The world rewrote itself in a breath. The infinite, crystalline silence of the Soul Mirror Desert dissolved into a wave of warmth and life. One moment, Lin Chen stood on sand that held the cold of dead stars; the next, his feet sank into a sea of golden grass, each blade a living filament pulsing with the primal, golden Qi of creation itself.
This was the Unified Plains, the fifth Mortal Realm, where the schism between flesh and spirit was said to heal. The air was thick with the scent of sacred alchemy and the profound hum of unity. Above, floating monasteries drifted like contemplative clouds, and in the distance, towers of polished jade speared the sky, their peaks venting rainbows of refined spiritual energy.
Within Lin Chen, his Primordial Ember Soul Core spun like a joyful captive star, and the second flame—the lingering essence of Huo Lian—burned in sympathetic resonance, a duet of legacy and promise. The Heavenly Curse Mark was now a mere pinprick of stubborn darkness over his heart, a fading scar.
He took a single step forward.
The Origin Grass beneath his feet sang a note of pure, resonant welcome.
---
It emerged from the horizon's shimmer, not as a city being approached, but as a truth being revealed. The Dawn Capital. Its walls were carved from living sunstone, radiating a gentle, perpetual dawn. At its gates stood the Origin Knights, their golden armor not worn, but fused to their very skin, their beings a perfect synthesis of mortal fortitude and spiritual grace.
As Lin Chen drew near, the entire guard contingent knelt in unison. Their obeisance was not for him, the young man, but for the primordial sun beating within his chest.
A knight captain, his voice the sound of tectonic plates shifting in harmony, spoke:
"Bearer of the First Flame.The Emperor has waited eons for your coming."
---
They ascended on a chariot of light, drawn by steeds woven from dawn's first rays. Their destination defied reason: the Origin Temple, a mountain inverted, its roots grasping at the heavens, its peak buried in the heart of the world. It was a monument to the concept of convergence.
Inside, the air was liquid potential. A lake of pure, flowing gold shimmered, and at its center grew a tree whose branches were the very patterns of perfected meridians and whose leaves were inscribed with the runes of awakened souls.
Beneath this tree sat Emperor Tian Zhao. His presence was not that of a ruler, but of a focal point. His hair was the white of the first light, and his eyes held the gentle, terrifying intensity of twin suns.
"You have burned away the illusions of the desert," he said, his voice a soft bell that shook the soul. "Now, you must burn the final divide within yourself."
Lin Chen landed softly on the surface of the golden lake, the liquid light bearing his weight.
"I do not burn on command,"he replied, his tone flat, "not even for emperors."
Tian Zhao's laughter was the sound of a universe agreeing with itself. "Then let us burn together, as equals."
---
The sky tore. Not with violence, but with an excess of presence. The Radiant Roc descended, a divine beast of the Origin Realm. It was not a bird of feather and bone, but a living constellation of solar fire, its wingspan eclipsing the sun, each individual feather a contained, miniature star.
Its cry was not a sound, but a pressure that tested the structural integrity of reality.
Emperor Tian Zhao rose, his expression grave. "The Roc senses the duality of your flame—the Primordial and the Echo. It is a purity that cannot abide a rival. It seeks to consume the Heart Pearl and make your fire its own."
As if on cue, Lin Chen drew forth the Azure Leviathan's Heart Pearl. The moment it met the air, the Roc dove, a meteor of divine wrath.
---
The Roc's attack was not a technique, but a natural law: Solar Descent. Its outstretched wings plunged the temple into an abrupt, searing night, the heat they emitted causing the very stone of the floating mountain to run like wax.
Lin Chen did not retreat. He became the confluence. Azure Flame Flow surged, the essence of the abyssal deep merging with his own ember-fire. He transformed, his body becoming a towering, humanoid tide of molten, reflective glass.
Mirror Tide: Solar Reflection
The Roc's annihilating heat washed over him—and reversed. The dark glass of his form captured the solar fury and shot it back, amplified. The divine beast was struck by the echo of its own power, its brilliant feathers blackening and igniting. A scream of outrage and pain shattered the remaining windows of the temple.
---
As the Roc reeled, Emperor Tian Zhao moved. His hands wove seals that were not commands, but invitations. The Origin Unity Array activated, and the inverted tree of light blazed. Lin Chen felt a fundamental pull—an invitation to shed his mortal coil, to let his body, soul, and Qi finally and perfectly align into a single, unified entity.
His first instinct was rebellion. Then, a deeper wisdom prevailed. He accepted the pull, but on his own terms.
First Flame Mantra: Fourth Stage — Origin Pulse
He allowed his physical form to dissolve, not into nothingness, but into its purest essence: he became a being of conscious, sentient flame. At the same moment, the enraged Roc struck again, a final, desperate peck of its star-beak.
Flame met flame.
---
Lin Chen did not counter the attack. He flowed with it. He let the Roc's beak consume him, allowing himself to be drawn into the heart of the divine beast, into the core of its being—a miniature, raging sun at the center of its spirit.
There, within the heart of a star, he performed the ultimate integration. His Primordial Ember Soul Core met the Radiant Roc's Origin Core. It was not a battle, but a marriage of opposites. The stable, deep burn of the earth's first fire merged with the wild, brilliant fury of the sun.
The result was a Solar Ember Core, a new sun that burned with the patience of eternity and the brilliance of creation.
Externally, the great Roc shuddered and compacted, its vast form flowing down onto Lin Chen's right arm, branding itself as a magnificent, gleaming wing of gold.
Origin Realm — Achieved.
---
Emperor Tian Zhao knelt, not in submission, but in awe. "The Empire of Dawn offers you its greatest treasure: ten thousand Origin cultivators, their lives, their Qi, their very beings. Together, we will fuel a new Heaven Gate. You, as the catalyst, will lead us through."
Lin Chen looked past the Emperor to the inverted tree. Its roots pulsed, and a portal of unstable, brilliant gold flickered into being. And with it, a vision seared into his mind: ten thousand souls, their unified light a pillar of hope, striking the Veil… and the ensuing, silent detonation. Ten thousand points of light extinguished, turning to drifting ash against an unyielding sky. A sacrifice for a maybe.
He closed his fist, and the vision shattered.
"Not yet,"he said, his voice final. "The price is too high for a gamble."
---
Undeterred, Tian Zhao led him deeper into the temple's heart, to a chamber sealed by time and reverence. Within, the walls were covered by a single, vast mural. It depicted nine figures, each holding aloft a distinct, brilliant flame. One was unmistakably Huo Lian, the Ashen Valkyrie. And another, a figure whose features were yet undefined, held a flame that was his own.
As Lin Chen watched, the mural stirred. The figures seemed to breathe, and a collective voice, woven from nine different timbres, echoed in the chamber:
"NINE BEARERS, IGNITED FROM ONE SOURCE.
NINE FLAMES, TO MEND A BROKEN COURSE.
ONE ASCENSION, TO MAKE THE HEAVENS WHOLE.
THE FRACTURED REALMS WILL TEST YOUR UNIFIED SOUL.
OR SHATTER IT, AND CONSUME THE FINAL COAL."
---
As the last echo faded, the entire Temple convulsed. The sky visible through the arches split open, not into blue, but into a kaleidoscope of chaos. Floating continents of earth and crystal tumbled in a silent, slow-motion ballet. The pressure that washed down was of a different order entirely—the absolute authority of the Domain Realm.
This was the sixth Mortal Realm: the Fractured Heavens.
From that shattered expanse, a voice roared, a sound that eroded will and space alike. It was the Sky Tyrant Dragon.
"FIRST FLAME. YOUR PRESENCE DISTURBS THE FRAGMENTS. ENTER MY DOMAIN AND BE JUDGED. OR I WILL TURN YOUR GOLDEN PLAINS TO GLASS."
The golden portal in the temple twisted, its light dying, being replaced by a vortex of deepest black, rimmed with the purple of dying stars.
Lin Chen stepped toward it.
Emperor Tian Zhao grabbed his arm, his ancient eyes wide with warning. "You are newly forged in the Origin Realm! You are not ready for the Fractured Heavens—its laws are not of unity, but of dominion!"
Lin Chen turned his Solar Ember Core gaze upon the Emperor, and a smile, both eager and terrifying, touched his lips.
"I was born ready."
He pulled his arm free and stepped into the void.
---
The Fractured Heavens swallowed him. Gravity became a forgotten suggestion. He floated, a speck of gold in an ocean of shattered realities, amidst continents that were the tombstones of fallen realms. Coiled around the largest fragment was the Sky Tyrant Dragon, a leviathan of scale and shadow, its body a geography of despair. Its eyes were not eyes, but portals to the void between worlds.
It spoke, and its voice was the silence at the end of time:
"YOUR DOMAIN IS YET UNBORN, A SPARK OF ASH.
MINE IS THE VOID THAT CONSUMES ALL FLASH.
SUBMIT TO THE NOTHINGNESS. BECOME ONE WITH THE VOID.
OR BE ERASED FROM A REALITY YOU NEVER TRULY ENJOYED."
The dragon unhinged its jaw. Not to bite, but to unveil. Within its maw was not a throat, but a perfect, swirling black hole, a point of infinite density and hunger.
Lin Chen's Solar Ember Core trembled, not in fear, but in challenge, its light straining against the ultimate dark.
---