The imperial palace of Xuanlong stood silent beneath a blood-red moon, its towering jade roofs cloaked in eerie light. On this night, the stars themselves seemed to hold their breath.
In the eastern wing of the Inner Palace, a woman screamed.
"Push! Push, Your Highness!"
The Empress of the Dragon Throne clenched the silk sheets as pain wracked her body. Midwives rushed about, incense smoke thick in the air, muffling the sounds of labor.
At last — a newborn's cry pierced the stillness.
"It's a boy!" the head midwife exclaimed.
But before joy could settle, a second cry followed — softer, weaker.
A second boy.
A twin.
The room turned cold.
The old eunuch overseeing the birth paled. "Twins… this is an ill omen. The prophecy foretold only one heir to rule the empire under Heaven."
The Empress trembled. "No… no one must know."
Before the second child could be cleaned, he was taken away — wrapped in black cloth and handed to a shadowed figure waiting at the rear exit of the palace.
"Raise him in silence. He is already dead to the world," the eunuch ordered grimly. "The empire cannot know the Dragon has two heads."
That night, the first child was named Li Ren, Crown Prince of Xuanlong.
The second child was cast into darkness, unnamed, forgotten.
Seventeen years later.
The village of Yanshui was burning.
Smoke curled into the heavens as demonic beasts tore through mud walls and rice fields, their claws painted in blood. Villagers screamed, fled, and fell — but one figure stood firm.
A young man, clad in tattered black robes, his eyes like molten gold, moved like a shadow. His blade shimmered, coated not in metal, but in condensed spiritual force.
"Get behind me!" he barked at a group of children, slashing a horned beast in half with a clean arc.
But the numbers were endless. They surged, surrounded, clawed.
A crimson horn pierced his side.
He staggered. Blood spilled from his lips. Still, he fought.
And when the final child was safely out of the village, he smiled.
"Guess that's enough…"
The horn impaled his heart.
His body fell, broken and bleeding, under the burning moon — the same moon that had witnessed his birth.
But death was not the end.
He awoke gasping, drenched in sweat, his chest whole again — no wound, no blood, no pain.
The air smelled of incense.
His eyes widened.
He was… in silk wrappings. A baby's body.
A cradle.
He turned his head — saw the midwife, the crimson curtains, the trembling empress.
His mind screamed.
"I… I've come back. To the night I was born."
His tiny hand curled into a fist.
This time, he wouldn't be discarded.
This time, he would carve his own name into the Dragon Throne — not as a shadow…
…but as the storm.