The memories resumed.
They slammed into Kael's consciousness like a fist through glass, and suddenly he was there—standing in the ruins of what had once been a palace, surrounded by ash and silence and the thick stench of blood.
Damian was fifteen years old.
He stood alone in the wreckage of his world, white hair matted with soot, eyes hollow with something that had once been innocence. The bracelet on his wrist pulsed with cold comfort—his mother's last gift, his father's last command.
Survive.
So he survived.
The bracelet was more than a storage ring.
Kael felt Damian access it for the first time and nearly choked on the sheer volume of resources inside.
Cultivation manuals written in languages that predated recorded history. Pills graded at tiers Kael had never encountered. Weapons forged from materials that shouldn't exist. And at the very bottom, sealed behind layers of spiritual locks that responded only to Astraeon blood—a single jade slip containing three words:
