"Moo… Moo…!"
The sound echoed through the mountains, low and dull, chilling under the night sky.
The hills were silent otherwise—so silent it felt like even the echo had frozen.
A thin figure scrambled up a steep slope.
Li Qiye's hands and knees were scraped raw, his breath ragged in the freezing wind.
Thirteen years old, skinny, sweat-soaked, but he didn't stop climbing.
He was terrified.
Born to a poor tenant family, he had been herding cattle since the age of seven.
Tonight, when he tried to bring the herd home, one cow was missing.
He could already hear the landowner's whip in his imagination—its snap loud, his back bleeding.
That fear drove him up the dark mountain.
He had searched every path, every meadow. Only one place remained.
The Demon Immortal Cave.
He looked toward the valley.
Black mist rolled over it like the breath of a beast opening its jaws.
Wind howled through the mountains, carrying sounds that could have been wolves… or spirits.
Legends said no one who entered the cave had ever come out alive.
It was a place of death.
But the fear of that whip was worse than any ghost.
Li Qiye clenched his teeth, and despite the shaking in his legs, he stepped forward—into the dark.
The wind howled. The night swallowed him whole.
Then came a scream.
"Ahhh—!"
"You—what are you doing—ahhh!"
Silence.
Only the echo of that scream lingered, fading slowly… until a laugh answered it.
Low, cold, full of hunger.
"Good… good… good. At last, the immortal crow of death — the Yin Crow — is complete. Only a soul remains. Tonight, you'll do nicely."
From deep within the cave came the beat of wings, harsh and sharp.
A monstrous black crow burst out of the darkness.
Its feathers burned with faint embers as it tore through the night sky.
"Fly…" the voice whispered.
"Fly over the Burial Grounds, across the Lost Lands. As long as the Nine Worlds exist, I will reclaim my fate!"
That night, a legend was born.
From then on, heaven and earth carried whispers of a creature that could not die.
It flew through tomb realms and immortal cities.
It crossed forbidden zones, storm and flame, ruin and time.
Empires rose and fell.
Immortal Emperors came and vanished.
Yet the crow still soared through the river of years, its shadow cast over eternity.
It refused the chains of destiny.
It bowed to no heaven, no earth.
That crow of rebellion would one day stir the storm that would shake all of creation.