Chapter 10 – The Ones Who Remembered

Not everyone forgot the Immortal Emperor.

Far to the east, beyond the Vermilion Plains, a bell tolled in the dead of night. It wasn't heard by common ears, nor did it echo across valleys. It rang only in the souls of those who once knelt before greatness… and then betrayed it.

In a hidden chamber beneath the Forgotten Citadel, twelve robed figures gathered. Their faces were concealed by masks — iron, jade, obsidian, each etched with ancient runes. Their names were long erased. They were known only by what they had become: The Silent Pact.

"He moves," one said. A voice like a sigh before a storm.

Another answered, "We felt it too. The seal has broken."

"The Immortal Emperor walks again."

The words were a curse. A prophecy. A promise.

A third voice, bitter and trembling, spat out, "We killed him. A thousand years ago, we saw his body burn. We shattered his soul—"

"You shattered nothing," the eldest cut in, slamming a wrinkled hand on the stone table. "You only slowed him."

Silence fell.

They all knew what it meant.

Some had been children when he last reigned. Others had tasted immortality through foul means, just to outlive the nightmare of his return.

But he was back.

And none of them were ready.

---

Meanwhile, Shen Li stood at the edge of a ravine known as the Black Maw — a cursed place where light vanished and beasts never left footprints. He gazed into the darkness, unmoved.

Behind him, a young boy stumbled through the underbrush.

"Y-You!" the boy called. "Sir! Are you— Are you the one who killed the Crimson Tiger King?!"

Shen Li didn't turn around.

"I didn't kill it," he said.

The boy blinked. "But… it's dead."

"It killed itself," Shen Li replied, "when it tried to stand in my way."

Silence.

Then the boy fell to his knees, breathless with awe. "Please—teach me."

A pause.

Then a soft, dangerous smile.

"I'm not a master," Shen Li said. "I don't take disciples."

"Please! I'll do anything!"

That word.

Anything.

Shen Li slowly turned. His gaze locked with the boy's, and for a moment, the child felt as if the heavens themselves had grown cold.

"Very well," Shen Li said. "Then your first lesson… is this: Loyalty to power is meaningless. Loyalty to truth is dangerous. But loyalty to me…"

He walked past the boy, eyes still fixed on the abyss.

"…will make you a target of the heavens."

And still, the boy followed.

Because legends were not built by cowards.

They were forged by those who walked beside monsters… and dared to call them master.

[end of chapter 10]