Night fell over the peaks of Ashvale like ink spilling across a torn scroll.
Jin Seong stood before the ruins of the sect that once bore his name.
The gates were no more—just charred pillars clawing at the sky. The training halls where brothers sparred, the library where scrolls whispered secrets, the sanctum where oaths were taken in blood... all reduced to cinders and shattered stone.
But the worst part?
It wasn't the destruction.
It was the silence.
Too perfect. Too deliberate. Not a single corpse remained. No bones. No blood.
As if the sect had been swallowed whole.
---
> "They cleansed it," he murmured, kneeling to touch a cracked tile.
But Qi still lingered—deep and broken. An imprint, like a scar burned into memory itself.
He pressed his palm into the earth.
—Soul Echo technique: Manifest Remnant—
The air shimmered.
And suddenly, he was no longer alone.
Flickers of the past emerged like ghosts in fading ink—disciples laughing over tea, elders lecturing in the main hall, a young girl sweeping the courtyard. Her face was blurred, her presence faint.
But then the wind shifted.
And the screams began.
---
Fire erupted from the scroll tower.
The vision jolted, twisting violently.
Figures in black descended from the sky—masked, armed with forbidden blades, their Qi reeking of corruption. One by one, the disciples fell—some fighting, most too shocked to raise a sword.
Jin Seong watched, helpless.
He saw himself—just younger—rushing toward the center hall, only to be stopped by…
> "Master?" he whispered.
There stood the one who raised him.
Unmoving.
Unresisting.
Watching the sect burn.
Jin Seong screamed as he tore out of the echo, chest heaving, fists bloody from gripping stone too hard.
---
He stood.
> "So it wasn't just betrayal…" he growled.
"It was sacrifice."
His master had known. Had let it happen.
To protect something.
Or… to destroy something worse.
In the rubble where the sanctuary once stood, a single staircase remained—spiraling down, hidden beneath years of debris and silence.
The truth lay below.
He descended without hesitation.
---
As he reached the bottom, torches burst to life—blue flames dancing in reverence, not threat.
A mural stretched across the hidden wall.
Not of gods.
But of a man.
Holding a sword to the sky.
Slaying the sun.
At the mural's base was a name etched in gold.
> "Jin Seong."
> "What in the name of Heaven…" he whispered.
The wall cracked.
And behind it, something stirred.
A heartbeat not his own.
Waiting.
Calling.