It began with a whisper.
Not a sound, not even a vibration but a shift in the air. The kind of change that only cultivators could feel in their marrow. A quiet warning that the world had noticed something it wasn't supposed to.
The morning after the resonance cannon fired, Ashveil woke to stillness.
Too still.
No wind. No birdcall. No flicker of stray energy in the qi fields.
Ayaka stood on the roof of the estate's eastern spire, eyes narrowed toward the horizon. "It's begun."
Jareth joined her without a word, gaze turned upward.
The sky hadn't changed. But the light had.
Like a thin filter of power had been draped across the heavens. As if someone were watching.
"Ancestor attention," Ayaka said. "Subtle. But real."
Jareth's lips curled slightly. "Good. Now we make our second move."
"You already have a second move?"
"I told you. I don't fire without a follow-up."
He turned and descended the tower.
Inside the war room, Sera and a few key staff gathered around a rotating 3D projection of Ashveil's domain. Red zones glowed where Black family intelligence was still weak. Blue lines traced trade routes, and deep beneath, dotted yellow glyphs marked cultivation wells, some accessible, most buried or corrupted.
Jareth pointed at a glyph near the southern border. "That well was sealed after the first generation's collapse. Family records claim it's unstable. That's a lie."
Sera raised an eyebrow. "You think it's intact?"
"I know it is." He tapped again. "And it's our next play."
Ayaka frowned. "You're escalating quickly."
"The family sent a watcher. I need them to understand they're late. And the ancestors watching from the cultivation realm? They'll need more than a spark. They need to see the flames."
---
The ride to the southern edge took hours. The terrain was harsh scorched valleys from previous wars, dead qi zones, and stone fields humming with ancient trap arrays. Most of Jareth's guards stayed behind. Only Ayaka, Sera, and two elite escorts followed.
They arrived at the basin just before nightfall.
It looked like nothing. A crater of bone-colored stone, rimmed with broken monoliths etched in forgotten script.
Sera knelt beside one and traced a finger over the surface. "These aren't just suppressors. They're oath markers."
Ayaka looked wary. "Someone sealed this place with legacy intent. Probably blood-forged."
"Then we break the seal," Jareth said.
He stepped forward and summoned the Black core within him. It pulsed, deep, heavy, and dark. Not like ordinary qi. It moved like ink under pressure. The air around him crackled, and the sigils on the stone lit one by one.
The ground trembled.
Stone split.
And a stairway opened beneath the basin, spiraling into blackness.
They descended without speaking.
The deeper they went, the louder the hum became. At first, it sounded like metal vibrating. Then it changed, low chants, ghostlike whispers from forgotten cultivators long buried by war.
At the bottom, they reached a chamber of obsidian and silver. Floating in the center was a crystal sphere the size of a heart, suspended by chains of pure qi.
Sera gasped. "A Sovereign Core."
Even Ayaka looked shaken. "This wasn't just a well. This was a throne chamber."
Jareth stepped forward, breath slowing. The sphere pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"Whoever ruled this region before the fall… they left this behind. And it's bound to the Black line."
"Then it's yours," Sera said softly.
But the moment Jareth touched it, the chamber exploded with light.
His vision blurred. Time twisted.
He stood in a field of black grass under a violet sky. Mountains floated in the distance. A figure made of fire and shadow knelt before a black throne.
A voice echoed not from the mouth, but from the core of the vision itself.
"You reach too soon. The throne demands patience."
Jareth's reply was cold. "Then teach me."
The fire-throned figure raised its hand. "Then endure the trial."
The vision shattered.
Jareth collapsed back into the chamber, gasping. The sphere now floated above his head, tethered to his soul. Runes burned along his arms marks of a realm-bound pact.
Ayaka caught him. "What happened?"
"I touched the ancestor's memory," he said hoarsely. "He tested me."
Sera stared. "And you passed?"
Jareth stood slowly. "I'm still here, aren't I?"
---
By morning, the qi field over Ashveil had shifted again. The watcher orb from the Black family flared. Across the realm, cultivators reported seeing black lightning flicker over the southern sky.
In the Black cultivation realm, deep in the ancestral court, an elder stirred.
He opened a ledger made of soul-steel, brushed away dust, and added a new name to the page:
Jareth Black.
Rank: Unknown.
Core: SSS.
Designation: Claimed One.
Status: Watched.
And then he sent a message down the soul-path:
"Initiate First Echo. Let the next heir be tested."
Far below, in Ashveil, Jareth opened his eyes and whispered, "Let them come."
Because now… he had power.
And soon, he'd have war.