The sound of Jin's scream twisted the air.
It wasn't just pain. It was change. His voice cracked like glass under pressure, as if something deep inside him was being pulled—ripped—from its roots.
Ren Zhe fought against the chains holding him, his bones creaking beneath the invisible pressure. They weren't made of qi, or spirit, or even energy. They were formed of law—ancient authority etched into the bones of empires long dead.
They weren't just binding his body. They were denying his right to resist.
The Sovereign smiled.
A smile that didn't belong on a human face.
"I was once a thought," it said, stepping closer to Jin. "Then a name. Then a wound in the world. Now…"
Its black eye pulsed with sick delight.
"I will become memory, and all who remember me will serve."
"LET HIM GO!" Ren Zhe roared, snapping one chain with sheer force of will.
Blood burst from his mouth. His skin cracked. Grave energy surged out from his core like a tide of black flame.
He activated the Tombheart Qi Array.
The skeletal dragon beneath his feet howled, wings of bone and death flaring open in defiance of natural law. The floor of the Emperor's illusory memory-palace warped and darkened, the gold corroding into ash beneath the weight of undeath.
And still… the Sovereign laughed.
"I like you," it hissed. "Buried in silence. Cultivated in hate. You understand what it means to be forgotten."
Its black hand hovered over Jin's head.
"But this one... is mine."
"No," Jin whispered, voice trembling.
The Sovereign's hand twitched.
Something screamed from within Jin. A different voice. Older.
Not his own.
"I AM NOT YOURS!"
The world exploded in silver.
Ren Zhe blinked.
Where Jin had been, there was now a torrent of ancestral light. Sigils spun around him—marks that looked like roots, thorns, stars. They burned with colors Ren Zhe didn't recognize—colors that hurt to look at.
The Sovereign staggered back, snarl twisting its face.
"Impossible…"
The light stabbed into its chest.
The Emperor's body jerked violently, eyes rolling back.
Golden and black warred across his irises.
And then—the dream shattered.
The palace dissolved. The wind screamed. The banners burned.
Ren Zhe fell to one knee as the real world came crashing back.
They were in the ruins again. The tomb shattered. The glyph-barrier broken.
Meimei crawled toward him, blood at her temple. "What the hell was that?"
"Half a demon," Ren Zhe said through clenched teeth. "Half a god."
They turned to Jin.
The boy was floating, surrounded by the ancestral sigils—his own bloodline awakening like a nuclear storm.
"He's not normal," Meimei whispered.
"I know," Ren Zhe said grimly.
The Sovereign rose, body flickering. Parts of him smoked, skin turning to shadow and peeling away.
"You… you bear the seed of the Hollow Crown," it snarled. "That blood was extinct."
Ren Zhe's breath caught.
Hollow Crown.
The last bloodline to challenge the Emperor before the Ten Thousand Lotus Era.
A clan wiped from the scrolls of history.
Jin's eyes glowed silver. He wasn't screaming anymore. He was… calm. Inhumanly calm.
"The Hollow Crown never died," he said, voice deeper than his age. "We buried ourselves in the veins of time."
The Sovereign growled. "Then I'll erase you now."
Its arm morphed into a blade of night.
It leapt.
Ren Zhe blurred into motion, sword flashing.
The Sovereign dodged mid-air, spinning—
—and Jin raised a hand.
Not to block.
To command.
The silver sigils detonated.
The Sovereign screamed as invisible forces ripped it from the air, slamming it to the earth with a thunderclap. Dust and spiritfire erupted in all directions.
Jin descended slowly, light fading from his body. The ancestral sigils dimmed.
His knees buckled.
Ren Zhe caught him before he fell.
"Easy," he said. "That was too much."
Jin looked up at him, eyes returning to their normal dark brown. "I didn't know… I didn't know I could do that."
"You couldn't," Ren Zhe said. "Not until now."
They turned toward the crater where the Sovereign had landed.
It was empty.
No body. No blood. No trace.
Only a dark smear of residual qi. The kind that promised a return.
"Of course he's not dead," Meimei muttered.
"No," Ren Zhe said. "He was just testing us."
He looked at Jin.
"You're a descendant of the Hollow Crown."
Jin's lips trembled. "I didn't know."
"You think that matters?" Meimei said, stepping closer. "You just vaporized the last Emperor's body with a thought. That matters more."
Ren Zhe stood slowly. "He'll come back. The Sovereign's bound to the mortal realm through that body. And now that he knows you're alive—"
"He'll never stop hunting me," Jin finished.
Ren Zhe nodded. "Exactly."
The skeletal dragon slithered behind them, melting back into shadow. Ren Zhe sheathed his Shard.
"We have to move."
Meimei blinked. "Where?"
Ren Zhe didn't hesitate.
"To the Mausoleum of Roots."
Jin's eyes widened. "That's just a myth."
"No," Ren Zhe said. "It's a sanctuary built before the Lotus Era. Buried by the war between the Hollow Crown and the Emperor. It was designed to protect bloodlines like yours."
"How do you know that?" Meimei asked.
"Because I found the entrance twelve years ago," Ren Zhe said. "And left a piece of myself behind."
Jin looked at him in awe. "You planned for this?"
"I survived the grave," Ren Zhe said, voice low. "I learned not to leave anything to chance."
Far above, the sky began to bleed. A crimson ripple passed across the clouds, invisible to most—but not to them.
The Sovereign had marked its prey.
And now… the hunt had begun.