The ruins were older than the desert itself. That's what Fang Yuan felt the moment his boots crunched against the first fractured tile buried beneath the sand. Half-sunken archways jutted out from the dunes like the ribs of a long-dead beast, and script etched in stone—worn by wind and time—greeted him in a language he couldn't yet decipher.
He stepped carefully, every movement echoing across the broken silence. The air here was different—denser, colder despite the sun. As if the ruins remembered things the world wanted to forget.
Fang Yuan stopped at the center of what looked like a shrine, circular and open to the sky. Pillars framed the area, and fragments of statues lay shattered at their base. He removed his satchel and sat cross-legged on the dusty platform, closing his eyes.
He didn't try to bend.
He just listened.
The wind murmured.
The stone beneath him throbbed with something faint—familiar.
Like a voice without words.
A presence.
In the depths of the Spirit World, chaos was beginning to take form.
Spirits that once drifted in peace now circled nervously. The trees of the Whispering Glade moaned in unease. The sky above—the eternal shifting aurora—now flickered like a dying candle. A spirit in the form of a fox slinked low across the roots of a giant tree, tail twitching, as a ripple tore through the forest.
"What is it?" asked another spirit, one made of ink and clouds.
The fox spirit narrowed its glowing eyes.
"There is a hole in the weave. A soul that was not woven by the hands of this world. It walks among mortals and leaves footprints in both realms."
"Then why can't we find it?"
"Because it walks like one of them. But it thinks like something else. It hides its weight."
"And if it continues?"
The fox paused.
"Then the bridge between flesh and spirit will collapse. One way or another."
Back in the ruins, Fang Yuan opened his eyes.
For a brief second, he thought he saw someone standing in front of him.
A tall figure. Clad in robes. No face.
And then it was gone.
He stood, heart pounding, every nerve suddenly on edge. "Hallucination?" he muttered.
No.
That hadn't been his mind. That had been something else. Something reaching back.
He didn't know what these ruins were. But something in them had tried to speak. Maybe even warn.
He would return tomorrow.
But first… water.
Two days later, in a town bordering the eastern desert, a courier hawk screeched overhead as it delivered a sealed scroll to an Earth Kingdom outpost. A scout—a young man with dust-stained armor—ripped it open and read the contents.
His face paled.
Moments later, he burst into the command tent.
"General Lu! The spirits—They've contacted the Northern Temple again. Through the Avatar."
General Lu, a thickly built man with greying temples, looked up from his maps.
"Well? What's the message?"
"They said balance has been broken. A new force has entered the cycle… unbound."
Lu leaned forward, face unreadable.
"Did they say where?"
The scout shook his head. "Only that it walks in the skin of a man… but wears no past."
Lu's fist clenched. "Send word to Ba Sing Se. Get this in front of the Council."
"Yes, sir."
That night, Fang Yuan camped at the edge of a canyon, his fire hidden beneath a rock outcrop to prevent attention. He leaned against a jagged cliff wall, eyes scanning the stars.
He hadn't discovered any new bending techniques. But he'd learned something more valuable.
He wasn't alone in this world.
Not spiritually.
Not energetically.
Something was watching. Hunting. Not directly, but passively. Like the world itself had noticed a shift and was now searching for the crack in the mirror.
And he was that crack.
He didn't understand why. Or how. But he had the sneaking suspicion that this wasn't just reincarnation. It was exile.
Fang Yuan closed his eyes and meditated—not for bending, but for clarity.
In the silence of his mind, he felt the echo of water this time.
Cool. Elusive. Shifting.
His breathing slowed.
The canyon's air seemed to grow damp.
He opened his palm—and there, for just a second, a drop of water coalesced from nothing but moisture in the air… before falling apart.
A grin pulled at his lips.
Three.
In the mountain forests far to the north, Avatar Aang meditated beneath the open sky, his tattoos glowing faintly as he floated above the stone platform.
But his expression was troubled.
"He's getting stronger," Aang said, eyes still closed. "More in sync with this world. He's awakened another element."
Katara's brows furrowed. "Then he's… like you?"
Aang opened his eyes. "No. Not like me. He's not part of the cycle. He's not a bender blessed by Raava. He's outside it."
"Then what is he?"
Aang stood slowly.
"I don't know. But the spirits are scared. And if they're scared… we should be too."
In the shadows of his growing power, Fang Yuan still remained a ghost.
His name was unknown.
His presence, a whisper.
But the world was stirring. Forces both natural and unnatural were beginning to align. Some wanted to find him. Others wanted to destroy him before he understood who he was.
And Fang Yuan?
He had only one goal for now.
To survive long enough to find out why he was really here.