The Celestial Flame Gate wasn't fire.
It was memory, burning.
Xu Shen stepped through.
And everything changed.
There was no sky.
Only ash.
A broken realm stretched before him—gray plains lit by dying embers, bones of gods buried in cratered hills. Towering statues half-swallowed by molten glass. Pillars of scripture shattered into dust.
This was not the Celestial Realm proper.
This was its refuse.
Its graveyard.
Where the heavens cast all that could not be controlled.
This was the First Flame Grave.
Lian Ming followed behind, breath slow.
Yue Qian stepped in next, blade drawn, expression tight.
Even their spiritual sense flickered.
"It's like… this place was designed to forget itself," she whispered.
Xu nodded. "Because it holds what the heavens couldn't."
He stepped forward.
And the earth trembled beneath his feet.
A voice whispered from beneath the cracked stone:
"Devourer… Reforger… Architect… Ashborn…"
"You come back again."
Xu froze.
That voice.
Not hostile.
Not even curious.
It was familiar.
Like a whisper from his oldest dream.
He turned.
And in the distance, atop a throne made from petrified law, sat a man.
Tall. Barefoot. Skin cracked with flame. Hair of soot and starlight.
He wore no crown.
But everything bowed around him.
Lian whispered, "Who is that?"
Xu's mouth was dry.
His voice trembled.
"That's me."
But not from any of the ten thousand lives he remembered.
This was someone older.
Before Aether Xu.
Before the cycle.
Before the Core.
Before the name.
The man on the throne smiled.
And spoke with Xu's own voice.
"Welcome home, Xu Shen."
"I've been waiting since the first spark."