The Echoes That Burn
The silence inside the infernal corridor deepened.
No wind, no echo. Only the faint tick... tick... of time dripping from cracked reality. Shen Yao stood beneath the warped arch of obsidian flame, his hand resting on the scorched stone door that pulsed with karmic rhythm.
The flame did not burn—it remembered. Behind that door lay no beast, no trap, no ancient judge shouting down judgment from lofty heavens. Only memory. Only sin.
His own.
The second trial had shattered its original form. The Infernal Immortality System had rewritten the script. This wasn't a test for Heaven's approval—it was a crucible carved by karmic consequence.
[Infernal Immortality System: Initiating Variant Trial – Karmaflame Reflection Path.
Soul Attunement Required: 88%.
Error: Target exceeds permitted karmic deviation.
Proceeding anyway.]
"Of course it proceeds," Shen Yao muttered.
With a push of his palm, the obsidian door slid open without a sound.
He stepped into a circular chamber of smoldering mirrors. Each pane was made of black flame glass, flickering with his past. Some distorted. Some sharpened. But none lied.
One showed his childhood—his father coughing blood while kneeling before a Heavenly Tax Enforcer. Another showed him at seventeen, standing by while his sect brother was beaten nearly to death, knowing the blame would be shifted onto him anyway. He had done nothing.
He had watched.
In the next mirror, Lian Xue died again—pierced by three divine chains meant for him. That had already been changed in this life. But the mirror didn't care. It burned with what had once been.
And then came the last mirror.
It was still.
Until it wasn't.
The image rippled—and Shen Yao found himself inside it.
Not watching. Not remembering.
Reliving.
He stood on blood-soaked stone.
In his hands—a broken sword. His breath ragged. A girl knelt before him, her robes tattered, her face pale.
"Huo Yanmei?" he whispered.
But this wasn't her present self.
This was her past—the moment just before she was cast out from her noble clan for siding with a heretic. Him.
"I believed in you," Mirror-Huo Yanmei said, her voice cracking. "And I paid for it."
In that past, he had left her. Coldly. Calculatedly.
Because she had served her purpose. At least, that's what he told himself.
"Compassion burns clarity."
That's what Shen Yao had once believed.
That belief was now being used against him.
The broken sword in his hands heated. The ground trembled. The karma of every choice he had made demanded payment.
"Do you regret it?" the mirrored Huo Yanmei asked.
"No," Shen Yao said. "But I remember."
He raised the broken sword—and struck the image down. Not out of cruelty. Not out of anger.
But as judgment.
The mirror shattered.
The chamber twiste and the world returned.
He fell to one knee. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
[Soul Integrity: 82%
Karmic Load: Surging
Resonance Node: Stabilizing]
The System blinked in panic, but Shen Yao did not.
He stared ahead.
The flames from the shattered mirrors rose—not into fire, but into forms.
Flame-Wrought Specters.
Each held a face. Dozens. Men and women who had died by his decisions. Some deserved. Others not.
One of them stepped forward—Luo Shifan, the second disciple of the Thunderflame Sect. Shen Yao had crippled him in silence, rendering his flame veins useless after learning he'd sold trial records to Divine Enforcers. But Shen Yao never exposed it. He simply let the sect deal with a broken liability.
"Mercy, Shen Yao?" the specter rasped. "Or cowardice?"
"I gave you a silent death. A clean one."
"Then give me a burning one now."
The specter lunged. Flame claws tore toward Shen Yao's face.
He exhaled—and let his Karmaflame pulse.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't showy.
It was inevitable. The claws melted before they reached him. Karmaflame wrapped around the specter's head and imploded silently. Luo Shifan vanished without a scream.
Another came. Then another.
He didn't fight with rage. He didn't shout. He didn't chant mantras.
He simply moved—and the Karmaflame obeyed.
These were his sins. His choices.
His burden.
After the last flame specter died, the chamber dimmed. The mirrors cooled into ash and a single path opened.
No flames lined it. No wind howled.
Only a stairway of soot leading upward—toward a temple shaped like a flame-etched crown.
Shen Yao walked.
Each step weighed heavier than the last.
By the time he reached the top, his body trembled—not from injury. But from the weight of so many decisions, all of which he would still make again.
The temple doors opened before he touched them.
Inside was a throne of charcoal and ember. Above it floated a black sphere pulsing with red lines—the Heart of the Trial.
But seated on the throne was himself.
No—not quite. This version wore Celestial robes. His eyes were serene. And in his hand rested a divine scroll.
Shen Yao knew what he was looking at.
His alternate fate.
The path he would've walked had he accepted Heaven's will. Had he not rebelled.
A Celestial Flame Arbiter.
One of Heaven's instruments.
The mirror-him smiled faintly. "There is still time to submit."
"No," Shen Yao said. "There isn't."
He raised his palm. Flame surged.
Karmaflame roared.
The illusion tried to rise—divine scroll unraveling—but Shen Yao struck it down before a single word could be read.
No speeches. No final temptations.
Only ash.
[Infernal Immortality System: Trial Complete.
Second Path Unlocked: Karmaflame Judgment Tier I.
Reward: 1x Sinflame Relic – Bound Mirror Core
Soul Integrity: Stabilized
New Status: Karmaforged]
Shen Yao stepped out of the temple into moonlight.
The sky above the trial grounds was no longer whole. Cracks shimmered through the clouds—evidence that his very trial had broken the Heaven-approved framework.
Below, the Flame Ascension Mountain began to quake. Other disciples, unaware, still knelt or meditated within their own isolated spaces.
Shen Yao did not descend. He turned toward the cliffside—and gazed at the stars.
A quiet thought bloomed in his heart.
"The second trial was never meant for someone like me. So I forged one in flame and silence." And somewhere far above, beyond mortal skies, a single Divine Eye opened—and blinked.