The world was a cage of ice.
Jagged, immense mountains pierced the heavens like frozen spears, their peaks lost in the swirling gray clouds. But the beauty of the landscape was stained. In the center of a circle of silent figures, a man knelt.
He was a vision of horror. Long white hair, matted with gore, draped over a face that looked like it had crawled out of the deepest pit of hell. Blood streamed from his forehead, but it wasn't red—it was gold.
A severed hand lay nearby, twitching in the frost.
A man in a red robe stood before the kneeling figure, trembling. He couldn't bring himself to look into the eyes of the dying monster.
"I, YAOWANG MING..." The kneeling man's voice cracked, followed by a wet, hacking cough of golden blood. He looked up, his eyes burning with a terrifying, unyielding light. "...never deserved to kneel before mere ants like you! You dare... you dare betray me!"
The sky responded to his fury. Thunder shook the ice mountains. A sudden, violent wind stripped the nearby trees bare, leaves and fruit flying into the air as a bizarre, suffocating energy filled the valley.
"I will have my revenge!" Yaowang Ming roared. The sound was so primal, so loud, that the executioners around him were forced to cover their ears. "I will massacre your lineages! When I return, you will find nothing but the cold corpses of your kin!"
A woman in a black dress stepped forward, her face a mask of cold iron. She didn't let him finish. With a single, fluid flash of steel, she decapitated him.
Silence fell instantly. The thunder died. The wind vanished.
The air grew so cold it felt like needles in the lungs of the survivors. They stared at the headless body, still upright, still gripping the red katana at its waist. Even in death, the pressure he emitted made them shiver.
Suddenly, the headless corpse moved.
The red katana left its scabbard in a blur of motion, lunging directly for the throat of the red-robed man—
Jai bolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
His beautiful face was drenched in sweat, his golden hair sticking to his forehead. He gasped for air, the scent of the Blue Lily flowers in his room slowly grounding him back to reality.
"What the hell was that?" he whispered, wiping his brow. "That name... Yaowang Ming... Why do I keep dreaming of him? Are these... memories of my ancestors?"
He walked to the balcony, letting the morning sun hit his skin. The garden below was a masterpiece of nature, but the image of the golden blood on the ice wouldn't leave his mind.
After a quick coffee and a cold shower, Jai dressed in a sharp black suit. He descended to the dining hall—a room so vast it felt like a cathedral of marble, gold, and diamonds.
His mother, Mabel, was already there. With her long blonde hair and piercing red eyes, she looked more like a goddess than a woman. She served him breakfast with a quiet grace, though Jai's mind was already miles away, at the Academy.
The Chenwongo Academy was a titan of architecture, built to house a hundred thousand students. As Jai walked through the gates, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of spring and the quiet murmurs of students.
"JAI CHENWONGO!"
Jai stopped. His teacher, Elanor, was approaching with a warm smile.
"Yes, School Master," Jai replied, his voice cooling instantly. He wasn't being rude; it was simply the weight of his name.
Elanor turned to a group of visiting teachers, his voice brimming with pride. "Look at him. Seventeen years old and already a master of nearly every elemental magic theory. No one in the history of the Kingdom has achieved what this boy has."
The other teachers stared. One female teacher whispered, "I heard the girls were obsessed with him. Now that I see him... I understand why. He looks like he was carved from light."
Jai didn't stay to hear the rest. "I have work to do. I'm going to class."
As he walked away, the teachers continued to gossip.
"He's a Noble, right?"
"Better," Elanor whispered. "He is a Chenwongo. His family rules this land. His grandmother, Beatrice, is the strongest mage alive. They say she could wipe this entire kingdom off the map in a minute if she grew bored."
"Everyone in that family must be a monster," another teacher remarked.
"Not everyone," Elanor corrected, his voice dropping to a low hiss. "There is Rena Chenwongo. She is so weak the housemaids treat her like a servant. And she's Beatrice's own daughter."
The teachers gasped. "Why? How is that possible?"
"Who knows? But the rumors are darker than that," Elanor glanced around to ensure Jai was gone. "They say Rena didn't have a child with a man... they say she had a child with a Dragon."
The teachers froze, the air around them suddenly feeling as cold as the ice in Jai's dream.