Li Shenhai knelt in silence beneath the massive statue of his father.
The storm-shaped blade in the statue's hand cast a long shadow over him, flickering in the crimson glow of the lanterns above. All around, the stone chamber thrummed with ancient qi—raw, unrefined, heavy. The kind that clung to your soul.
The four scrolls still hovered above the blackened heart on the altar, each one pulsing with a different rhythm.
Flame. Wind. Blood. Void.
They represented trials—spiritual, physical, emotional, perhaps even fate itself.
Shenhai's hand rested on the rusted sword at his side. Though dulled and aged, it had just shown him a vision so real he could still smell the burning rain. His father's last stand. The storm, the fury, the sorrow. It wasn't just history. It was memory.
"He died alone… so I could live."
He clenched his jaw.
For so long, he had seen his father as a myth. A blade that vanished into the wind. But now? He felt it in his marrow. That same fire, that same unyielding spirit, had passed into him.
A voice broke the silence.
"You saw it, didn't you?" asked the silver-eyed woman in the shadows. Her tone was neither warm nor cold. "His fall. His victory."
Shenhai didn't look up. "Why show me that now?"
She stepped forward, barefoot on stone, her robes swirling like mist.
"To remind you what price was paid so you could stand here. Power without memory is poison. Legacy without pain is hollow. You carry more than his blood."
He stood slowly.
"I carry his storm."
She smiled faintly. "Then choose your trial."
He looked up at the scrolls. Each one tempted him in a different way.
The Flame Scroll pulsed like a heartbeat—hot, furious, alive. The path of destruction and rebirth.
The Wind Scroll shimmered faintly—elusive, swift, dancing just beyond reach. The path of freedom and clarity.
The Blood Scroll throbbed with heaviness—raw, dense, ancient. The path of sacrifice and heritage.
The Void Scroll was silent—no movement, no light. A darkness that watched back. The path of nothingness… and everything.
His hand rose. Trembled.
And then, he chose.
The Blood Scroll drifted into his hand, and as it touched his skin, it burned like molten steel.
The altar flared red.
The blackened heart beat louder, faster. The room twisted, the walls melted into a spiral of crimson and obsidian. Shenhai fell to one knee, gasping, as the scroll uncoiled and wrapped around his body like a serpent.
"You seek your lineage?" the silver-eyed woman whispered. "Then bleed for it."
The trial had begun.
His vision dimmed.
And he fell—through memory, through flesh, through time—into the blood of his own forgotten past.