Name: Kaien
Age: 17
Rank: Unawakened
Origin: Unknown — orphan registry, Sector Delta
Kaien sat on the rooftop of Dorm Sector Twelve, legs dangling over the edge. Neon spirit-ads pulsed in the distance. Below, his classmates were busy uploading their cultivation routines into neural matrices, syncing dantians with cloud-storage meridians. He didn't care. He never had.
Because he bled light.
Literally.
Every time he was injured—cut, bruised, even burned—it wasn't blood that leaked from his body.
It was golden flame.
The medics said it was a "system anomaly." The cultivator instructors dismissed it as a rare qi reaction.
But deep in his gut, Kaien knew different.
Something ancient stirred in him. Something that didn't belong in this age.
He felt it most when he walked past the Hall of the Fallen, where holograms of ancient Sovereigns flickered. One in particular always locked eyes with him. A man with obsidian hair and a cloak of flames. A smile both fierce and gentle.
> "Wang Chung," read the nameplate.
Kaien didn't know why he whispered it every night.
Didn't know why, on his birthday that morning, he'd woken with a glowing mark on his chest—a brand shaped like twin figures beneath a tree.