The wind howled through the skeletal remains of the Jade Flame Clan's ancestral hall, carrying with it the acrid scent of ash and blood. Li Chen crouched behind a shattered pillar, his breaths shallow, his fingers trembling against the cold stone. Three days had passed since the massacre, but the air still reeked of charred flesh and spent qi. Above him, the moon hung like a bleeding eye, casting crimson light over the ruins.
They're gone. All of them.
The memory flashed unbidden—his father shoving the jade pendant into his hands, roaring for him to run, while golden-robed cultivators descended like locusts. Li Chen hadn't looked back. He'd fled into the night, the screams of his clan echoing in his ears until even the mountains fell silent.
Now, he'd returned. Not for vengeance—not yet—but for answers.
The pendant pulsed against his chest, a steady rhythm that mirrored his heartbeat. His father's final words haunted him: "When the moon bleeds, the crypt will awaken."
Tonight, the moon bled.
Li Chen crept forward, boots crunching on debris. The hall's once-majestic pillars lay toppled, their jade-green carvings defaced by the Golden Cloud Sect's sigils—a snarling dragon clutching a lightning bolt. His stomach churned as he stepped over a familiar skeletal hand, still clad in the tattered sleeve of a Jade Flame elder.
"You should not be here, boy," a voice rasped.
Li Chen froze. The pendant flared, its green light illuminating a hunched figure slumped against the remnants of the clan altar. An old man—or what remained of one. His robes were scorched, his face a lattice of burns, but his eyes gleamed with sharp clarity.
"Uncle Feng?" Li Chen whispered, recognizing the clan's chief steward.
The old man coughed, flecking his beard with blood. "They left me… as a warning. To lure survivors." His trembling hand gestured to the altar's base, where a crack in the stone seeped faint mist. "The crypt… your father's final gift. But beware—the pendant's power demands a price."
Before Li Chen could speak, Feng's body stiffened. A golden dagger sprouted from his chest, thrown by a shadowed figure perched atop a broken wall.
"A rat survives!" sneered the attacker, his Golden Cloud insignia glinting. "The patriarch will reward me for your head."
Li Chen bolted. Arrows of condensed qi hissed past him as he dove toward the altar, Feng's warning ringing in his ears. The pendant burned hotter, its light now blinding. He slammed his palm against the crack in the stone.
The world shifted.
Stone groaned as the altar split open, revealing a stairway choked with dust and memories. Li Chen tumbled inside just as a qi arrow shattered the space where he'd stood. The Golden Cloud cultivator's curses faded as the entrance sealed behind him, leaving him in suffocating darkness.
Clink.
The pendant detached from its chain, floating ahead like a will-o'-wisp. Li Chen followed, his fingers brushing carvings on the walls—scenes of his ancestors meditating beneath waterfalls, battling primordial beasts, forging alliances with now-extinct clans.
At the bottom, the pendant settled into a recess in a massive stone door. It glowed, and the door ground open, revealing a circular chamber. In its center stood a pedestal holding a scroll and a single jade vial. But Li Chen's gaze locked on the translucent figure hovering above it—a stern-faced man in archaic robes, his eyes twin pools of starlight.
"So," the spirit intoned, "the last ember of the Jade Flame dares to rise."
Li Chen's throat tightened. "Who are you?"
"Elder Ming. Once grandmaster of this clan, now bound to the pendant for my… failures." The spirit's voice softened. "Your father hoped you'd seek this place. But know this: what I teach will pit you against empires. What do you seek, Li Chen? Vengeance? Power?"
The images of his clan's corpses flickered in his mind. Then he saw Feng's defiant glare, his father's desperate hope.
"A future," Li Chen said. "For my clan. Even if I must build it from ash."
Elder Ming studied him, then smirked. "Good. The first trial begins now."
He flicked his wrist. The chamber trembled, and the walls erupted with spectral wolves made of swirling qi. Li Chen barely dodged the first strike, his untrained qi flaring erratically.
Survive, Ming's voice echoed in his mind. Or join your ancestors.