Chapter 4: Crimson and Shadow
The candlelight had long since died, but Jingyu didn't notice. The mark on his neck glowed faintly in the darkness, casting crimson arcs across the wooden walls. He sat hunched over the Book of Realms, black hair falling into his eyes, pages spread open before him like a priest receiving prophecy.
He traced a trembling finger over the symbols. Blood-red sigils interlocked with inky black spirals. Two powers. Two destinies.
The Book whispered in his mind—not in words, but in feelings.
"The bloodline gives you strength. The shadow gives you choice."
Jingyu shivered. He'd read Nirva's entries enough to piece together fragments of the truth. The Meltein family's heritage was tied to the Crimson Moon: they awakened the Crimson Power, the ability to bend blood, life, and destruction itself to their will. But Nirva had been… different.
"A second power lies beneath my skin," one entry read, the ink smudged, as though Nirva's hand had shaken while writing. "It is not crimson. It is darker. It whispers. It tempts. I am afraid to use it, for it feels like death given form."
Jingyu's jaw tightened. He could almost feel Nirva's fear bleeding through the ink. But unlike Nirva, he didn't feel only fear—he felt curiosity. A dangerous kind of hunger.
His body remembered the fight in the forest, when the shadows had come for him. The Crimson Power had answered easily, like instinct. But there had been a second pulse, one he hadn't fully realized at the time. When the largest creature had lunged, something darker had flared—not crimson, but black, swallowing light itself.
That was the Shadow Power. Nirva's other inheritance.
Jingyu looked down at his hands. The mark on his neck glowed faint red, but beneath it, faint tendrils of black flickered, like ink bleeding through parchment. Two powers in one vessel. No wonder Nirva had given up. One was hard enough to control. Two? It was madness.
But Jingyu wasn't Nirva.
"I won't run from this," he whispered. His voice was low, steady, dangerous even to his own ears. "If the Crimson Power is life and blood, and the Shadow Power is death and despair… then I'll master both."
The Book of Realms shuddered under his touch. Pages flipped on their own, landing on a passage inked in alternating crimson and black:
"To awaken both is to walk the edge of annihilation. Blood burns, shadow consumes. Together, they create balance—or destruction."
A diagram showed two figures: one wreathed in fire-red veins, the other cloaked in darkness. Between them, a circle—half red, half black. Harmony, or ruin.
Jingyu closed his eyes. The words etched themselves into his bones. He had no choice but to try.
---
He went outside. The village slept peacefully, unaware of the storm in their midst. The forest beyond the fields stretched endless and ominous under the crimson moon. Jingyu stepped barefoot into the clearing where he had fought the shadows earlier. The ground still bore faint scorch marks from his earlier battle.
The whispers started again. Louder this time. Not only one voice, but two.
"Crimson…" one hissed, hot and commanding.
"Shadow…" the other purred, cold and lingering.
They wrapped around his mind, pulling in opposite directions. His heart pounded as though caught in a tug-of-war between fire and ice. Sweat trickled down his neck. His body threatened to split.
"Shut up!" Jingyu roared into the night. His voice cracked, carrying across the silent trees. "You're both mine now. You don't control me—I control you!"
The mark on his neck flared. Crimson light exploded outward, searing bright. At the same time, black tendrils erupted from his skin, stretching like living shadows that coiled and lashed around him. The two forces collided with a deafening crack, like thunder splitting the earth.
Jingyu dropped to his knees, screaming. The pain was unbearable—like his veins were tearing apart, like his very soul was being burned and frozen simultaneously. His vision fractured: half red, half black. The forest spun in two worlds.
On the left, everything glowed crimson—trees bleeding sap that looked like blood, the earth pulsing like flesh. On the right, everything was shrouded in darkness—trees hollowed to ash, shadows whispering like mourners at a funeral.
Two worlds overlapping. Two powers colliding.
"Yield," hissed Crimson.
"Surrender," murmured Shadow.
"No!" Jingyu bellowed. His voice was raw, primal. "I'm not Nirva. I won't break like him. I'm Jingyu Wang—and this body is mine now!"
He slammed his hands into the ground. Crimson energy flared through his left arm, shadow through his right. For a terrifying heartbeat, he thought his body would tear in two. But then—balance.
The two forces met not as enemies, but as halves of the same whole. The clearing exploded with power.
Crimson veins snaked across the ground, carving glowing lines into the earth, while black shadows filled the spaces between, weaving patterns of perfect symmetry. The forest groaned, trees bending as though bowing to the union. Above, the crimson moon flickered, its light briefly swallowed by an eclipse of black.
Jingyu rose to his feet, chest heaving. His black hair whipped in the wind, his eyes glowing—one red, one black. His hands trembled, but the powers obeyed. For the first time, he wasn't being pulled apart. He was whole.
Crimson Power surged in his veins, hot and violent, feeding him strength, speed, and destructive force. Shadow Power coiled around him, cool and silent, granting stealth, defense, and the ability to consume. Together, they created something new—something neither Nirva nor his ancestors had ever mastered.
A dual awakening.
---
The forest was not silent for long.
From the darkness, new figures emerged—drawn by the violent surge of energy. They were larger than before, their forms twisted, half-shadow, half-flesh. The air reeked of iron and rot. These were not the smaller creatures of last night. These were predators.
Jingyu flexed his fingers. His crimson sword shimmered into existence in his left hand, jagged and glowing. In his right hand, shadow condensed into a blade of pure darkness, its edge swallowing light. Two weapons, two powers.
The creatures roared and lunged.
This time, he didn't hesitate.
Crimson met flesh, burning through bone with raw fury. Shadow met shadow, silencing and consuming with cold precision. He moved like a storm, blades cutting arcs of red and black that painted the clearing in chaos. Every strike, every block, every movement felt inevitable—like his body had been waiting for this exact moment.
Blood splattered. Shadows screamed. Jingyu roared, his voice carrying through both realms.
When the last creature dissolved into mist, he stood in the wreckage, chest heaving, blades still humming with energy. The ground was scarred, split between glowing crimson veins and blackened cracks.
The forest was silent again, but not with peace—with fear. Even the night itself seemed to hold its breath.
Jingyu dropped his weapons, letting the energies dissolve back into his skin. His knees buckled, but he didn't fall. He looked up at the crimson moon, sweat streaming down his face. His black hair clung to his forehead, his mismatched eyes glowing faintly.
"I did it…" he whispered. His voice was hoarse, yet triumphant. "I… I'm not broken. I'm not Nirva. I'm me."
The Book of Realms stirred in his memory. Pages flipped in his mind's eye, words burning themselves into him:
"Balance has been found. The Crimson and the Shadow bow to you. But beware—such power is never free. To wield both is to invite enemies from all realms. The path forward is written in blood and night."
Jingyu exhaled slowly. He knew the warning was true. Power like this would not go unnoticed. He had already seen glimpses—faces of hunters, shadows of rivals, realms overlapping his own.
But for the first time since waking in this body, he felt alive. Whole.
The world thought Nirva Meltein had died by his own hand. Maybe that was true. But Nirva's death had made room for something new.
Jingyu Wang. The boy who had been stolen from his world, forced into another's corpse, now stood as something more. Something terrifying. Something necessary.
The crimson moon bled across the sky, its reflection mirrored in his mismatched eyes. The night trembled with the weight of his awakening.
And far away, beyond realms, something ancient stirred.