Shen departed before dawn.
No banner.No escort.Only a plain horse and the scroll sealed within his inner robe.
General Li didn't stop him. He only said:
"Find what you were born for. But don't forget who's trying to erase it."
The words stayed with Shen long after the capital walls disappeared behind him.
His destination: Stone Hollow, a forsaken region along the northwest border.
Marked on the scroll as the last known home of Lei Cheng, Guardian of the Silent Wind.
"If the seal named him, he's not dead," Shen muttered."Or if he is… someone wanted me to see where he fell."
By the third night, the land grew dry and cracked.
Dust storms coiled in the distance.Old trees stood like ghosts.And the locals whispered of a ruined shrine where "the wind never touches your skin."
Shen found it by instinct.
A broken cliffside dwelling hidden behind wildbrush and bone-dry reeds.
The entrance bore an inscription half-buried in stone:
"Guard the Breath. Silence the Empire."
Inside: silence.
Not just absence of noise — true, spiritual stillness.
Even Shen's heartbeat felt muffled.
But something moved deeper within.
Not footsteps.
Not voices.
Breathing.
Rhythmic. Unnatural.
He stepped forward slowly… until he saw him.
Or what was left.
A man — meditating atop a stone platform.
His body wrapped in burial cloth, skin like cracked stone.
But his chest still rose and fell. Barely.
Lei Cheng.
The Guardian.
Alive — but not living.
Trapped in an eternal breath.
Sealed in a cursed meditation.
The scroll had mentioned this state by name:
The Windlock.
A forbidden technique. Meant to delay death until a successor arrived.
Shen stepped closer.
As he did, the old man's eyes slowly opened.
They were silver.
And glowing.
"You carry the mark," the Guardian rasped. "Li… Yun."
Shen didn't flinch.
"Then you know why I'm here."
"I knew you'd come," the Guardian said. "But not… alone."
A pulse of spiritual wind rippled through the chamber.
Suddenly, Lei Cheng's eyes darkened.
"No," he growled. "You are not alone."
A blade slashed through the shadows behind Shen.
He barely twisted aside — the sword tip slicing his shoulder.
He rolled, drew his own blade, and came face to face with the attacker.
Clad in deep red.Eyes covered.A long scarf marked with the symbol of House Li.
Shen cursed.
"The Crown Prince's hound."
The assassin grinned beneath the veil.
"Hello, brother."