The northern wasteland—where wind cuts like blades and snow falls like shards of ice.Nothing lived here but silence and frost.
A broken body lay upon the frozen ground, blood long congealed.Yet behind its closed eyes, something waited.
—"The game of fate is not over."
A deep echo stirred within the void of his soul.Then, the ice cracked.A faint blue glow flickered between the corpse's brows.
Ye Xuan's eyes opened.
No panic. No confusion.Only calm. Pure calculation.
He sat up slowly, the snowstorm reflected in his gaze."…This… is the Mortal Realm?"
Fragments of memory surged through his mind—He once stood atop the heavens, the Supreme Tactician of all realms.He remembered the Final Game, the "Heaven-Ending Board," where he gambled against the Heavenly Dao itself… and lost.
Now, he lived again.
Ye Xuan looked at his hands—weak flesh, brittle bones, empty of qi. A mortal's body.
"Heh."A quiet chuckle escaped his lips."A mortal shell… yet freer than any immortal."
He touched his brow.A faint mark glimmered—ten hidden sigils, remnants of the Ten Stratagems.
"The nine mirrors are gone, my memories scattered…""But the board remains."
He closed his eyes. Within his mind, wind became a chessboard; snowflakes, the pieces; mountains, the lines of fate.
Moments later, he murmured,"Three miles north—blood scent. Five men, two wounded. Spirit-hunters… seeking my soul."
His eyes opened, sharp as blades."Hunters? Perfect. A test for this new vessel."
Snow roared as he moved.Footsteps blurred into the storm—then came screams, brief and final.
When silence returned, five bodies lay upon the snow.Ye Xuan stood over them, calm and untouched.
He retrieved a glowing jade slip from one corpse.The mark of the Void Sect gleamed faintly.
"So… you still crawl in the dark."His tone was quiet, but colder than the wind.
As he walked away, the snow beneath his feet formed a strange pattern—one of the ten sigils upon his soul, faintly shining.
"The first move… of the Mortal Game."