Faint. New. Hostile.
Not registered by Heaven's Will.
A whisper passed through the scroll:
"The Sinflame is real."
Back in the outer sect, Shen Yao returned to his hidden chamber. Lian Xue waited, seated cross-legged, her breath calm, her Qi cycling faintly with new rhythm. She looked up as he entered.
"Your flame's changed," she said.
"You saw it?"
She shook her head.
"No, just a feeling."
He said nothing. Only sat beside her and poured two cups of spiritual ash tea.
She drank hers in silence.
Then asked: "Who was it?"
Shen Yao didn't answer right away. Instead, he unrolled the black karmic scroll.
One name was gone but many remained.
He tapped the next one.
Elder Ruo.
Then he looked up, eyes blazing.
"One down."
Flames do not forgive — they consume. And Shen Yao had only just begun to feed the fire.