Flame Valley burned not from war, but betrayal.
Yan Rui stumbled through smoke and blood, the charred remains of his village collapsing around him. He was just fifteen, but the pain in his chest aged him far beyond that. His clothes were torn, soot staining his skin. He coughed violently, half crawling, half dragging himself toward the old well near his home.
His mother lay still by the steps, eyes open and glassy, arms spread wide as if to shield something. His father's blade cracked and dulled was gripped tightly in her hand. Beside her, a faintly glowing crystal trembled on the scorched earth, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
Yan Rui reached out with bloodied fingers. The moment he touched it, a warmth surged up his arm. Symbols ancient, unreadable flared in the air around him.
They came for this, he realized not us not the valley but this.
A sound low and guttural rippled through the air. From the blackened trees, a monstrous beast stepped forward. Twice the size of a horse, its fur smoldered with ash and flame. Its eyes were orbs of crimson lightning.
Yan Rui's heart stopped. He couldn't fight. He had no Qi, no cultivation. All he knew were basic stances his father had drilled into him after dinner.
The beast roared and charged.
He lifted the blade with trembling arms. His stance cracked. He stumbled and talk to self
"I'm going to die"
The crystal exploded in light.
A serpent of golden flame spiraled from it, coiling around the beast mid-air. The creature screamed as its body convulsed, paralyzed by ancient energy. The serpent hissed, not at the beast, but at Yan Rui.
Then it spoke not aloud, but within his mind.
"Child of Chaos… blood awakened. Dominion stirs."
The serpent lunged, not to harm but to enter him.
Pain surged through Rui's veins. The world dimmed.
And when he awoke… he was alone.
Ash fell like snow. The village was gone.
But the crystal was now embedded in his chest, glowing faintly beneath the skin. The blade his mother held was still in his hand. And behind his eyes, a presence stirred watching, waiting.
--
Three days later, Yan Rui walked the broken paths north, toward the Capital of Jinlong Empire. His clothes were patched from stolen cloth, and hunger gnawed at his gut. But his eyes burned with a quiet fire.
At dusk, he reached the edge of Blackroot Ravine a cursed place avoided by even seasoned cultivators. But he had no Qi to sense danger, no spirit beast to guard him, no coin to pay a toll.
He entered the ravine anyway.
Halfway through, something shimmered in the shadows. A flash of silver. A whisper of breath.
He spun, blade drawn.
The ground trembled.
From beneath the rocks rose a stone pillar, etched in thousands of spiraling runes. Hovering above it a mask. Ornate. Silver. Its surface bore no eye holes, no mouth, but radiated deep pressure. As if the mountain bowed to it.
The voice come from within him
"The Soulbound Mask… a sealed Champion."
The mask floated toward him, slow and deliberate. Every instinct screamed to run. But something deeper older kept him rooted.
The mask paused before him.
"Name," it demanded. "Blood. Purpose."
"I am Yan Rui," he whispered, heart pounding. "Son of no one. Village burned. Seeking power."
Silence.
Then
"Bond accepted. Dominance recognized. Chaos Root detected. Companion Link initiated."
The mask shot toward his chest and fused to his shadow.
Yan Rui staggered.
Images slammed into his mind battlefields in the sky, a thousand years of war, a being of immense power wielding all nine elemental laws. He saw himself older, stronger standing atop worlds.
When he blinked, the ravine was still. But now he felt… different.
The mask did not vanish it lived in his shadow, shifting like smoke. And its voice, now calmer, echoed in his mind.
"I am Xiran. Bound to you by fate and flame. Once a Champion of the Godless Realm. Now… your blade, your shield, your mirror."
Yan Rui dropped to his knees.
Not from fear.
From purpose.
He did not know who destroyed his home. But he would find out. He would rise. And the world would remember his name not as a beggar orphaned by fate, but as the one who returned it all to chaos.