The sky over the city turned an eerie shade of crimson.
Jayden stepped off the bullet train, the faint hum of chi still resonating beneath his skin. Every breath he took felt electric, as if his body were constantly drawing from an invisible current. Since returning from the mountain, the mark of the Dragon Form hadn't faded. Instead, it pulsed with life, reacting to emotion, danger… and something else he couldn't yet name.
The city—Neon Reach—looked the same.
But it felt different.
The streets were louder. The air thicker. People moved with urgency, as if something terrible were looming just outside their awareness.
Jayden could feel it too.
Like smoke beneath the surface of water.
Back at home, the apartment was dark.
He entered quietly, brushing snow from his shoulders. His mother wasn't home yet — her shift at the hospital often went late. He placed the wrapped relic from the ruins gently onto the table and stared at the glow beneath the cloth.
He should've felt proud.
Instead, his mind was storming.
"The Dragon Form… has awakened."
Those words hadn't left his mind. Nor had the image of the broken sword. What did it mean that his path — his inheritance — was the one of shattered will? Was he doomed to repeat the same destruction that ruined his father's life?
Or worse… his death?
A sharp knock at the door pulled him out of thought.
He tensed.
Another knock.
Not frantic. Not friendly.
Calculated.
Jayden opened the door slowly, his chi swirling to his fingertips just in case.
A woman stood there, cloaked in a long black coat. Her face was half-shadowed, and her eyes… her eyes glowed faint silver.
Not from contacts.
From cultivation.
"Jayden Cross?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
The woman extended a small obsidian coin. Etched in it was the image of a serpent coiled around a burning sun.
"I bring news. And a warning."
Jayden didn't move. "Who are you?"
"My name is Isla Vale. I was your father's Shadowbound."
She paused. "And his executioner."
He let her in.
Only because she could have killed him already if she wanted to.
Isla moved with the grace of a ghost, silent and precise. Her chi was so refined it didn't radiate—it coiled inside her like a tightly wound spring. Jayden recognized the signs. She was several realms above him in cultivation.
She sat, arms crossed.
"Your father, Marcus Cross, wasn't just a martial cultivator," she said. "He was the heir to the Drakon Dynasty — the last true wielder of the perfected Dragon Form. The blood you carry has been hunted by clans and syndicates for generations."
Jayden clenched his fists. "I know he's gone. But why? Why did he leave? Why did he disappear?"
Isla's expression didn't change.
"Because he was betrayed."
Jayden's blood ran cold.
"By who?"
She looked him in the eyes.
"By the same clan that rules the city's underworld now. The Crimson Ash."
Jayden had heard the name before.
Rumors of a crime syndicate with roots in ancient martial houses. They controlled gangs, business fronts, and operated from the shadows. Untouchable. Lethal. Myths wrapped in blood and silence.
"They feared the return of the Dragon Form," Isla continued. "So they set a trap. Your father walked into it… and never came out."
Jayden's voice came out hoarse. "Then how do you know?"
"Because I watched him fall." She paused. "And I watched what he left behind."
She reached into her coat and dropped something onto the table.
A crystal memory orb — infused with chi.
Jayden touched it.
It sparked, glowing, then projected a hazy image in the air — a burning battlefield, Marcus Cross surrounded by masked assassins. He was older than Jayden remembered, bearded, his body scarred. But his movements… they were impossibly fast. Dragon-shaped chi coiled around his limbs as he moved, cutting down enemies like thunder itself.
Then a blade struck him from behind.
A symbol flared on the assassin's mask — a crimson flame with eyes.
Jayden gasped.
The Crimson Ash.
His father roared in fury, unleashed a final blast of chi… then vanished in white light.
The memory faded.
Jayden stood frozen.
"I don't know if he died," Isla said. "But I know they think he did. And now that you've awakened the Dragon Form, they'll come for you too."
Jayden turned toward the window. His reflection in the glass stared back at him — older than he looked, scarred by destiny.
"I'm not running," he said.
"I didn't think you would," Isla replied. "That's why I'm here. To train you. To prepare you for the war that's coming."
The training began that night.
Jayden had learned from the ruins. From ghosts. From ancient chi and forgotten techniques.
But Isla Vale was something else.
Her teaching was brutal, precise, and remorseless.
She didn't explain. She demanded. When Jayden failed, she struck. When he succeeded, she struck harder. But as the hours passed, he began to understand — her movements were like shadows made flesh. Her chi had no form… because it didn't need one. It was adaptation incarnate.
She called it the Mist Veil Art — a style designed to kill those with stronger chi by becoming invisible to it.
Perfect for hunting cultivators.
Perfect for killing gods.
Jayden absorbed every strike. Every fall. Every bruise.
By sunrise, he could feel his chi reacting faster. Sharper. More fluid.
He stood, sweat pouring, body trembling, the Dragon Form mark burning on his chest.
Isla nodded.
"You're not your father," she said. "You may be… something more dangerous."
Elsewhere, in a skyscraper cloaked in smoke and neon, a man stood in front of a window.
His eyes were red with fire.
His robe bore the sigil of the Crimson Ash.
A masked servant approached and knelt. "The Dragon Form has awakened."
The man said nothing.
Then: "Begin the culling."
"Yes, Grand Vicar."
The servant bowed and vanished into smoke.