The first thing he knew was pain. A deep, shearing agony in his chest, so profound it felt like his very soul was being torn apart. The second was the smell: a coppery tang of blood so thick it coated his tongue, mixed with the acrid smoke of scorched earth and splintered wood.
He tried to open his eyes, but one was sealed shut with drying blood. The other cracked open to a world of gray ash and crimson ruin under a twilight sky. Broken pillars, once pristine and white, lay like the bones of a fallen god. The ornate roofs of pagodas had collapsed, their elegant curves now jagged wounds gaping at the heavens.
And there were bodies. So many bodies, clad in the pale blue and silver robes of the Celestial Formation Sect. Men and women he knew. Elder Han, whose hands could weave spiritual energy into intricate patterns, lay with a sword through his chest. Sister Mei, who had just last week laughed while showing him a new energy-channeling diagram, was now a silent, broken doll.
A memory—not his own, yet as real as the agony in his ribs—flashed through his mind. A sky filled with hostile figures. The arrogant sneer of a man in golden robes, the leader of the "Righteous Alliance." The shattering of the Mountain-Guarding Array, a shield that had stood for five hundred years. The screams. The slaughter. The final, desperate act of his master pushing him into a hidden cellar just as the main hall collapsed.
His name was… Li Chen. He was eighteen years old. He was the last disciple.
No.
Another set of memories, alien and overwhelming, crashed into the first. Memories of a different world. A world of steel and glass towers that pierced the clouds, of vehicles that moved without spiritual power, of screens that held worlds of information. He was an architect, a visionary whose designs were deemed too ambitious, too grand. He had fallen asleep at his drafting table after 36 sleepless hours trying to solve a structural integrity problem for a cantilevered stadium roof… and woken up in hell.
A violent cough wracked his new body, sending a fresh wave of fire through his torso. He was Li Chen. He was… both. The grief, the rage, the loyalty to this fallen sect—it was his. The analytical mind, the knowledge of physics, engineering, and project management—that was his, too.
He pushed himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. The world swam before his eyes. He was alone. The sole survivor of a massacre. The inheritor of a legacy deemed "heretical" by the world.
And as that thought solidified, a new sensation, cold and precise, bloomed in his mind. It was not a memory, but an interface. A serene, blue light only he could see.
[Celestial Architect System Initializing…]
[Host Vitals Critical. Spiritual Core Fractured. Body Integrity at 17%.]
[Objective: Survive.]
The voice was emotionless, clinical. It was utterly out of place in this world of blood and Qi. But to the architect within him, it was the most familiar thing he had ever known. It was the calm, logical interface of a design program.
And in the face of utter despair, for the first time since waking, Li Chen felt a flicker of something other than grief. It was the cold, sharp glint of purpose.