Embers in a Child's Palm

The chirping of Azure Night Clan sparrows at dawn felt like shards of glass grinding inside Ye Chen's skull. Every sound – the distant clang from the training grounds, the rustle of the ancient plum tree outside his window – was amplified by the gnawing emptiness deep in his core. He sat cross-legged on the cold floor, the rough hemp of his sleeping robes scratching skin that hadn't yet forgotten softer things. Eight years. The words pounded in his head with every heartbeat; a relentless countdown measured in sunrises.

His first attempt to cycle qi had been a disaster. Gone were the vast, sun-drenched oceans of celestial energy. In their place? A pathetic trickle – a child's cultivation base, barely enough to warm his fingertips. Worse, when he tried to guide that scrap of energy, the void stirred. It wasn't alive, not really… but it reacted. Like oil poured on water, it repelled his qi, sending chaotic spasms ripping through his meridians. A warm, metallic trickle escaped his nostril. He wiped the blood away with a shaky hand, catching his reflection in the polished bronze mirror across the room. Ancient eyes stared back from a child's face, shadowed by exhaustion and a fury colder than the void itself.

Failure isn't an option. He needed leverage, something solid in this fragile reality. His mind, the other weapon he ever possessed was his Alchemy.

The Clan's Pill Hall hummed with the low-grade warmth of common refinement furnaces. Acrid smoke, thick with the smell of overcooked Spirit Grass and half-hearted effort, stung Ye Chen's eyes. Disciples in coarse grey robes scurried like ants, tending cauldrons under the bored gaze of Elder Hong – a man whose jowls seemed to quiver with every weary sigh. Ye Chen remembered him: competent enough, but uninspired, his spark buried under years of clan stagnation. Perfect.

"Elder Hong?" Ye Chen's voice, still high and clear, cut through the hall's murmur. He held out a scrap of parchment. "I found this formula among Father's old notes. 'Spring Dew Purification'. It uses common herbs. Could I try?"

Hong glanced down, skepticism etched into his round face. The formula looked simple: Silver thread Root, Sun-Scorched Lichen, common Spirit Well Water. But the proportions… 3.72 grams of Lichen? Not the standard 4? And a fractional simmer reduction after the first bubble? Ridiculous. Probably the doodle of some bored clerk. "Discarded for a reason, Young Master Ye," Hong rumbled, waving a dismissive hand towards a small, cold furnace shoved in the corner. "Use the apprentice station. Don't waste the Hall's prime materials on fancies."

Ye Chen bowed, hiding the glint in his eyes. Prime materials? These weeds wouldn't have been fit for mulch in my outer courtyard. But they'd do. He gathered the meager ingredients. His small hands moved with an uncanny precision – scraping the Lichen to the exact grain, measuring the water drop by careful drop. He lit the furnace's low-grade spirit stone core. Its heat was pathetic, a candle flame compared to the celestial infernos he'd once commanded. Yet, he worked with the weakness, not against it. He nudged the reaction with a thread of his meager qi, not forcing it, but exploiting tiny temperature fluctuations the other disciples wouldn't even notice. It was like trying to conduct a symphony with a broken stick, every note demanding every shred of focus.

Deep inside. It didn't care about the alchemy; it fed on the strain, the microscopic tears in his spirit caused by the sheer concentration. It drank his exhaustion, growing infinitesimally sharper, colder. A bead of sweat traced a slow path down Ye Chen's temple. He ignored it.

After precisely twenty-seven minutes, the small cauldron didn't belch acrid smoke. Instead, a shimmering, almost invisible vapor rose, carrying the clean, sharp scent of mountain rain after a storm. Condensing on the cool inner rim were nine crystalline droplets – pure, radiant, humming with condensed vitality.

Spring Dew Elixir. Not just purified. Perfected. Grade-1, nudging Grade-2. Made from rubbish.

A stunned silence settled over the corner of the hall. Disciples froze mid-stir. Elder Hong's bored gaze snapped to the cauldron, then to Ye Chen, his eyes widening like an owl caught in lamplight. "Impossible! That formula… those proportions…" He snatched the parchment back, his plump fingers trembling. Suddenly, the discarded scribble looked like profound scripture.

"Beginner's luck, Elder?" Ye Chen offered, his voice innocent as he pocketed the nine droplets in a small jade vial. Their cool energy seeped into his palm, a tiny balm against the void's relentless chill. Leverage. Acquired.

The victory tasted sweet, but turned to ash almost instantly. News hit the next morning like a winter gale: the Scarlet Moon Sect's envoy had arrived. Whispers turned urgent, fearful. Ye Chen found his father, Clan Lord Ye Zhan, not in the strategy hall poring over maps, but standing stiffly before the ancestral tablet of Ye Chen's mother. In the flickering candlelight, the lines on Ye Zhan's face seemed carved deep, his broad shoulders bowed under an invisible weight.

"Father?" Ye Chen's voice sounded small in the vast, quiet room.

Ye Zhan startled, turning. The weariness in his eyes softened, just for a moment, seeing his son. "Chen'er. You should be resting."

"The Scarlet Moon envoy…"

A grimace tightened Ye Zhan's jaw. He gestured wordlessly to a scroll unfurled on the heavy oak table. Demands. Exorbitant "tribute" – Spirit Stones, rare ores – due within the month. Terms that would bleed the clan dry, cripple their future. "Bandits," Ye Zhan spat, the quiet fury in his voice colder, more terrifying than any shout. "Dressed in silk. They're testing us. Sniffing for weakness."

Ye Chen stepped closer. He had to look up, his child's height forcing it, but his gaze held the steady weight of an emperor. "Can we fight?"

Ye Zhan's hand came down heavily on Ye Chen's shoulder. It was meant to be reassuring, but Ye Chen felt the tremor in it, the suppressed rage… and fear. "Fight? With what? Their Second Elder alone is late-stage Spirit Core. We have… me." Early Spirit Core. A gulf as wide as the sky. "No, Chen'er. We endure. We pay. We survive." The words fell like stones, tasting of ash. This was the man whose unwavering strength Ye Chen remembered, now ground down by years of leading a decaying clan under constant threat. The rot was deep, older than the Scarlet Moon's final squeeze.

Survival isn't enough. Ye Chen saw the truth his father couldn't voice: paying now just made them fatter sheep for the slaughter. It guaranteed nothing but a slower death. The void within him seemed to resonate with his own cold fury, a silent, hungry echo.

That night, under a moonless sky thick enough to choke on, Ye Chen slipped into the clan's forbidden archives. Just a dusty, forgotten sub-basement beneath the main library, warded by decaying formations his emperor's spirit brushed aside like cobwebs. He wasn't looking for sword forms or cultivation manuals. He sought history. Specifically, the clan's darkest hour, three centuries back… and any whisper of the void.

Dust motes danced in the beam of his stolen glow-globe. Scrolls crumbled at his touch. He sifted through ledgers of petty trade squabbles, records of forgotten skirmishes, minutes of mind-numbing council meetings. Then, wedged behind a collapsed shelf, he found it: a small, unassuming ironwood case. Its surface was etched with faded, swirling patterns that made the void in his core thrum in recognition.

Inside lay a single, cracked jade slip. He pressed it to his forehead.

Chaos exploded in his mind. The sky ripped apart, not by light, but by nothingness. Azure Night warriors screamed as their limbs dissolved into swirling dark motes. A towering figure, clad in obsidian armor that drank the light, stood amidst the ruin. A vortex of pure, hungry negation swirled around one hand. The label burned into his consciousness: "The Devourer. Void Walker. Recorded during the Great Calamity. Cause: Unknown. Counter: Unknown. Survivors: 3."

Year 722… 72 years from now. The Great Calamity was a known horror in his past life, blamed on clashing celestial powers. But this… this was different. This was void. Pure, destructive void energy, wielded with chilling intent. And it had touched his clan long before the Scarlet Moon came.

As the awful vision faded, a final, chilling line of text remained: "Source traced… anomaly detected… Western Desolation… Black Vale…"

The jade slip cracked fully, disintegrating into dust in his hands.

Coincidence? The void within him, this Devourer… the Azure Overlord's furious accusation: "You… you were the first spark!?"

Before the thought could fully form, a wave of dizziness slammed into him, sharper than ever. The void core pulsed, agitated by the jade slip's resonance. Unbidden, dark energy crackled along his fingertips like black static. He stumbled back, his hand brushing against a corroded bronze brazier.

Where his fingers touched, the metal didn't bend, didn't melt. It simply… ceased. A perfect, smooth hemisphere vanished, leaving edges so unnaturally sharp they seemed to cut the very air. No heat. No sound. Just… erasure.

Ye Chen stared, his breath catching in his throat. The power was terrifying. Wild. Uncontrollable. But in that instant, staring at the impossible absence in the metal, a plan – audacious, suicidal, the only spark he had – began to crystallize.

He needed to go to the Black Vale. He needed to understand the void before it ate him alive. And he needed to do it before the Scarlet Moon envoy returned to collect their pound of flesh. Time, the one enemy even an emperor couldn't bully, was slipping through his fingers like smoke. The embers of vengeance and survival glowed faintly, dangerously, in the palm of a child's hand, fueled by a darkness that hungered for gods.

The countdown had truly begun.