Rain poured like broken rhythm on the roof tiles of Jade Pulse Monastery, the ancient home of the Pulse Lineage. Beneath the long-eaved courtyard, barefoot students stood in silence. Thirty of them, clothed in deep crimson wraps, waited for the bell to chime and begin the morning Form.
But the bell did not ring.
Instead, a whisper passed through the ranks:
"He's still not resonating."
In the center, one boy remained still as stone. Kai Sen, fifteen winters old, stood in the Opening Stance, fists relaxed, knees slightly bent, spine straight—but unmoving.
Master Elin strode through the columns, her footsteps nearly inaudible despite the wet stone. Her presence silenced even the rain.
"Kai Sen," she said softly. "Begin."
He did.
Slowly, precisely, Kai moved through the Form of Awakening Pulse. Each motion was designed to harmonize the body's heartbeat with the living energy of the world. When performed correctly, one's skin glowed with internal light, and one could feel the pulse of others—even the smallest insect in the leaves.
But as Kai reached the second arc, the Heart Spiral, nothing happened.
No glow. No warmth. No Resonance.
He finished the Form. Silence followed. No breath from the students. No praise from the master. Only stillness.
"You feel nothing?" Master Elin asked.
"I feel..." Kai hesitated. "...Blocked. As if the pulse moves through me, but does not stop. Like I'm... hollow."
Murmurs erupted.
"Even toddlers resonate in their first year…"
"Is he cursed?"
"He's trained since he could walk—how can he still be empty?"
Master Elin raised her hand. Quiet returned.
"Kai Sen, leave the courtyard."
He bowed. "Yes, Master."
As he stepped away, he didn't look down. He didn't cry. But he didn't feel shame either. Something else stirred beneath his chest—an echo, faint and wrong, like a second heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
Later that night, Kai sat alone in the Chamber of Stillness, reserved for quiet reflection or exile. He unwrapped the old scroll he had kept hidden in his satchel for years—The Form of Echo, a forbidden sequence etched in ink so faded it was barely legible.
It wasn't one of the Nine.
No one spoke of it.
He moved into the first stance, trembling.
As he raised his arm, time around him slowed. The candles flickered backward. His breath reversed. The echo in his chest boomed like a gong.
And then—he vanished.
For a moment.
And reappeared—gasping, heart racing, the stone beneath his feet cracked in a spiral.
The candle flames were gone.
So was the scroll.
And carved into the wall behind him were three words in a language he had never learned:
"You are the Tenth."
A presence stirred behind him.
It was not footsteps. Not breathing. It was the absence of both. The kind of silence that pushes against your ears like deep water. Kai turned, slow and unsure, and there it was:
A figure—cloaked in threads of darkness and silver ash—stood within the shadows of the chamber. Not entirely solid. Its outline blurred like heat rising from stone. Its face was not visible, but its eyes—no, its absence of eyes—looked straight through him.
The air grew heavier.
Kai tried to speak, but his voice fled.
The figure tilted its head slightly. Then it spoke—not with a mouth, but into his spine.
> "You touched the Dead Form."
Kai clenched his fists. "What...what are you?"
> "What you will become, if you step further."
The room around them flickered—once a monastery chamber, now a broken battlefield for a blink. A thousand shadows fought in silence, performing martial Forms that split the air and fractured the sky.
Then it was gone.
Back to stone. Back to cold.
The figure drifted forward, hovering just off the floor.
> "They lied to you, Kai Sen. There are not Nine Realms."
The wall behind the figure pulsed once, revealing a massive circular sigil—ten lines radiating from a center, but the tenth line had been carved out, then sealed with molten stone.
> "The Tenth Realm was erased, not destroyed. Its Resonance was too strong. Too unstable. It did not follow—it consumed."
The presence leaned close.
> "And it is returning."
Kai took a step back, but the weight of the words had already settled onto his shoulders.
> "You heard the echo. That makes you the Key."
A pause.
Then, with a whisper that bent the flames back to life:
> "Others will try to kill you. Before you open the gate."
And then—it was gone.
No flicker. No fade.
Just gone.
The candles steadied. The chamber returned to silence.
But Kai was not the same.
The spiral crack beneath his feet had grown—now forming the outline of a tenth circle, hidden just beneath the monastery's stone. And as he looked at his reflection in the bronze wall-plating, he saw something impossible:
His eyes no longer matched.
One remained his own.
The other had no pupil at all—only a perfect mirrored surface.
An echo of something watching.