The wind whispered through Blackmist Temple, curling through the silent halls like a serpent. Though the monks moved quietly, there was a noticeable shift in the air — tension humming beneath their stillness.
Jin Yue followed one of them through the inner corridor, their steps echoing faintly on the cold stone. He had been summoned. No reason was given.
The monk stopped before an ironbound door etched with talismanic seals.
Within, Elder Ming awaited.
The elder sat behind a low blackwood table, a worn scroll resting before him. The parchment crackled with faint energy, as if alive — as if trying to breathe despite being sealed away for centuries.
"You summoned me, Elder?" Jin Yue asked, bowing slightly.
Elder Ming didn't look up. "This was not meant for your eyes. But fate has moved strangely."
He gestured, and the monk silently departed, shutting the door behind him.
Elder Ming's voice dropped.
"This scroll was unearthed beneath the old archives after a tremor split the ground. We thought it lost to time — sealed in the early years of the Shadow Purge."
Jin Yue furrowed his brow. "Shadow Purge?"
Elder Ming's eyes finally met his. They were pale, clouded with age — and fear.
"A dark era," he said. "When an order of cultivators abandoned balance and embraced the void between life and death. They created weapons, forged souls into shadow... and followed a man who was never named in the records."
Jin Yue's heart quickened. "Why tell me this?"
Elder Ming slowly unrolled the scroll.
The symbols were ancient. Shifting. But there — in black ink, burned into the center — was a mark. A sigil shaped like a curved blade wrapped in smoke.
And at the bottom…
Two characters.
Not a name, not really.
But Jin Yue recognized them.
Li Feng.
His breath caught. "That can't be right."
Elder Ming's voice was barely above a whisper. "Your protector… bears the mark of the Voidborne Order. He may not be who you think he is."
Outside, the wind howled.
And far above the temple, on the highest tower where no one was allowed, Li Feng stood alone, eyes closed.
He already knew the scroll had been found.
He had left it on purpose.