Back in the silent darkness
Kai laughed bitterly in the darkness.
It echoed in his mind.
'Figures,' he mused,
'My death scene has no audience, no dramatic music. Just silence.'
The last sound he heard was of horns honking, brakes screaming, and steel shattering that tore through the air like a banshee's wail.
Kai remembered the flash of light, the looming blur of a semi-truck crashing through the intersection, and the numbing realization that this was it. No time to curse, no time to regret. Just a cold surge of helplessness, a final flicker of consciousness—and then darkness.
Then, there was a flash of golden light, and he moved towards the light source. Suddenly, he opened his eyes to a luxurious room.
He should be dead.
It should have been the end.
Instead, he woke up to fire.
Not fire in the traditional sense. This was a low, golden glow, flickering like candlelight across a shattered porcelain floor. The scent of orchids and musk drifted through the air, mingling with something metallic—blood.
Kai blinked. His hands were red.
His mind went blank, deep philosophical questions flashed through his mind,
'Where is he?'
'How did he appear here?'
He was seated on the floor of an ornate room, its curtains torn, bead drapes swaying like ghosts in the wind. A massive bronze incense furnace lay overturned nearby, still smouldering. The glow was from a dozen candles illuminating the wreckage. His chest heaved with shallow breaths, confusion flooding his thoughts.
He flexed his fingers, and pain bloomed from his palm. A deep cut had opened across his hand, and more cuts ran up his arm like blooming thorns. But it wasn't just blood.
His skin shimmered faintly with crimson lines, forming a strange flower-like sigil.
A golden imprint glowed at his heart, pulsing like a second heartbeat, half-suppressing the crimson sigil that seemed to want to consume him. It was a quiet battle of energies.
"What the hell…?" he muttered.
A sudden chill hit him. This wasn't his body.
No… this wasn't his world.
Kai stumbled to his feet, the floor creaking beneath him. Something was deeply wrong. This wasn't a hospital, a recovery ward, or any kind of Earthly place.
He caught his reflection in a shattered bronze mirror on the wall.
The face that stared back wasn't his.
It was younger—early twenties—with fine aristocratic features, long raven-black hair in disarray, and haunting eyes that looked like they'd seen ghosts. The person he was now had likely belonged to someone noble… or someone pretending to be.
A sudden torrent of memories—not his own—flooded his mind.
They came in waves: humiliation, rage, despair.
This body once belonged to a fake young master. A counterfeit son of the lord of Burke Sea state, the largest vassal state under the Azure Sky Kingdom. The real heir had returned, exposing the falsehood.
This body's original owner couldn't withstand the backlash. Poisoned by enemies, his cultivation crippled, his core shattered, unable to rise, unable to fight.
He had died here, alone and bleeding after smashing everything in a fit of despair.
And now Kai was here… replacing him.
"No, not replacing," he whispered. "Merged."
The memory thread had snapped into place. He knew he wasn't just inhabiting the body. He had fully become this man, Kai, once an average worker from Earth, now soul-bound to this discarded scion.
Then came the pain.
A thunderous splitting in his skull, like two forces wrestling in his mind.
[THUMP!…..THUMPP!!…..THUMPPP!!!]
A silent echo, like a heartbeat, soft and warm, rang through his consciousness—not from outside, but from deep within his soul and coming from his heart, where the golden light resides.
Time slowed.
He slowly focused on that light, and was back in the same place of darkness where he first woke up, but this time there was a large golden sun in this place, vast and eternal.
He paused mid-air to take in the brilliance and vastness of the giant golden sun.
After he focused on the core he noticed a simple but gorgeous palace in front of him, the brilliance of the golden sun dimmed in front of this palace and inside the palace there lay —a throne of black crystal in the palace.
In front of the throne was a pedestal, and there was a golden orb. He unconsciously walked towards the orb and touched it, then some information flowed into his mind detailing everything.
[Silent Sovereign]!
TO BE CONTINUED ---