The earth cracked beneath the First Rebel's feet.
Bronze armor the size of a tower shimmered with spirit runes older than history itself. Each step he took split the ground into jagged ravines, and with every breath, the air rippled — as if reality strained to contain his presence.
His sword of bone rested against his shoulder, larger than a warship. It groaned under its own weight, singing a mournful tune only cultivators could hear — the song of forgotten wars.
Ranyi, watching from behind the lines, went pale.
"This… isn't just a soul echo," she said. "This is a living grievance."
Yan Wudi narrowed his eyes.
"No. It's worse."
He stepped forward, grim.
"The First Rebel… never died."
---
High above, Shen Liun hovered, fire coursing along his limbs like living armor.
His expression was unreadable. Inside, his spirit churned like a hurricane.
> "You're not a weapon," he called out to the colossal figure.
> "You're a man."
The titan's glowing eyes flickered. Then — words, deep as stone:
> "I was a man."
> "Then I became a symbol."
> "And now… I am vengeance unfulfilled."
With that, the First Rebel leapt.
The valley shook.
---
Liun dodged left, flame arcing in a sharp curve behind him. The bone sword slammed into the mountain he had hovered beside — and the entire peak shattered into dust.
Liun didn't slow.
He spun in midair, forming dozens of fire sigils, each one blazing with Soulwalker power.
"Cindervow Art: Infernal Blooming Lotus!"
The lotuses exploded across the titan's chest, each one ripping through his aura like wildfire. But they barely slowed him.
The First Rebel raised his hand, and chains surged from his back — chains made of names, each etched with the life of a forgotten rebel, each soul burned into them by imperial decree.
One wrapped around Liun's leg mid-dodge.
Pain exploded through his body.
He saw flashes — memories not his own.
A boy writing a rebellion poem on a wall.
A mother handing her daughter a dagger, then turning it on herself as imperial soldiers broke through the door.
A man kneeling in flames, refusing to scream as his cultivation base was shattered.
Liun's eyes watered.
These were real.
Not legends. Not fables.
People.
> "Why do you fight me, boy?" the First Rebel's voice thundered.
> "You are me. A shadow walking toward a pyre."
Liun snarled, ripping the chain off his leg with a burst of flame.
> "Because I don't want to burn alone."
---
On the edge of the battlefield, the scrollkeeper gasped suddenly.
He stumbled back, hand clutching his chest.
Ranyi rushed to his side. "What is it?"
The old man looked up, eyes wild.
"I… I remember something. A name…"
Yan Wudi leaned in, frowning. "What name?"
The scrollkeeper trembled.
> "The Emperor's name—before he ascended."
> "It was—"
A shockwave pulsed through the valley, knocking them all flat.
In the air, the First Rebel had driven his fist into the ground, cracking the spirit array lines buried beneath Hollow Wind Valley.
And from beneath the soil, old scripts rose — burning runes that floated like ash in the wind.
They spun around Liun.
Then around the First Rebel.
And then, slowly… they aligned.
Matched.
---
Liun stared in horror.
The spirit scripts—both his and the rebel's—were identical.
Not similar.
The same.
His voice broke.
"…Your cultivation technique…"
The titan tilted his head.
> "Was stolen. My flame, my name, my rebellion — all taken by the man who now rules the heavens."
> "The Emperor is me."
---
Silence fell like a blade.
Yan Wudi took a step back.
"No," he muttered. "That would mean the Empire… was built on betrayal."
The scrollkeeper nodded, weeping now.
"It was."
---
Up in the air, Shen Liun's aura spiked.
Flame roared, licking the edges of the sky, his body wrapped in radiant heat.
But this time, the fire wasn't born from rage.
It was born from purpose.
> "Then I won't fight you."
> "I'll finish what you began."
The First Rebel paused.
"You would claim my legacy?"
Liun's flames spiraled into a spear in his hand.
> "No."
> "I'll return it to you."
And with that — he knelt.
Before the First Rebel.
Before the man who history had erased.
Before the truth.
---
The chains around the rebel trembled.
Cracks spiderwebbed across his armor.
Then, he roared — not in rage, but release.
The name he had been robbed of echoed across the sky.
> "I am Rao Jin!"
> "And this boy… is the new Ashen Flame!"
---
The fourth and fifth links burst into light.
And vanished.
---
From deep within the Empire, the Emperor sat up suddenly, his hand frozen mid-sip of celestial wine.
His lips curled into a sneer.
"So… the boy found my name."
He stood.
And for the first time in centuries, donned his war armor.
---