Ash Lockwood stood at the edge of the Hollow Ember Quarry, black flame dancing between his fingers, while the corpses of two Yin enforcers lay smoldering behind him.
It wasn't the killing that disturbed him. That had long since been part of his bones.
It was what came after.
Because as the corrupted spirit energy surged through his second Soul Mark and danced with the Soul Flame, his first Soul Mark—the broken, useless thing Feng Yao had been born with—twitched.
A flicker of light, no brighter than a dying ember, flared across his chest. Barely there. But not gone.
Ash froze.
"That mark was shattered," he muttered aloud. "I saw the fractures."
"And yet it stirs," the serpent whispered, coiling in his soul.
"Even a broken star may still burn, if only to collapse again."
Training with a Snake
That night, beneath the shattered roof of a mining shack, Ash sat cross-legged, the black flame hovering above his open palm, casting eerie shadows on the walls.
"You said I'm a stain on their cultivation paths," Ash said. "So teach me something that suits a stain."
"Impatient ape," the serpent hissed. "You mock an art that took millennia to shape."
Ash smirked. "You've been sealed for centuries. Doesn't say much about your own cultivation."
The serpent growled low in his spirit.
"Listen, maggot. Spirit Essence forms the world. Cultivators shape it through one of three Paths: Body, Soul, or Will. Most choose one. A few merge two. Idiots attempt all three and explode."
Ash raised an eyebrow. "And I?"
"You cheat. The Soul Flame twists all essence into fuel. Your second Soul Mark—a thing from beyond this realm—pulls essence unnaturally. You're forging a fourth path without understanding what the first three are."
Ash nodded slowly. "Good. Let's keep cheating."
Signs of the Past
Ash focused inward.
The second mark, the triangle of flame and gears, sat like a blazing forge in his soul. It drew energy in pulses, refining even corrupted essence into raw usable power.
But next to it… the first mark—shaped like a fractured phoenix—glimmered weakly, veins of silver light threading through its once-dead lines.
"What's happening to it?" Ash asked.
"Feng Yao was born with a damaged Soul Mark," the serpent replied. "But it was not worthless. No mark that carries the Blood of the Sovereign Flame could be."
Ash stiffened. "What blood?"
"Hmph. You really know nothing. That mark is a legacy mark—an inheritance bound to your body's bloodline. Someone long ago in your flesh's ancestry wielded a powerful flame-type soul. You... are the last spark."
Ash frowned. "And now that I'm in this body?"
"The Soul Flame you carry may be healing it. Or corrupting it further. Either way, you are changing it. Keep feeding essence into both and see what emerges. Just try not to explode."
The Yin Clan Strikes Back
The next day, Ash sensed a shift in the quarry's atmosphere.
The guards were quiet. Tense. Too many eyes. Too much discipline.
"They sent someone," Ash murmured.
He wasn't wrong.
By dusk, the clouds broke with thunder—not rain, but a crashing descent from the sky as a figure in black robes dropped onto the central stone platform, cracking it underfoot.
Captain Marius Yin, a mid-stage Core Vein cultivator, surrounded by a blazing aura of silver fire, stepped forward with contempt etched into every line of his face.
"You must be the rat everyone's talking about."
Ash didn't answer.
Marius tilted his head. "Feng Yao, isn't it? The trash boy who died. Seems we didn't bury you deep enough."
Ash smiled thinly. "Want to try again?"
Marius sneered. "Gladly."
Battle: Soul Whip vs Silver Fire
The fight began with no ceremony.
Marius unleashed twin blades of compressed flame, curved and fast. Ash dodged, rolling beneath one and letting the second sear a line across his sleeve.
Ash countered with the Soul Flame—now shaped into a whip, hooked blade, and tendril, shifting with every flick of his will.
They clashed midair, flame against flame.
But Marius's fire was natural. Normal. Elemental.
Ash's flame ignored elemental logic.
It bit into Marius's aura, searing straight into the man's essence shield and leaving black scars on his soul itself.
Marius faltered. "What… what kind of flame is that?!"
"He does not deserve to know," the serpent muttered with grim satisfaction.
"But if he dies quickly, he will die uneducated."
Ash narrowed his eyes, shifted his stance, and drew power from both Soul Marks.
For a moment, the black flame split—one side glowing with red-silver light from the first mark, the other pulsing dark with the second.
Ash whispered, "Let's see what a broken phoenix can still do."
The Twin Flame Break
He stepped forward and struck—not with speed, not with strength, but with soul-level intent.
A twin stream of flame—a phoenix's talon on the left, and a dragon's fang on the right—slammed into Marius Yin's chest.
The man screamed as his aura shattered, his spirit flames torn apart.
Ash stood over him as he gasped, burned and broken.
"You're lucky," Ash said coldly. "I want your clan to know I'm alive."
He turned away.
Behind him, Marius Yin coughed blood and collapsed, unconscious but alive.
Toward the Next Path
That night, Ash sat beside the flickering remains of a watchtower, staring at his hands.
Two Soul Marks. One reborn. One evolving.
A flame that refused to follow rules.
A serpent that hated and admired him.
A bloodline he didn't understand.
And a world built on strength, where the only justice was the power to take revenge with your own hands.
"Where to next?" he asked.
"North," the serpent whispered. "To the Scorchwind Ruins. A forge older than this empire sleeps there. If you can claim its heart… your first real cultivation technique may be born."
Ash stood.
"Then let's burn our way through."