---
The scroll pulsed again that night.
Ash jolted awake, sweat glistening along his spine. His quarters were dark, the only light the silver glow of moonlight slipping through paper walls. The sigil on the parchment shimmered like molten ink, shifting shapes across its surface.
He hadn't opened it.
Not this time.
It had opened itself.
Outside, wind howled through the cliffs of the Twilight Rain Sect, rattling windows and tossing loose leaves across stone. Ash stood, breath caught between sleep and unease. His fingers brushed against the scroll's edge.
The warmth was gone now—replaced by a cool, subtle pull. Not dangerous. Not loud.
But certain.
It wants me to follow.
The feeling was absurd, but undeniable. A presence—ancient and patient—was calling.
---
By dawn, Ash had packed a light satchel with a change of robes, dried spirit bread, and two low-grade energy pills. The scroll he slipped into the inner fold of his robe.
He avoided the main courtyard, taking narrow service paths down the eastern cliffside, past old herb gardens and dried springs. Disciples rarely came here—too far from cultivation zones, too close to the Storm Expanse.
He didn't tell anyone where he was going. He wasn't sure he knew himself.
The mountain trail twisted down through fog and pine, eventually meeting the old Riftwatch Trail, an abandoned supply route that led toward the southern sea. It hadn't been used in decades, overtaken by moss and silence.
And yet the path felt... familiar.
As if his feet had walked it before.
Hours passed. The sun climbed behind thick clouds, and by midday Ash reached a ridge where the trail curved toward a steep descent. From there, he saw it—vast and gray, like a wound in the world.
The Storm Expanse.
A jagged stretch of coastline pounded endlessly by waves. No harbors. No coves. Just fractured cliffs and razor-sharp reefs. The sect elders had forbidden disciples from venturing here. Too dangerous. Too wild.
Too cursed.
Ash stood at the edge for a long moment, the wind tearing at his robes.
Then he began his descent.
---
By nightfall, the sea's roar filled his ears. Thunder cracked across the sky, yet no lightning followed. Clouds churned overhead in unnatural patterns, coiling like serpents.
He reached a flat stone ledge near the base of the cliffs. There, half-buried in shale and bramble, stood a structure—so worn it barely held shape. Pillars cracked and covered in sea-moss. A broken archway etched with long-faded runes.
A shrine, maybe. Or a tomb.
Ash stepped forward.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, the scroll in his robe ignited with light. The sigil unraveled into lines of shifting script, winding around his wrist like a band of living ink.
The shrine trembled. A low hum vibrated through the stone.
Ash took another step.
A gust of wind slammed into him, knocking him backward. Sand and salt bit at his skin. But it wasn't wind. It was breath.
Something stirred beneath.
Something massive.
He dropped to one knee, panting.
Then he saw it—carved deep into the altar stone: a name, buried beneath layers of erosion and time. Most of it unreadable.
But one word remained.
"Devourer."
Ash stared at it.
Suddenly, he wasn't alone.
---
A whisper crawled across the chamber—neither voice nor echo, but something older than either.
"You carry its mark..."
Ash turned sharply. No one there. The shadows moved strangely. They stretched and curled where no light touched them.
"Who's there?" he called out, voice taut.
The shadows thickened, coalescing slowly into the shape of a man.
Tall. Cloaked in darkness. Features blurred, like a half-forgotten dream.
"Not all chains are forged in metal," the figure said. "Not all prisons lie in stone."
Ash took a step back. "You're... the one sealed here?"
The figure didn't answer.
Instead, it pointed a hand—long-fingered, pale—and the ground beneath Ash's feet cracked open.
In a flash of sickly blue light, runes ignited across the chamber floor. A formation—intricate and ancient—revealed itself. Symbols pulsed outward like a heartbeat.
"You came when it called," the figure said. "As it always wished. But it was not meant for you."
Ash opened his mouth, but the light surged upward, wrapping around him like chains of smoke.
He screamed.
The formation wasn't built to kill.
It was built to seal.
And in that moment, Ash understood—this wasn't a trap.
It was a warning.
But it was too late.
---
Somewhere, far above, the sea roared louder.
And the last thing Ash saw before darkness took him… was a pair of glowing eyes, watching from deep beneath the waves.
Waiting.
---