My body ached.
When I tried to move, pain lanced through every muscle, like I'd been beaten half to death. Maybe I had. The courtyard around me was littered with broken tiles, shattered statues, and splatters of blood that weren't mine.
I sat up slowly, gasping.
"Where… am I?"
My voice was hoarse. I looked down at myself and froze.
This wasn't my body.
It was thinner, frailer. My hands were rough, with calluses from years of labor. My clothes were torn rags, soaked in dirt and sweat. When I reached up to touch my face, I felt sharp angles — cheekbones, jawline — I didn't recognize.
Before I could panic further, a flood of memories hit me like a tidal wave.
A name:
"Lian Zhen."
A boy from a small servant family. Weak, bullied, worthless in a world of cultivation. He had no spirit root, no talent, nothing… until he was beaten by a young master's lackeys and left to die here, in the abandoned courtyard of the Crimson Ember Sect.
Now I was in his body.
My hands trembled. "So… I really died in my world."
And somehow, I'd taken over this boy's corpse.
A faint warmth pulsed in my chest, interrupting my thoughts. The flame from before. I could feel it, alive inside me, thrumming like a second heartbeat. When I focused on it, it flared brighter, sending heat through my veins without burning me.
A whisper curled through my mind:
"Rank Two Heavenly Flame… Soul of Ember."
The words echoed, foreign but instinctive, as if the flame itself was teaching me. I could see faint glowing threads spreading from my chest, weaving through my limbs. My body — no, Lian Zhen's body — had been frail and malnourished, but the flame's warmth was knitting it back together, strengthening me.
I stood, unsteady but alive.
A rusty sword lay near the courtyard wall. I grabbed it just as voices echoed from beyond the broken gate.
"He should be dead already."
"Tch. Let's check anyway. If that trash survived, the young master will have our heads."
Panic surged. They were coming back — the same bullies who'd killed Lian Zhen.
I gritted my teeth, fingers tightening on the hilt. For sixteen years in my old world, I had seen death but could never stop it.
Not this time.
As the gate creaked open, I raised my sword. The Soul Flame pulsed inside me, and for the first time, I felt it — power.
"Come closer," I muttered. "I dare you."