HAREM: WARLOCK OF THE SOUTH

> System Error:

❖ Thread Manifestation Without Sovereign Approval

❖ Origin Signature: Unknown

❖ Thread Class: Unassigned (Tier: ???)

❖ Designation: [Eighth Flame]

❖ Status: Waking

❖ Location: Unmapped Flame Rift, South-West of Gravemind Expanse

The world shook.

Not from war.

Not from power.

But from recognition.

Something the System didn't make—something it had long sealed—was waking up.

And it wasn't bound to anyone.

Not even Ryon.

At sunrise, every bonded woman felt it.

Kaela staggered during sparring. "There's something crawling beneath my skin…"

Shaera dropped her blade. "No. Someone. Watching."

Lyria fell into a trance. "The future… split. Shattered. One path dies. Another burns."

Neive's eyes glowed with overclocked flame-runes. "An unknown thread just ignited inside the Flame Index. No birthmark, no lineage, no code trail. It's not supposed to exist."

Maris touched her own bond line and trembled. "This doesn't feel like rebellion…"

"…It feels like correction."

Ryon turned to Seris, the only one not reacting.

She was silent. Still. Pale.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked.

Seris didn't look at him.

She whispered one word.

> "The True Inheritor."

"I was not the first," Seris confessed as they stood inside the hollowed flame cathedral of the Graveyard's core.

Ryon's flame flickered uncertainly.

"What do you mean?"

"There was… one before even me. Not made from fire. But from origin. A singularity flame. The first soul the world ever tried to contain." She paused.

"They sealed it away because it wouldn't obey anything. Not gods. Not systems. Not even love."

Ryon's stomach twisted.

"So why is it waking up now?"

Seris turned to him, her voice bitter.

> "Because you exist."

"Because your bonds defy the code."

"And because the world is choosing between flame… and void."

That night, a black flame bloomed over the western ridge.

Inside it — no heat.

Only silence.

A message formed in ancient script across the sky:

> "I SEE YOU, LITTLE FLAMES.

AND I REMEMBER WHAT YOU FORGOT.

I REMEMBER THE FIRST FIRE.

YOU ARE NOT ITS HEIR.

I AM."

A burning sigil branded itself into the air — a spiral of broken flame rings intersecting at the center.

Neive whispered: "It's not just a thread…"

"…it's a flame god."

> System Reaction:

Sovereign Threat Level: Absolute

Incoming Directive: Eighth Flame Seeks to Reclaim the Core Flame

Ryon Status: Challenger

Seris Status: Regressing

Threads in Danger: ALL

Ryon stood at the edge of the dying Graveyard, his seven threads behind him, watching the black horizon pulse like a second heartbeat.

He knew what came next.

A meeting.

A test.

A confrontation with something older than war.

Older than even love.

> "Do I face it alone?" he asked.

Kaela stepped forward. "If you do, we're following anyway."

Shaera: "Let it burn. I want to see its blood."

Neive: "I'll bring every codebreaker I've got."

Lyria: "I already saw us survive."

Maris: "We were born from its ashes. Let's show it we can still blaze."

Seris finally spoke.

"…I don't fear it. I hate it."

And together, they began walking west.

Into the darkness.

Toward the Eighth Flame.