Chapter 1: Embers of Mortal Flames (Part 1)**

The dying sun bled crimson over Qingshi Town, its last rays clawing at wisps of chimney smoke.

Lin Jin crouched behind the forge's woodpile, calloused fingers tracing the jagged edge of a scorched blade fragment—yesterday's failed creation. The metallic tang of iron mingled with ash, yet his mind drifted to another night three winters past: the old blacksmith's hands, calloused and searing, dragging him from a mass grave.

"Lazy brat! Where's my firewood?"

The one-eyed smith's roar shattered the dusk. Lin Jin vaulted onto the tiled roof, his tattered gray robe scattering crows like shredded regrets. He hated forging. These symmetrical swords and daggers reeked of the Nine Great Sects' so-called "Heavenly Order," while he trusted only fists and flames.

At the hour of the boar, the world twisted.

The ancient locust tree east of town erupted in ghostly green fire. Within the flames, an infant's wail echoed. Lin Jin's left eye pulsed with golden veins—the Blazing Heaven Eye tore open against his will, revealing a bronze coffin buried beneath the roots. Inside lay a skeletal figure clutching a broken sword engraved "Yan Xi."

"So here you hide…"

A voice colder than grave soil dripped from above. A black-robed figure descended like a vulture, chains of soul-stealing iron lashing from his sleeves. Lin Jin rolled aside, but the chains impaled the smith who'd come running. Blood sprayed the boy's face as he glimpsed the crimson moon sigil on the assassin's chest.

*Abyssal Hall.*

The Blazing Eye erupted in golden fury. Crimson sigils crawled up Lin Jin's right arm as he struck, molten chains hissing into slag. The assassin recoiled, mask crackling with distorted laughter: "A god-devil hybrid indeed. The Hall Master will covet those eyes…"

Monsoon rain drowned the night.

Lin Jin fled with the smith's cooling corpse on his back, blood-bats screeching in pursuit. As the Blazing Eye seared his skull, he tumbled into a mass grave's abandoned well—where starlight bloomed. A skeletal embrace cradled half a Fire Spirit Pearl, its pulse syncing with his blood.