## Fifteen Years Back ##
Hemlock's POV:
The atmosphere in the hidden room was heavy with fear and the smell of burnt incense. Hemlock stood shoulder to shoulder with five others, all wearing black, faces half-hidden in darkness. In front of them on throne loomed a figure covered in a coat embroidered with dragons scales, eyes shining with cold silver.
A bleeding spy knelt before them.
"All Legacy Families have joined together," he rasped. "They've called us traitors. Compiled false evidence. Stirred the masses into a frenzy. Even the High Commands of millitary is quiet—playing at neutrality while withholding sanctuary, assistance, even voice."
Hemlock's lips narrowed. The Legacy Families, once great pillars of civilization, had become vipers .
The man on throne dismissed the spy with a wave. After a hushed council, his voice cut through the gloom like thunder wrapped in silk: "Prepare for war."
Six months later,
The Shen Family,once the fiercest of all legacy families, lay in ruins. Their ancestral fortress standing from the age of Skyfall reduced to ash. Their leader fallen in a final, desperate stand.
Now, Hemlock stood alone in that very same hidden room. The walls of stone were crying with remembrance.
Sitting in front of him was Lady Shen ,her green eyes gaunt with sorrow but burning with determination for Avenging her's husband death at the hands of family traitors on the battlefield.
Snuggled in her lap was a boy of two, his small fingers wrapped around a strand of her hair, his eyes the same shining green.
Lady Shen gave a silent nod and removed a locket from a box to her side—the Black Lightning Dragon locket. She put it around the child's neck, kissed his forehead, and handed him to Hemlock.
One tear drop slipped through her eyes, but she gritted her jaw, smoothing out her face before the boy could wake up .
"Take him as far as you can," she ordered, voice unwavering as steel. "To the farthest edge. Raise him. Train him for the war that comes in future, which will bring doom to humanity . May the dragon's shadow protect you."
Hemlock fell to one knee. No hesitation. No questions. He cradled the child as if it were a holy relic and disappeared into the night.
Weeks passed, and word came to him:
Lady Shen had perished on the Blood Fields of Virel, short sword in hand, stained with the blood of traitors.
Hemlock traveled for months -across blizzards, deserts, forests full of beasts,before he came to Kasha:
a pinpoint village snug in deep valleys of the Searoot Mountains, lost to maps and men both.
He dropped the boy off at the orphanage with a pauch of silver.
Then, he started a bakery—"Hemlock's Heart" its ovens warm, its bread coarse but honest.
By day, he worked in bakery .By night, he stood guard in the shadows, as ghost guarding a sleeping dragon.
Fifteen years passed.
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**Kasha – During the Beast Horde Attack**
The earth shook. Roars shook the air. Hemlock cowered in the village bunker with shaking elders,females and wide-eyed children, flour still coating his sleeves.
Outside, the horde—twisted unions of fang, scale, and nightmare— swarmed the walls.
Then, his ring burst into light.
Green illumination flashed from the obsidian ring on his finger—pulsing, living. His breath froze. "The locket… it's broken." He thought.
His master's last command echoed through his head:
"Do not interfere. If he is worthy, the Dragon will choose him. No hand but fate's may guide the awakening."
Tears flowed down Hemlock's face.Around him, villagers whimpered, mistaking his sobs for terror. But deep within, his heart sang.
After fifteen years of silence the boy- 'his' boy had awakened the legacy. The Black Lightning Dragon had roared to life within him.
"He is worthy,"Hemlock thought, placing a flour-covered hand over his chest. "Worthy of the way of thunder and blood."
Two days afterwards, Kasha was in shambles . Hemlock stood back and observed as the boy, while differing in small ways,rushed through the wreckage, shouting for survivors. His stance was different. Keener. The air that surrounded him crackled softly, like static before a storm.
Hemlock followed him into the woods on the way to Rekka .Concealed by the trees he watched the impossible: the boy, after stonewalled in tier 0 for nearly two years busted through, reaching tier 1.
'The Dragon awakens.' he thought.
#######
**Rekka – The Rusty Nail Inn**
The boy, William as the villagers called him ,had left the inn. Hemlock slipped inside the empty room. Under the bed sheet he placed a folded parchment sealed with wax bearing the Shen crest: a black lightning dragon .
He hesitated a moment, fingers touching the rim of parchment. *Forgive me for the silence, young master. But the path must be walked alone*
####
**Rekka – Outside the Secularis Chamber House**
Hemlock stood in a black alleyway across from the Secularis Chamber House. He observed William make his way to the house.
A minute later, William reappeared, two old books hidden beneath his arm. Hemlock had laid them there before William arrived.Shen family grimoires, their covers torn, titles burned away. No name. No lineage. Only raw knowledge, waiting.
William didn't realize they were his birthright. Didn't realize the ink in them carried the screams of his forefathers, the tactics of his predecessors.
And that was as it ought to be.
For now.
Hemlock faded back into the shadows, hood up. The boy would stumble, rage, doubt. He would forge his own name before reclaiming the old one. That was the way of the Dragon-tested in fire, tempered in solitude.
But Hemlock would be present. Always. In the alley. In the crowd. In the silence between heartbeats.
He felt the ring on his finger—still warm with leftover energy. The Dragon had spoken. The clash with legacy families was no longer impending.
It had already started.
And this time, the Shen lineage would not fall .
Hemlock turned away, his baker's apron a distant memory now, discarded for the heaviness of an concealed blade and a promise to a mother.
Someplace in front of him, William strode towards the inn or maybe towards his fate, unaware of the Strom gathering in his distinct future.
'Let the legacy families believe us dead,'Hemlock thought, disappearing into the night. 'Let the young generation forget the Shen name.'
'But we will return in thunder.'
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Authors Note- Hello dear readers,you may have noticed when someone tells a story we respond with nod or make some noises like "hmm" or "ok " or other native gesture.
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