Blood.
Everywhere. Thick, coppery, choking.
My vision swam red, the kind that seeps into your skull and stays there. The storm winds howled across the shattered ridge, but all I heard was the wet gurgle of dying men and the crack of my own ribs shifting with every breath.
I was the Stormveil Sovereign. Untouchable. A lone blade that carved through armies like wind through smoke. And yet here I was—gutted, one arm hanging by threads of meat, leg bones splintered, still standing because stopping meant admitting it was over.
The ridge was a graveyard. Bodies piled like broken dolls. My comrades. The ones who followed me when no one else would. The ones I never let close. The ones I told to stay back, that I didn't need them, that their weakness would only drag me down.
Now they were gone. All of them.
Joren, the big idiot who always laughed too loud—split from shoulder to hip.
Lira, who begged me to train with the squad just once—arrow through her throat, eyes still wide like she was waiting for my answer.
Even old Master Thorne, who never stopped lecturing me about "bonds stronger than steel"—his staff snapped in half, body crumpled like discarded parchment.
I should've felt something. Pain. Grief. Anything.
But all I had was rage. Pure, white-hot, blinding.
And him.
The Rift Sovereign. The bastard who tore open the biggest Aether Rift this world had ever seen. He sat cross-legged in the center of the carnage, body riddled with a dozen blades—mine among them, yet his face was calm. Almost amused. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, but he smiled like a man who'd already won.
"Stormveil…" His voice rasped, wet and mocking. "You really thought you could stop the inevitable alone?"
I staggered forward. Each step sent fire through my guts. The sword in my remaining hand trembled, not from weakness, but from the sheer force of wanting to drive it through his skull one more time.
"You talk too much for a corpse," I snarled.
He laughed. A bubbling, dying sound. "The rifts will keep coming. The qi will flood. The world will drown in it. And you… you'll be remembered as the fool who refused help and let everyone die for pride."
My vision narrowed to a tunnel. I raised the blade.
"If I had one more day," he whispered, "I would've become a true god among men. Fate is cruel like that."
I brought the sword down.
His head rolled.
Silence crashed in. The wind died. Even the rifts seemed to hold their breath.
I dropped to one knee. Then the other. Blood pooled under me, warm and sticky. The sky above was still that mocking blue—clear, indifferent, like nothing had happened.
What now?
The Sovereign Line was broken. No heirs. No sect left standing. Just corpses and regret.
Regret.
It hit harder than any blade.
If I'd listened. Just once. If I'd let them stand beside me instead of shoving them away. If I'd trained them harder, trusted them more… maybe one of them would still be breathing. Maybe the Stormveil name wouldn't die here with me.
I laughed. A wet, broken sound.
"Pathetic," I muttered to the empty ridge. "The great Stormveil Sovereign… dying alone. Just like I always wanted."
My vision darkened at the edges. The sword slipped from numb fingers.
Plum blossoms fall in winter.
But spring comes. New blooms push through ash.
I wanted to believe that. For them.
But all I felt was cold.
And then—nothing.
…....
Pain.
Sharp. Explosive. Right on the crown of my skull.
"—ake up, you lazy piece of shit!"
Crack!
Something hard—wood?—slammed into my head again. Stars burst behind my eyes. My body jerked like a puppet with cut strings.
I opened my eyes.
No ridge. No blood sea. No dead friends.
Just a filthy alley. Piles of trash. A rusty dumpster leaking something foul. Neon lights flickering from the megacity skyline far above the slums.
And a kid.
Maybe fourteen. Scrawny. Face smeared with dirt and snot. Holding a cracked plastic pipe like a club. He was panting, cheeks red, glaring down at me like I owed him money.
"You finally awake? Thought you were gonna sleep through the whole damn cleanup shift again!"
I blinked. My head throbbed like someone had driven nails into it. My arms—thin. Short. Weak. A kid's arms.
I looked down.
Faded black hoodie. Torn training pants. Bare feet crusted with grime.
This wasn't my body.
"What…" My voice cracked. High. Childish.
The kid snorted. "What? You hit your head too hard or something? Get up, Lynch Elder Goro's gonna skin us if we don't finish hauling this scrap before the Iron Phoenix patrols swing by!"
Lynch.
That name hit like another pipe to the skull.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms. The world tilted. Everything felt wrong—too light, too slow, too small.
But the memories were still there. Every slash. Every scream. Every regret.
I stared at the kid—Tano, something whispered in my head. One of the twenty-odd stragglers left in the Ashen Drift Sect. The laughingstock. The Drifters everyone mocked.
The sect on the edge of dissolution.
The sect I now inhabited.
I clenched my tiny fists. Nails bit into palms.
The rage hadn't died with the old body. It just had a new vessel.
And this time…
This time I wasn't doing it alone.
I looked up at Tano. Smirked despite the splitting headache.
"Hey, brat."
He froze. "The hell did you just call me?"
I stood. Slowly. Wobbly. But standing.
"Hit me again," I said, voice low, dangerous even in this squeaky throat, "and I'll shove that pipe so far up your ass you'll taste plastic for a week."
Tano's eyes widened. The pipe trembled in his grip.
I cracked my neck.
"Let's go."
The Ashen Sovereign was back.
And this trash heap of a sect?
It was about to stop drifting.