Chapter 1: The Ashes of Tomorrow

​The fire devoured the stone, swallowing the royal banners of House Thorn amidst absolute chaos.

I stood upon the scorched rubble of the Vane estate, my fingers clamped tightly around the neck of Dorian Thorn—a man who once strutted through the world with unbearable arrogance.

Lifting Dorian high into the air as dark blood dripped from my fingertips, my eyes burned with a terrifying, primal amber glow. When I spoke, my voice hissed like a deadly viper cutting through the roaring flames: ​"You left me to rot in the abyss... and now, the time has come for your entire world to burn."

​Fwoosh.

​Suddenly, the nightmarish vision of the future dissolved into ash. My body violently convulsed as my eyes snapped open to the harsh, unforgiving light of the present. ​I was slammed hard against the freezing marble floor of the grand banquet hall of the Vane clan.

A heavy boot dug ruthlessly into my ribs, planted there by one of the elite estate guards, while mocking laughter and cruel jeers echoed off the high vaulted ceilings. It had all been a waking nightmare—or perhaps, a terrifying glimpse of destiny.

​Groaning softly, I forced my head up.

My gaze locked onto the smug, contemptuous face of Dorian Thorn. The pampered young master stood proudly at the center of the hall, channeling a pure, radiant aura of elemental energy to dazzle the crowd, while the elders of the Vane clan sat in cold, silent complicity. Not a single person offered a shred of human decency.

​"Are you done playing dead, trash?"

Dorian sneered, his voice dripping with disgust as he waved a parchment scroll detailing the annulment of our engagement and the formal stripping of my status.

"A crippled whelp born with a shattered, dead cultivation core—how could you ever imagine you were worthy of standing by my side? Your very presence here is an insult to the bloodline of House Vane."

​A wave of loud snickers rippled through the gathered nobles. My own father, sitting high upon the patriarch's seat, looked down upon me with eyes devoid of warmth or pity, treating me like a broken utensil to be thrown away in the rubbish.

​Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself up onto my knees. There were no tears in my eyes, no trembling submission like the weakling they expected to see. Instead, my gaze was dark, razor-sharp, and unyielding—the eyes of a cornered predator locking onto its executioners for the very last time.

A bizarre, scorching heat suddenly flared deep within my chest, right where my dead core was supposed to be. It felt as though something ancient, sleeping beneath the crust of the earth, was violently answering my sheer, unadulterated defiance.

​"You have all sealed your own fates today," I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an icy, bone-chilling weight that instantly choked the laughter right out of the room. ​Dorian’s smile faltered, replaced by a flash of irritation at my unflinching stare.

Disgusted, he flicked his hand dismissively and barked at the guards:

​"Arrogant fool!

Drag him out of my sight and throw him straight into the Abyss of Beasts!

Let the wild predators tear him apart, and let the entire realm witness what happens to those who defy their betters!"

​Heavy hands clamped onto my shoulders, hauling me up without an ounce of mercy as the crowd cheered for my destruction.

They dragged me through the winding, freezing corridors of the estate, past the grand gates, and straight toward the jagged, vertiginous cliffs overlooking the legendary Abyss of Beasts—a bottomless trench from which no living soul had ever returned. ​Without a single word of hesitation, the guards shoved me over the edge.

​I plunged backward into the suffocating, pitch-black chasm, falling at a terrifying velocity as the howling winds tore at my clothes. But amidst the dizzying terror of the drop, my blood didn't freeze in panic—it boiled with a wild, violent heat.

Deep within the recesses of my falling consciousness, a colossal, earth-shaking roar echoed through the chambers of my soul, as if a mythical titan buried for a thousand years had finally awakened at my command. ​My broken body crashed heavily against the rocky floor of the dark abyss, surrounded by old bones and shadows.

​Yet, this was no end...

It was merely the spark that would burn their world to cinders.