The world had forgotten the name of the Ashen Lands.
Once a cradle of sages and philosophers, it had long since become a graveyard of smoke and silence. Charred stone temples, broken statues of deities, and the hollow bones of the past lay buried beneath eternal clouds of soot. But within that wasteland, among the ruins of something once great, a boy stood.
Louise.
He was seventeen—though the seasons hadn't been kind, and his eyes held years that no calendar had counted. With calloused hands, he lifted a blade dulled by rust and wrapped in cloth, more ceremonial than useful. His breath misted in the morning chill, and he knelt before the cracked altar of a forgotten god.
"I don't need your blessings," he said coldly to the empty sky. "Just don't get in my way."
He wasn't praying. He never had. The gods had abandoned this place long before Louise was born. Still, there was something sacred in silence—something respectful in how he stood from the altar and bowed once, not to worship, but to remember.
Then the earth trembled.
It wasn't an earthquake. Louise had felt those before. This was different—like the world had inhaled, holding its breath.
From the ruined base of a fallen tower, something shimmered. A flicker of silver. Faint, delicate, like a tear in space.
Louise narrowed his eyes. "Another hallucination?"
He approached. The blade he carried wasn't drawn. He knew better than to unsheath steel against things not made of flesh. Instead, he pressed his palm to the flickering light.
Pain exploded through his body.
Not heat. Not cold. Something else—time.
It crashed into him like a tidal wave. Visions struck his mind—cities rising and falling, stars dying in silence, blood-soaked wars fought in languages yet to exist. He was kneeling again, but this time in another world. Above him, an obsidian throne floated in the void, and seated on it was a man—no, a being—wrapped in layers of cloth that shifted like water.
The being spoke, but the words were not heard—they were felt, burned into bone and soul.
"You who are last of ash and first of fire. You who bear the burden of time unchosen. You are the Founder, though you do not yet know it."
Louise gasped, his body shaking as the vision shattered. He fell back against the ruins, coughing blood.
The air was different.
The shimmer was gone—but in its place, embedded in the stone where his hand had touched, was a symbol.
A circle split into three, with lines extending outward like the spokes of a wheel. It pulsed faintly with silver light, then faded.
Louise felt it in his chest.
It was inside him now.
He didn't understand it. Not yet. But something had awakened—and it was not content to sleep.
---
Later that night, when the winds howled like ghosts over the ruins, Louise lit a small fire and sat with his back to a stone lion carved in the old style. He looked at his hand. It shook slightly, though not from fear.
"Founder," he muttered.
What did that mean? Founder of what?
The power that had surged through him was real. It wasn't cultivation—he hadn't even reached Body Forging yet. He'd lived as a scavenger, a survivor, scraping together scraps of food, stealing old cultivation scrolls to read by firelight. The old masters of the Ashen Lands had spoken of things—Dao Paths, Spirit Realms, even Eternity itself—but those were tales told over broken wine jars and dying embers.
This was different.
This was truth.
Louise closed his eyes. The memory of that throne still burned behind them. Not as a hallucination—but as a warning.
Someone—or something—had chosen him. Or perhaps simply found him.
But what now?
He couldn't cultivate. He had no sect, no mentor, and barely enough strength to hold a blade. But for the first time in years, he didn't feel like a ghost haunting the ruins.
He felt like a spark in dry wood.
---
At dawn, he woke to the sound of footsteps.
Not beasts.
Men.
He ducked behind the lion, watching as a group of armored disciples in red and black stepped through the ruined gate. Their robes bore the sigil of the Burning Veil Sect—raiders who scoured old temples for lost techniques and sacred treasures.
Louise knew them well. One of their elders had once cut off a boy's hand for stealing a scroll.
Their leader—a tall man with a wolf tattoo curling across his neck—stopped near the altar where Louise had touched the symbol. He frowned.
"It was here," the man growled. "The mark of the Founder."
Louise's breath caught.
They were looking for it.
He gripped his blade. No time to think. No time to hide. If they found him…
A voice inside him whispered—not his own.
"You are no longer bound by fear. Step forward."
Louise stood.
The disciples turned, surprised. For a moment, no one moved.
"Another rat," one of them laughed. "Wandering the ruins like a ghost."
The leader raised a hand. "Wait."
He squinted at Louise. "Your eyes…"
Louise didn't wait. He moved. Not with skill. Not with grace. But with resolve.
The old blade struck the ground as he swung, kicking up dust and ash into the wind.
"Kill him!" the leader barked.
But as the disciples charged, the mark on Louise's palm flared to life.
And the world—
froze.
The wind stopped.
The ash held midair.
The swords paused, inches from his skin.
Louise stared in awe.
He had stopped time.
Only for a breath. A flicker. But it was enough.
He stepped past the blades, past the fear, and whispered to the still air: "You found me"...