Heavenly Rebirth: The Outcast Return

Rise of the Devourer Flame

Chapter 6: Rise of the Devourer Flame

The sky cracked open.

Elder Fang’s Heaven’s Rend Formation surged with divine fury. Lightning chains twisted through the clouds, converging toward the earth with a roar that shattered the air itself.

Xuan Long stood his ground.

Below him, Mei Lin lay inside a flame dome, protected but unconscious, her face pale. The moment he freed her, her spirit began to collapse under the weight of what she had done — and what had been done to her.

There was no more time for hesitation.

Across the sky, Elder Fang hovered like a judge of heaven, arms raised, the runes circling him now glowing blood-red. “You were a mistake,” the elder thundered. “A curse born of defiance! It ends here!”

The formation descended like a cage of light.

Xuan Long leapt into the air, charging straight toward it.

His spear blazed in his hand, but the moment he touched the barrier — boom — he was thrown backward like a meteor, crashing into the side of the mountain, leaving a smoking crater.

Blood pooled at the corner of his lips.

“The formation was crafted to suppress ancient bloodlines,” the War Immortal said in his mind. “You cannot brute-force it. You must become what they fear.”

Xuan Long stood, cracked ribs shifting beneath his skin. “Then help me unlock the Devourer Flame. All of it.”

“You’re not ready.”

“I wasn’t ready when they cast me into the Abyss. I wasn’t ready when she betrayed me. But I rose.”

His voice dropped into a growl.

“I’m ready now.”

The War Immortal was silent… then sighed.

“So be it. But understand: the Devourer Flame is not fire. It’s hunger — the fire that eats everything. Including you.”

Xuan Long closed his eyes.

He reached deep inside, to the center of his bloodline. To the black ember his mother sealed behind his heart. It pulsed — faint, quiet — waiting.

He pulled it open.

Pain like fire and ice fused together ripped through his soul.

His body seized. His bones glowed. His heart felt like it was tearing itself apart.

But he didn’t stop.

Elder Fang prepared his final strike — a blade of lightning forged from the clouds themselves. “Perish, mongrel!”

He hurled it downward.

But the moment it reached Xuan Long — it stopped.

Held mid-air… by a growing vortex of black fire.

Xuan Long stood, floating above the broken land, surrounded by an inferno of crimson and obsidian flame that warped reality itself. The spear in his hand melted into the fire, reborn into a new weapon — curved, jagged, and alive with pulsing flame.

His eyes were no longer red.

They were pitch-black voids, ringed with golden fire.

His voice, when he spoke, was layered with the ancient voice of his bloodline:

“Your judgment has come, Elder Fang.”

The elder’s eyes widened. “That flame… it’s impossible! That bloodline was erased from this world!”

“I am the last,” Xuan Long said coldly. “And you made the mistake of letting me live.”

He vanished in a blur.

Elder Fang raised a defensive shield — too late.

Xuan Long’s spear tore through it like rice paper, cutting through the elder’s shoulder. Blood sprayed, but worse — the Devourer Flame clung to the wound, burning it beyond healing.

Fang screamed, launching himself backward, dozens of defensive talismans activating at once.

But they didn’t matter.

Xuan Long pursued like a god descending from heaven.

He struck again — this time severing one of the runes spinning around Fang’s body. It exploded in a chain reaction, tearing a hole in the elder’s defense array.

“You’re… not human…” Fang spat, trembling. “You’re a monster!”

“No,” Xuan Long said. “I’m what your kind created.”

He raised his spear for the final blow.

But then—

Mei Lin screamed.

The protective dome around her cracked. Her body spasmed, the talisman’s destruction leaving deep scars in her spiritual sea. Her consciousness was fading.

“She’s dying,” the War Immortal said grimly. “She was tethered to the same soul contract that fueled the fleet’s formation. When it shattered, it backlashed into her core.”

“What do I do?!”

“There is one way. But it’s forbidden even among us.”

“Tell me!”

“Devour half your flame — and pour the other half into her soul. It will burn away the damage… but also part of you.”

Xuan Long didn’t hesitate.

He flew toward her, dropped to his knees beside her trembling body, and placed his palm over her chest.

The flame recoiled at first — refusing to separate.

But he forced it.

Half of the Devourer Flame surged from his chest and poured into Mei Lin like a tidal wave of light and heat. She screamed, body arching, until the black fire consumed her entirely.

Xuan Long collapsed beside her, body cold, half his soul gone.

Elder Fang rose in the distance, wounded but alive.

“You’re weaker now,” he spat. “You sacrificed your only weapon!”

Xuan Long struggled to rise, but his legs gave out. His flames dimmed.

Fang raised his hand for the final time, calling the remnants of the Heaven’s Rend formation into a condensed spear.

But before he could strike—

A hand caught his wrist.

Mei Lin stood behind him.

Hair glowing white.

Eyes blazing.

The black fire flickered across her skin — but it did not burn.

She had inherited part of the Devourer Flame.

Fang’s eyes widened. “You—!”

She drove her hand into his chest — the flame exploding through his back.

He fell, lifeless, a hole where his heart used to be.

The battlefield fell silent.

Cloud ships burned. Corpses littered the valley. The wind carried ash and smoke.

Xuan Long lay still.

Mei Lin dropped beside him, her hands shaking. “Don’t you dare die, Long’er. Not after all this…”

His eyes flickered open, faintly glowing.

“You stole my kill,” he whispered.

She laughed through tears. “I saved your life, idiot.”

They lay in the dirt, both half-broken.

But alive.

Far across the continent, deep beneath the Temple of Forgotten Stars, a massive eye opened in the void.

A voice rumbled across the planes:

“The Devourer Flame has reignited.”

“Initiate the purge.”

A hundred cloaked figures rose in unison — the true Celestial Court was awake.