The rope tightened around Weiming's neck—punishment for defending what was rightfully his. His father had taught him never to show weakness, never let others take what belonged to their family. The neighborhood vultures had learned that lesson when they came for his inheritance. One of them had died learning it.
Pain flared, white-hot—and then nothing, except a taste of iron on his tongue.
Then suddenly their was no crowd, no gallows, no body.
He floated in a void where sounds didn't belong. Yet something whispered in his bones: "Your second chance".
His mouth opened, but no voice came.
Not even the shape of a word.
He had no weight in the void, no heat, no sense of where he was or where he would end up—only the feeling of being pulled.
The darkness tore like thin paper. Light poured through the cracks, blinding him with colors no human eyes were meant to see.
He didn't fall yet. He was dragged forward, caught on a thread slipping through a needle's eye, carried across the skies of two worlds.
Cold, sharp air slammed into him, and his eyes burned at the sight of a sky split by stark contrasts.
One, endless golden dawn with clouds of white fire, and the other eternal dusk with streaks of violet clouds,
And then he fell—downwards
Deeper—into the dark half, through the violet clouds,
No rope. No broken bones. Just a weightless drop that ended not with pain, but with the ground catching him like soft hands.
He gasped his first breath in this strange world tasting like metals and ash,
He didn't know where he was. Alive—or somehow alive—that felt wrong. Still, he needed to move. Lying in the open made you a target—that lesson hadn't changed between worlds.
---
He stood at the middle of the black-stone island, mist curling around his ankles like liquid silver.
"Where am I?" he muttered, taking in his surroundings.
Across the chasm, other islands drifted silently, their jagged edges fading into the swirling fog. Shadowed bridges arched between them, rippling as if stirred by an unseen hand. Temples of obsidian and jade rose from the islands, their runes pulsing softly, painting the mist with faint, living light.
Then he noticed them—figures on the distant islands, each wearing cuffs with chains dangling from their wrists.
"Prisoners," he muttered, noting their broken restraints. "Or former prisoners."
One of them heard him. "Smartboy. Most newcomers just stare and drool."
"If you escaped, why stay?" Weiming's voice carried across the chasm, matter-of-fact.
"Where would we go?" The distant prisoner's resignation reminded him of his neighbors after his father died—defeated before they'd even tried to fight. The familiar anger flared in his chest, but he kept his voice level. "And you just accepted that?"
"And we're still servants," another voice added. "Same as you."
He looked down.
Heavy iron cuffs circled his wrists, chains hanging loose but unbroken. When had these appeared? He couldn't remember. Panicking wouldn't help.
The conversation with the distant figures had given him some answers, but raised even more questions. If they were all prisoners—servants, as they'd said—then staying here meant accepting that fate. He needed to understand this place better before making that choice.
His gaze shifted to the nearest shadow bridge. The structure seemed almost alive, its dark surface rippling like disturbed water. It would take him to another island, possibly more answers. Or more danger.
He took a step toward it, then another. Each footfall on the black stone echoed strangely, as if the island itself was hollow beneath. As he approached the bridge's edge, he could feel something stirring in the mist behind him—a presence that had been watching, waiting for him to make this exact move.
Hand hovering above the bridge's shifting surface, he paused. Every instinct screamed danger, yet he couldn't look away. The shadows beneath his feet began to bend and twist, flowing toward whatever watched him from behind. The temple runes pulsed brighter, as if acknowledging this new presence.
"You're being watched," he said quietly to himself, accepting this truth as easily as he'd accepted the chains. "Measured."
The presence stirred closer, no longer content to simply observe.
---
The shadow broke its silence, and when it spoke, the mist seemed to recoil.
"You're calmer than most," the voice observed, echoing strangely in the hollow space between islands.
The air tasted of copper and old stone. He could feel the bridge beneath him humming with some unnatural energy, making his teeth ache.
"Panicking won't change anything." He kept his tone neutral, though his fingers unconsciously traced the fresh iron cuffs at his wrists.
"What do you want?"
"Direct. I appreciate that." The presence seemed amused, and the temperature dropped several degrees. "The question is—what do you want?"
"Information. Starting with where I am." His breath came out in visible puffs now, the cold seeping through his clothes like fingers of ice.
"Doesn't work like that."
He turned around slowly, joints stiff from the supernatural chill. The woman who emerged from the mist looked barely twenty, with crimson hair that seemed to absorb the temple's pulsing light and eyes like winter sky. Her innocent face was at odds with the predatory way she watched him—like a cat studying a mouse it hadn't decided whether to kill or play with.
The woman's chains floated instead of hanging—older metal, worn smooth. She stood perfectly balanced despite the bridge's movement. Her smile was too confident for someone asking favors.
"You need something from me as much as I need information," he said, cataloguing every detail even as the supernatural cold bit through his clothes.
"So how are we going to do this?" she asked, her voice carrying an accent he couldn't place. Something ancient.
"Do what?" The bridge shuddered slightly under their combined weight, and he noticed how the shadow beneath it seemed to writhe.
"Prove you're worth the information." Her smile revealed teeth too white, too sharp.
"See, I've been here... oh, three hundred years? Maybe four. Time moves strangely here. And in all that time, I've learned that information isn't free."
His pragmatic mind catalogued details: the way she stood perfectly balanced despite the bridge's movement, how the mist avoided touching her directly, the fact that she'd been here for centuries while looking barely older than him. "How?"
"Show me how strong you are, and maybe I will." She tilted her head, studying him with clinical interest. "The last newcomer begged. The one before bargained with memories. You… ask direct questions. Brave or stupid."
He scoffed,
Surprising himself with the sound in this ethereal place. "Where's the fight?"
"Here. On this bridge." She gestured to the narrow span they stood on, maybe six feet wide with no railings. Below them, the mist swirled in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
He assumed she meant a fight between them—though something about her casual confidence suggested that wouldn't end well for him.
"You see...This bridge," she continued, her voice taking on the tone of someone explaining something obvious to a child, "hangs directly over the white dragon's domain. And from what I've learned in my... extended stay here... he really, truly hates being disturbed."
The cold in his chest intensified. "Dragon."
"Mmm." She produced a small silver bell from nowhere, its surface inscribed with runes that seemed to squirm in the temple light. "They say he's been down there since the first souls arrived. Growing. Waiting. Getting hungrier."
She held the bell over the edge, and he could see how far the drop was—not to solid ground, but into roiling darkness that seemed to go on forever.
She'd been here three centuries and still looked twenty. Either she was lying, or this place operated by different rules. Both options required the same response: gather more information before making decisions.
"What do you gain if I survive?" The word came out rougher than he intended.
Her expression shifted, something almost vulnerable flickering across her features before the predatory mask returned.
"I've been testing newcomers for three centuries, and they all break. I need a partner who won't—someone strong enough to help me reach the Upper Temples. That's the only way either of us leaves this place."
"Either way I need to know if you're worth the risk of telling you what this place really is."
The bell trembled in her grip. "Last chance to run."
Weiming thought of his father teaching him to stand his ground in their mansion's wûgûan. "Running's for people who don't understand the cost of losing."
Every survival instinct screamed to step back. But running wouldn't get answers; she needed something from him as much as he needed information.
Dragons, floating islands, centuries-old prisoners—his father had taught him to adapt or die. Fighting reality was a luxury he'd never been able to afford.
"Do it," he said when she raised the bell.
She smiled, and for the first time, it looked genuine. Almost relieved.
She let the bell fall.
The silence stretched impossibly long—long enough for him to wonder if the drop truly was endless. Then the chime rang out, pure and crystalline, the sound seeming to come from everywhere at once.
The bridge beneath them resonated like a struck tuning fork, and the temple runes flared blindingly bright.
The roar shook the islands' foundations, a voice of pure rage, centuries in the making.
The chains at his wrists grew burning hot against his skin, the metal drinking in his fear. Below, something with eyes like molten gold rose through the mist.
The mist churned violently beneath them, shadows fleeing as something vast moved in the darkness.
And it was rising toward them.