Heart of Divine Ashes

“The world is a dining table, and you and I are both dishes.” The day Lu Jin awakened his Ember Soul Seed, the divine stele of the Divine Millet Bureau exploded with a crimson warning: **“Gods feast on human souls; humans cook the children of gods.”** From then on, he became the gods’ number-one target for the dinner plate. But he didn’t know Three hundred years ago, he was the sharpest blade in the divine realm. He defected to save a child, and his beloved **Shi Li** pierced his divine core with her own hands. Three hundred years later, she was a tombstone of time in the Secret Realm Beyond Time. Through ninety thousand repetitions, she rewrote his fatal fall into a long “escape from captivity.” **The truth emerges as his memories burn:** - What they call awakening the soul seed is the gods marking a “perfectly ripened delicacy.” - What they call the glory of ascension is an invitation to a flesh-and-blood feast from which no one ever wakes. - And the transparent hand reaching from that weeping tombstone keeps pushing him toward the summit, only to lead him toward the very thing she has carefully engineered: **complete oblivion**. When Lu Jin devours the divine emissary’s soul seed and ignites the Ember Flame, the last fragment of memory returns: On the execution ground, at the instant Shi Li’s sword pierced his heart, her lips silently formed the words: **“Live. Eat them all, including my share…”** **This is a hungry counterattack.** The prey awakens on the dinner plate, turning knife and fork on the diners. And the price she paid to time was “Only if he forgets me will the world allow him to live.”