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The Skyborne ship landed without a sound.
A pulse of anti-gravity released a shimmer of wind that swept away the ash. Cultists knelt, terrified. Even the ruins seemed to still. The air was thicker. Tighter.
Li Tianming stood alone as the hatch opened.
From the mist, she emerged.
Not armored. Not armed.
Just a girl in black robes with silver eyes so pale they looked almost blind. Her hair was snow-white, braided in dragonwire thread.
She couldn't have been older than twenty.
But her soul?
> [Scanning…]
[Soul Signature: Unknown. Density: Overclocked. Mutation: Triple-Layered Core]
[Threat Level: ▼・▼・▼・?]
[Result: Undefined. Chaos Eye Rebooting…]
Even the system glitched.
She walked up to Tianming, unfazed by the dozens of cultists behind him.
> "You're smaller than I expected," she said, flatly.
Tianming said nothing.
She looked him up and down, then nodded once.
> "I am Yue Xian'er. Direct agent of the Dragon Empire's Shadow Court.
I've come to test your worth. Not as a citizen…"
"…but as a threat."
Before Tianming could react, she moved.
Faster than a blink — she appeared behind him, heel striking toward the back of his head.
He blocked it with his blade just in time — sparks flew — and skidded back several meters, boots tearing into stone.
> "So we're skipping diplomacy," he spat.
> "Correct," Yue said. "Let's see what the Chaos Seed has become."
She vanished again.
Tianming activated Chaos Eye, just in time to see—
A thread of death — his — stabbing through his own heart with her fingers.
He twisted away, ducked low, and slashed at her side.
She danced back, untouched.
> "Good," she said. "You see the echoes."
"But can you survive them?"
She raised her palm — and a glyph ignited in the air. Not magic. Not tech.
Bloodline Script.
> [Trait Detected: Blood Seal – Origin Class.]
[Danger: Lethal]
> "You're from a bloodline… ancient enough to write on the world itself," Tianming whispered.
Yue said nothing. She pressed her palm forward — the glyph pulsed — and the air exploded into black crystal shards aimed straight for his heart.
Tianming activated his Chaos traits:
> Hellfire Surge – Black Variant!
Death-Eater Core – Echo Collapse!
Chaos Eye – Counter Echo Strike!
He deflected the shards, consumed one, and forced his vision to see her death instead — not now, but later — a flash of silver hair drowned in black fire.
For a moment… her eyes widened.
She stepped back.
> "You saw it… didn't you?" she said quietly.
Tianming lowered his blade. "Everyone dies. Even you."
Silence.
Then she smiled — just barely.
> "Good. That means you're real."
She reached into her cloak and tossed something at him.
A sealed data cube, engraved with the imperial dragon crest.
> "Open that when you're ready to leave this dead sector. It holds your next location."
> "Next location?"
> "You think this is a war between mutants and survivors?" she said.
"It's not."
"It's a war between those who know the Collapse's truth… and those who are about to be erased."
She turned, walking back toward her ship.
> "We'll meet again. And when we do—"
"—one of us will die."
And then she was gone.
The ship lifted into the sky. The silence returned.
Only the cube remained, pulsing faintly in Tianming's hand.
The system pinged.
> [Quest Unlocked: Dragon Blood Route – Tier 2 Chaos Trials]
[Location: Raven Abyss – Sector 94, Eastern Ruinlands]
[Warning: Dominion Agents en route. Time Limit: 72 hours]
Tianming stared at the cube.
Then whispered:
> "Let the next hunt begin."