The winds over the temple ruins carried the scent of moss, ash, and something older—something newly awakened.
Tian Rui sat motionless at the center of the courtyard, legs crossed, eyes closed. His breaths were shallow, precise. Beneath his skin, the sigils from the altar still pulsed in rhythmic silence. Each pulse vibrated through his bones, down into the earth. His body had become a vessel, and something within was still settling—coiling like smoke, forming patterns beyond his understanding.
Lyen paced nearby, arms folded tightly, glancing at him every few seconds. "It's been hours. He hasn't moved."
"He isn't asleep," Veylan's voice came from the shadows. "He's transforming."
Lyen turned sharply. "He should rest."
Veylan shook his head. "There's no rest when you become something the world doesn't recognize."
---
Inside Tian Rui's mind, the world was different.
He stood in a vast, root-covered plain beneath a blood-colored sky. Trees stretched toward stars that blinked in unnatural rhythm. But this was no dream. It was a realm within, born of the relic and his spirit root—a space of cultivation, but not like any scroll had described.
He approached a single tree in the center—a colossal, gnarled being with bark like iron and leaves of glass. As he placed his palm on the trunk, it whispered.
"You are neither chosen nor cursed. You are claimed."
"What does that mean?" he asked aloud.
"You bear a broken root. But broken things can grow in directions pure roots fear to tread."
The tree cracked open, revealing a crystal heart suspended in air—glowing like a star. It pulsed with the same energy now within him.
The relic.
The seed.
The truth.
When Tian Rui reached out, the crystal shattered, and the fragments surged into his chest. Light consumed him again.
---
In the waking world, Tian Rui gasped as his eyes flew open.
But his eyes weren't the same.
They shimmered with flickers of ancient script, like echoes of something once forgotten. His skin glowed along the sigil lines, and even the air around him trembled slightly. The ground beneath him cracked faintly—not from force, but resonance.
He rose slowly.
"Rui?" Lyen stepped forward, uncertain.
He turned to her. "I saw it."
"Saw what?"
"The root. Not of my body—of what I'm meant to break."
Before she could ask more, a sudden boom shook the earth. From the forest, three cloaked figures emerged, their steps smooth, unhurried. Veylan moved between them and the teens in an instant.
"They came faster than I thought," he muttered. "Clan scouts."
One of the strangers stepped forward. "The boy awakened the altar. Hand him over. The elders will be merciful—if you obey."
Lyen reached for her blade. Tian Rui didn't move. His voice was calm.
"I'm not going with them."
The lead scout frowned. "You misunderstand. You don't have a choice."
Then they struck.
---
The clash was instant—flashes of qi ripping through the forest air.
Veylan engaged two of the attackers, blades clashing with precise, brutal rhythm. Lyen darted at the third, her blade meeting a staff shrouded in crimson light.
Tian Rui stood still. His body vibrated with energy he didn't yet know how to command.
Then instinct took over.
He raised his hand—and the ground responded.
Roots, blackened and burning with inner flame, erupted upward in a spiral, tearing toward the third attacker and snatching him mid-dash. The man screamed as the roots coiled around his limbs like chains. One exploded with a flash of red fire.
Veylan paused mid-blade. "He… commanded spirit roots?"
Lyen looked at Tian Rui with wide eyes. "You said you had no root."
"I didn't," he said softly. "Now I have one that doesn't belong to this world."
---
By the time the battle faded, the attackers were unconscious—barely breathing. Veylan's knuckles were bloody, but his eyes were sharp with respect. Maybe fear.
"You're changing faster than I expected," he muttered. "Too fast."
Tian Rui exhaled and looked toward the north, where distant mountains hid the heart of the great clans. "They'll keep coming."
Lyen stepped beside him. "Then we go where they don't expect. Where even the clans fear to tread."
Veylan gave a rare smile. "The Broken Steppe."
Tian Rui nodded. "Let them hunt."