The heavens did not fall.
They changed.
In the days after the Celestial Architects knelt, the winds stopped speaking in law. The stars blinked in unfamiliar rhythms. Prophets found their tongues silent. The Wheel of Incarnation still spun—but not in circles.
Now it spiraled.
Upward.
Outward.
Into freedom.
Xu Shen stood at the peak of the new forge—no longer Infinite Soulwheel, but something purer:
The Flame Archive.
It didn't hold power.
It held names.
Restored names.
Hidden names.
Names once struck from time, now written in smoke and memory.
Yue Qian walked beside him, silent.
Lian Ming followed, whistling faintly.
They were changed too.
Not ascended.
Just… awake.
From every corner of the fractured realms, pilgrims had begun to arrive.
Not to worship.
To remember.
Former enemies.
Disgraced sect leaders.
Sealed cultivators freed by the name Xu Shen refused to erase.
They came because they felt it—
Something beyond war.
Beyond revenge.
Beyond even heaven.
A rogue elder bowed low before Xu Shen.
"My sect remembers its name again. We owe that to you."
Xu shook his head.
"No. You owed it to yourselves the entire time."
He turned toward the horizon.
His gaze grew distant.
"The problem isn't here anymore."
Yue Qian blinked. "What do you mean?"
Xu didn't answer right away.
He stared past the sky.
Past the stars.
Past even the Celestial Realm.
"Something's calling," he said finally.
"Not from above."
"From outside."
Suddenly, every soul in the Forge felt it:
A ripple.
Not of energy—of absence.
A void-touched breeze.
A pull on the flame.
A question written into existence.
"Who lit the first fire… and what did it burn to keep warm?"
Xu Shen narrowed his eyes.
And smiled.
"Volume Six begins beyond flame."