The rain fell on the Verdant Dragon Clan in a slow, gray drizzle. It soaked into black robes and made the banners hang heavy.
Lin Feng's funeral procession moved like a dark river through the ancestral cemetery.
His cousin, Lin Tao, stood at the head of the grave. His voice was a perfect blend of grief and strength, carrying over the crowd.
"We gather today to mourn a son of the clan," Lin Tao said, his head bowed. "A life, cut too short. A future, stolen by weakness of the body. But let us remember his spirit."
It was a masterful performance. The elders nodded. The disciples looked solemn.
From under her hood, Lin Feng's younger sister, Lin Mei, cried. Her shoulders shook silently. Her mother, Qing Mei, stood straight as a blade, her face a mask of carved jade. Only the white-knuckled grip of her hand on her husband's arm betrayed her.
His father, Clan Head Lin Zhan, stared at the ornate coffin. His eyes were red-rimmed, his jaw a hard line. He looked like a mountain beginning to crack.
Lin Tao finished his eulogy with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world. He placed a single white flower on the coffin lid.
"Return to the earth, cousin," he whispered, just loud enough for the front row to hear. "And spare the clan further shame."
The attendants took the ropes. The coffin lowered into the wet, open mouth of the earth.
Inside the coffin, Lin Feng's eyes snapped open.
Darkness. Absolute, suffocating darkness.
A scream gathered in his throat, but his lungs had no air. Pressure crushed him on all sides. The scent of sandalwood and his own death-sweat filled his nose.
Memories, sharp and broken, stabbed into his mind.
The victory banquet. The taste of spiced wine. Lin Tao, smiling, handing him a special cup. "For our frail young master," he'd said. "To strengthen your veins."
The burning in his gut. The world spinning. Stumbling to his room. Lin Tao's face, leaning close as blackness took him. No longer smiling. Cold. Satisfied.
Poison.
Panic, pure and animal, erupted in his chest. He thrashed. His hands slapped against polished wood. His knees jammed against the lid.
I'm buried. I'm buried alive.
The thought was an icy spear through his heart. He scratched at the wood. A fingernail ripped off. He didn't feel the pain, only the wetness. He kicked. His weakened body, the body that had never cultivated a wisp of Qi, trembled with the effort.
Nothing. Just the sound of his own muffled gasps and the terrible, final thud of dirt hitting the lid above.
His strength faded. The last of the air was gone, thick and used-up. Spots danced in the darkness. This was it. To die twice. To be erased in a box.
NO.
A voice. Not his own. It came from the very core of his being, from a place of endless cold and silent halls. It was a memory of a different death, on a different floor of obsidian.
"A soul like yours… should not end here."
Blue light erupted in the dark.
Letters, sharp and spectral, painted themselves before his eyes.
[Necromancer System Initializing.]
[Host Soul Identified: Kael. Integration Protocol: Active.]
[New Vessel Assessed: 'Lin Feng.' Meridian Gates: Sealed. Physical Grade: Mortal (Frail). Cause of Death: Soulbane Poison.]
[Error. Death Incomplete.]
[Analyzing Environment…]
[Atmosphere Saturated With: Death Qi.]
Lin Feng's mind, fractured between terror and shock, latched onto the words. Death Qi. The energy of endings, of decay. It was here, in the soil, in the air of this sealed coffin, in his own dying cells.
[Tutorial Prompt: Death Qi is a viable energy source for this system. You are currently submerged in it. Direct it. Use it to reinforce your failing vessel.]
How? He screamed the word in his mind.
[Will it.]
He had nothing else. No Qi. No strength. Only the raw, screaming will of a man who refused to die in the dark.
He reached. Not with his hands, but with the part of him that was now Kael, the Necromancer. He felt it. A cold, whispering current in the air of the coffin. The Death Qi. He pulled it toward him.
It slithered into his mouth, his nose, the tear in his fingernail. It was like drinking ice water made of shadows. It flooded his blocked meridians, not clearing them, but forcing its way through the seals like black water through cracks.
Power, cold and alien, surged into his limbs.
His bleeding fingertip prickled. He watched, mesmerized, as threads of black smoke stitched the torn flesh together. The pain vanished.
[Death Qi Mend: Acquired.]
He clenched his fist. For the first time in Lin Feng's life, he felt strength that was not his own. A cold, relentless strength.
He placed his palms flat against the coffin lid. He focused the Death Qi there. He did not push. He commanded.
The wood where his hands touched darkened, rotted, turned soft and porous.
He pushed.
With a wet, splintering crack, his hands burst through into open space. Frigid, rain-touched air hit his skin. He tore at the rotten wood, widening the hole. He clawed at the soil above. It fell around him, filling the coffin, but he didn't stop. He was a thing of singular purpose now. Up.
His head broke the surface.
The rain kissed his filthy face.
He dragged himself out of the grave, collapsing onto the sodden grass. He lay there, heaving great gulps of the clean, damp air. He was covered in earth and splinters and his own funeral clothes.
Slowly, he pushed himself up onto his knees.
He was in the ancestral cemetery. Empty. Silent but for the rain. Before him was the disturbed mound of his own grave. And in front of it, a stone.
LIN FENG
Beloved Son
Gone Too Soon
He stared at his name. A laugh, harsh and broken, bubbled in his throat. It sounded like a sob.
He was dead. To his parents, to his weeping sister, to the entire clan. He was a memory, a lesson in weakness, a closed chapter.
Lin Tao had won.
The cold inside Lin Feng, the Death Qi swirling in his core, settled into a new shape. It was no longer panic. It was not even rage.
It was a purpose, quiet and absolute.
A new screen flashed before his eyes, its blue light reflecting in the puddles.
[Primary Quest Generated: 'The Silent Return.']
[Objective I: Survive. Your existence is a secret. The cultivation world labels Death Qi as demonic.]
[Objective II: Gather Power. The graves here hold more than bones.]
[Objective III: Unveil the Truth. A murderer walks in daylight.]
[Warning: Revealing your survival prematurely will result in execution.]
Lin Feng stood. The frail young master was gone, buried in that box. The man who rose from the mud wiped the dirt from his eyes. His gaze, cold and older than his years, looked past his tombstone, toward the dark shapes of the clan compound in the distance. Lights twinkled in the main hall. The funeral feast, no doubt.
He turned away. He walked, unsteady at first, then with gathering steadiness, toward the older, more neglected section of the cemetery. Where the dishonored were buried. Where the forgotten slept.
The rain washed his tracks away.
The grave was empty.
And the dead were listening.