The sky over Zhenlan City was red.
Not the red of dusk. Not the glow of paper lanterns or holy seals.
It was fire—consuming towers, devouring temples, and licking the banners of a once-great capital into ash.
Screams echoed through the royal avenues. Cultivators ran through alleys like hunted dogs. The Royal Guard, known for its silence and order, now screamed commands and death rites as shadowy figures cut them down from the rooftops.
In the inner palace, beneath a crumbling golden dome, five cloaked warriors sprinted across marble halls soaked in blood. One clutched a wrapped object tightly to his chest—a scroll wrapped in black silk and dragonbone thread.
They were all that remained of the Ebonflame Lineage, a once-royal bloodline who had secretly protected the Art of Necromancy for nearly four hundred years.
---
> "The seal has fallen!"
"They're already in the Inner Pavilion!"
That cry came from Mei Rong, the youngest among them. Her robes were torn and soaked from combat, her blade chipped from the fight on the walls.
Ahead of her, Lord Tianxun, once the King's Shield, turned sharply. "We split. They want the scroll."
He pointed at the tallest among them—Shen Mu, a silent man with grey eyes and bandaged hands.
> "You take it. Head west. Out of the city, past the Dead Lotus Lake. Go dark."
Shen Mu hesitated.
> "Go!" Tianxun roared, turning back with blade drawn. His spiritual energy exploded in flame and ash, summoning a wall of fire between them and their pursuers.
Shen Mu gritted his teeth and vanished into the smoke.
---
They never saw each other again.
---
The city burned for three days.
By the third night, five major sects had arrived—each one claiming the attack was a "justice operation." Each one denying the others access to the ruins. Each one searching for the scroll.
But they found only corpses.
---
West of Zhenlan – Two Weeks Later
The forest was silent. Shen Mu staggered through it, bloodied and wild-eyed. His injuries had festered. His Qi was broken. And his pursuers—agents of the Upper Realm—still hunted from above like vultures.
He had crossed mountains. Swam past river traps. Killed in silence.
But time was thinning. He clutched the scroll like it was his heartbeat.
> "I won't let them have it… Not the Serpent Hall. Not the Holy Saint Sect. No one."
Finally, he reached the outskirts of a nameless village, his body failing.
There was an orphanage nearby. A crumbling thing with wooden walls and dried prayer flags fluttering faintly in the wind.
Shen Mu collapsed in its field.
And as he did, he unwrapped the scroll once more. It pulsed—not weakly, but like a living thing hungry for a new master.
> "Someone… worthy," he whispered. "Someone forgotten… like we were…"
With the last of his Qi, Shen Mu sealed the scroll inside a stone relic box and buried it beneath a weather-worn tree near the edge of the field.
He pressed his hand to the soil once. "Remember… death is not the end…"
And then, he died.
---
One Year Later
A boy with ash-colored hair, eleven years old, dug into the soil with a wooden spade. He wasn't looking for anything. He was just angry. Angry at being hungry. Angry at being mocked by other orphans. Angry at the world.
Then the spade hit something hard.
He pulled it up.
A box.
Wrapped in vine. Bound with bone thread.
He opened it.
And saw the black silk scroll.
It didn't glow. It didn't hum. It simply... existed.
But Ash could not let go of it. Even when the other kids tried to trade him food, even when the caretakers told him it was cursed.
He wrapped it in cloth and kept it hidden, even from the old priests.
It became his most precious thing.
He never knew why.
Not until now.
---
Back in the outer ring dormitory, Ash opened the scroll again under moonlight.
The symbols no longer pulsed. They shimmered—revealing more.
> First Art: Soul Bind – Awaken the remnant spirit of one who died with unfinished desire.
And beside it, new words appeared. A name.
> "Shen Mu"
---
In the corner of the room, the kneeling spirit began to change—its shape growing solid, limbs forming black chains, eyes gleaming with faint memory.
> "You are… not of the Ebonflame…"
"But you… were chosen…"
Ash bowed his head slightly.
> "No. I'm just another stray dog in a golden cage."
He looked up.
> "But if you teach me… I'll be something they fear."
The spirit smiled.
And the real training began.