The city breathed in neon. Veins of light traced across towers of black steel, flickering advertisements humming like restless spirits. Holo-dragons coiled across the skyline, their scales shimmering with ever-shifting code, while maglev trains whispered along their tracks high above the sleeping districts. Far below, the streets simmered with late-night vendors and shadow-market traders, their voices muffled beneath the constant drone of the Network's pulse.
But in the heart of the Kai Clan's ancestral manor, the noise of the city felt a world away.
The compound stood like an island of history—carved stone gates, tiled rooftops, and lacquered wood that had survived centuries. Paper lanterns glowed softly along the walkways, painting the courtyard in amber warmth. A calm night breeze rustled the bamboo, carrying with it the faint scent of incense from the ancestral hall.
Inside, generations of portraits watched over the silence, their painted eyes lit faintly by embedded circuit-runes that kept dust and decay at bay. Young disciples sat cross-legged in the training hall, their neural implants muted, meditating in rhythm with the ancient techniques passed down for centuries. The manor was tradition amidst neon, discipline amidst chaos.
Then the world broke.
A thunderclap of fire tore through the eastern wall. The explosion split the night, shaking the wooden beams and shattering lanterns in a storm of glass and flame. Disciples screamed as the shockwave hurled them across the floor, walls collapsing into the courtyard. The tranquil night was drowned in alarms—red lights flashing across the compound as defense drones screeched awake from their dormant nests.
Smoke bled into the air, tinged with the acrid bite of burning circuitry. Beyond the fractured gates, dark silhouettes advanced—figures outlined in cybernetic gleam, weapons sparking with stolen energy.
The Kai Clan's manor, a sanctuary for centuries, had just become a battlefield.
A hellspawn lord, as if materializing out of thin air appeared in the Kai manor, leaving behind nothing except death and destruction. The various the disciples did their best to hold off the monstrous beast, but to no avail.