Le Wei was trembling.
The book slipped from his hands and hit the earth with a muffled thud. His fingers dug into the grass, yanking clumps of green from the ground like they were responsible for what he had just read. His jaws clenched so tight it ached, but he didn't loosen them. His chest heaved, his breath shallow and ragged.
His expression flickered between fury, disbelief, and something deeper, something unspoken, ancient, broken. Rage, menace, despair. A maelstrom in the skin of a boy.
He stared at the ground, refusing to blink. If he blinked, the tears might fall.
"Shenze? Xuji? Hereditary Silence? Yanzhou?" he rasped. "What kind of messed-up bedtime story did I just crawl into?"
He tried to laugh, but the sound came out cracked and hollow, like dry bones rattling inside a forgotten cave.
Was this really happening? Were those strange names and systems and titles real?
He thought back to the scroll. The dreams. The burning sky. The voice that whispered in riddles. The beasts that bowed to him in his visions. At the time, he'd dismissed them as dreams...weird dreams, sure, but still dreams. Now?
Now everything made sense in the most horrifying way.
The war. The screaming. The island choked in silence and sorrow. The masked children. The beasts devouring the sky. The blood that never stopped falling.
It wasn't just fantasy. It was memory.
It was his memory.
He shouldn't know these things. No one from Yanzhou should. But the book had peeled open the locked chest inside his soul and spilled it across the pages like it was nothing.
And now, to make matters worse, he held the Forbidden Scroll.
The world should've held its breath.
But Le Wei didn't.
He stood slowly, fingers trembling, the veins in his arms glowing faintly with strange light. His eyes were bloodshot, yet sharp..like glass on the edge of cracking.
"I trusted Old Ren when he said weird books make good firewood," he whispered. "Should've listened."
He glared at the forest around him like it was all part of the lie. The sky above looked too calm. The trees too tall. The birds too unaware.
How could the world be so peaceful when everything inside him had shattered?
He glanced back at the book, pages fluttering in the wind like they were mocking him. One final note had glowed before the magic faded.
"You needn't know my name. Just know there's a bigger world apart from the island. When we came here, I didn't lose my memory—because I stored it in this book. I'm going to die anyway, so I'm leaving this for the one who'll bring us freedom."
"My first words when I got here were: Where are we?"
Those words repeated in Le Wei's mind like a curse. The writer hadn't died from the Hereditary Silence like the others. He died from something worse..the Death Wave—a condition that made every second of your lifespan visible and draining.
And still, he wrote.
Still, he passed on the truth.
Freedom.
That one word echoed in Le Wei's ears like a war drum. A word so simple, yet so heavy it felt like it could crush mountains.
He sank to his knees, trembling harder now, body taut like a drawn bow.
"I'm just a kid," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Just a stupid, average kid who can't even cook rice without burning it… I'm not this. I'm not some heir, some monster, some hereditary silence prophecy!"
But no one was listening.
Tears streamed down his cheeks now, hot and fast, unrelenting.
Though the book had revealed much about Yanzhou, about the Silence, about their exile, it had said nothing about the scroll he saw. Nothing about the beasts. Nothing about the power that had just burst out of him like a sealed dam breaking.
Nothing.
The writer had detailed the world's lies, the exile, the truth behind the Silence...but this? The power? The title?
Not a single word.
Why?
Was it something the writer hadn't discovered? Or something he feared to write?
Le Wei didn't know. And that terrified him more than anything else.
He had finally found answers, but they only raised more questions.
And now, he was something unknown.
A mystery even the truth couldn't explain.
"I didn't ask for this! I didn't want this!"
He punched the ground.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
And with each blow, something inside him slipped further away. His fingers burned from contact with the earth, not from injury..but from the growing heat beneath his skin.
Suddenly, strange lights sparked around him, glowing sigils and shadows that twisted like sentient smoke.
He barely noticed at first.
Until he felt it..the power surging through his chest like a river of molten metal.
His grief had turned volatile. His pain had found a voice.
Aura burst from him like a cracked dam, tendrils of raw energy snaking into the air, pulsing with color and fury. Fire bloomed around him..but it wasn't just fire. It was blue, ethereal and cold, yet alive.
The flames coiled into beasts, six of them.
A dragon with eyes like void stars. A lion that roared without sound. A fox of endless tails. A bird wreathed in stormlight. A tiger with celestial stripes. And a snake with fangs dripping shadow.
They circled him, forming a ring of ancient power, as if awakened by something older than time.
Le Wei was at the center, sobbing silently, unaware.
Even when a leaf drifted from the tree above and touched the aura, it disintegrated mid-air, turned to ash instantly.
The grass under his knees blackened. The bark of the tree behind him curled like old parchment, nearly catching fire before the aura pulled away.
But Le Wei didn't burn.
No. He didn't feel pain.
He felt anger.
He felt despair.
He felt power.
And something else..darker.
Something is awakening inside me, he thought.
But the moment he realized this...the aura vanished.
Gone in a blink. Like it never existed. Leaving behind only heat, smoke, and silence.
He staggered backward, clutching his chest, eyes wide. His breath came in shallow gasps. His tears had stopped, not from peace, but exhaustion.
And then, just when he thought it was over, a soft chime echoed in his ears, like glass tapping glass.
A scroll-like prompt shimmered into view before him.
He blinked at it, stunned.
[CRIMSON HEIR]
[Titles: Wrathborne,Emberborn]
[Talent: Mirrorbrand (Mimic Arts)]
[Abilities:Beast Summoner, Blue Flame Affinity]
[Rank: Initiate (Kaishi)]