The Flame Archive Vault sat beneath the Soul Flame School's east wing, buried in silence and sealed with twelve memory locks.
Only Head Disciples and Archive Readers were allowed below.
Wei Lin was neither.
But tonight, he walked through its flame doors.
Unseen.
Unafraid.
He held an override scroll—one of three copies written in Xu Shen's own hand.
"If the day comes when one of my children must ask why I hid something…
Let them read what I could not say."
The doors opened with a whisper of heat.
And Wei Lin stepped into a chamber shaped like a spiraling scroll—walls of flickering light, each containing memories transcribed by flame.
He searched through titles:
Reclamation of Heaven.
The Watchers' Question.
The Trial of the Twelve.
Xu Shen's Final Choice…
Then…
One scroll.
Locked in gray-gold thread.
Its title burned only when he placed his hand near it:
"Life #0000 – The One I Sealed."
Wei Lin hesitated.
Then touched it.
The room vanished.
The flame flared.
And Wei Lin was pulled into a vision not stored—but buried.
A world without color.
No heavens.
No sects.
Just endless cities of ash, ruled by a single will.
One man.
One Devourer.
Xu Shen walked alone through that world.
He did not remember anyone.
Because in that life—
He had erased everyone.
To survive.
To ascend.
To keep his flame from going out.
He had taken the path of Absolute Consumption all the way to its end.
And stood on a throne built from names no longer spoken.
Wei Lin gasped. "He became… what Shen Tai wants to be."
He turned in the vision—and Xu Shen was staring directly at him.
Except it wasn't the Xu Shen of today.
It was the first.
Pale.
Empty.
Crowned in fire that never remembered.
The vision cracked.
And the true Xu Shen's voice echoed into Wei Lin's soul.
"This was the life I swore no one would walk again."
"Because I won everything…"
"…and became nothing."
Wei Lin stumbled back as the scroll burned out.
But not completely.
A single word remained, etched into his palm:
"Warn him."
Wei Lin looked toward the north tower.
Where Shen Tai and the Hollow Flame Sect trained in silence.
And he knew:
The war for flame had returned.
But this time…
It would be decided by students.