Something was wrong.

  Raion’s voice echoed first, edges shimmering, stretching like water. Shapes twisted in the corners of my mind. I reached for the memory, but nothing came of it.

  The courtyard appeared, vanished. Sun-drenched, then stone cold. Hands, small and trembling, brushed silk, and disappeared before I could see the face.

  I felt the swing of a blade, the weight of rage, the heat of blood, but the details slipped through my grasp. A shadow shifted. A ribbon flickered. Raion’s eyes burned, then vanished for a heartbeat.

  I pulled harder, trying to hold the memory. Sounds, voices, smells collided and scattered. Then, a frozen second: a shout, a cry, a promise.

  Then it was gone. The world bent around me. Something wanted me to see, wanted me to remember. And I did. Just enough.

  “What do you mean, ‘he will not be happy’?” Raion thought.

  Raion spat. “Old man I will avenge him, my family. I will leave none of those monsters alive.”

  After that Raion started searching for the shadowy figures hidden sect.

  The world called him a ghost. A shadow that hunted other shadows.

  For forty years, Raion Kang walked across blood-soaked lands, carving a silent path through the rot that had once swallowed his home.

  He hunted and killed every sect tied to the shadowy figures. The more he searched, the more he found.

  Then he found a part of their sect. He didn’t scream. He didn’t weep. He just made them answer.

  By the time he was done, the land itself seemed to tremble under the weight of his wrath. Every secret he sought had been unearthed.

  He chased the final remnants of the Shadowed sect to the northern wastes, far beyond the reach of any other sect or empire, leaving the earth scorched by the echoes of their sins.

  They had hidden well but not well enough. That day the skies turned black; the wind screamed as if it remembered his family’s name.

  And Raion killed them all.

  Their leader, cloaked in obsidian flames, struck him through the chest.

  He struck back He shattered their temple He buried their secrets.

  And when the last one fell, Raion stood alone atop a mountain of ruin bleeding from a dozen wounds.

  his blade broken, his chi gone. And yet he smiled. He screamed. “It’s done. I’m sorry I was late. You can rest now.”

  He closed his eyes.

  Ready to go.

  Ready to fall.

  The Black Dragon’s Shadow had won.

  But the heavens were not done with him As breath faded and snow settled, faces blurred into view mostly smiling, but his father's sorrow plain.

  Then Raion heard his teacher’s words again. “Then he will not be happy in his grave after all.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Then the stars moved.

  The sky tore like paper.

  And a voice not loud, not booming, but clear spoke through the void.

  “You are not finished.”

  “The sword is clean. But the soul is not.”

  “You walked the path of vengeance well But now, walk the path of choice.”

  Raion tried to move to call his father's name one last time to ask for his forgiveness.

  but light flooded his eyes. His body disintegrated like smoke; his blade crumbling beside him.

  He thought it was death. Thought it was over. Then he opened his eyes he lay on a warm stone.

  Sunlight danced across familiar rooftiles; birds chirped below. He blinked, then sat up his hands small again.

  His chest unscarred. Calluses gone. A baby’s cry the great hall below. He froze; he knew the sound.

  “Soryn? No... Areum.”

  His younger sister had just been born the day everything changed, the day his mother died.

  He stood heart pounding He was twelve again Twelve years old, with forty years of rage and regret wrapped inside a boy’s frame.

  Raion looked at the horizon, shaking.

  “Why…?”

  And the wind answered. “This is your gift. You lost everything once. Now choose what you will protect.”

  After that He ran.

  Through the stone corridors of the Kang estate, his small feet thudding against polished floors.

  Servants barely noticed the boy; they could not know what burned behind his eyes. He knew the way remembered everything. The corridor felt too bright.

  The silence around the birthing chamber was heavy too heavy for a moment that should’ve been joyful.

  The door stood wide open. Time seemed to stop. His mother lay on a silk-covered bed: pale, fragile, still warm.

  She held a tiny bundle in her arms, wrapped in white Areum.

  An elder physician shook his head, whispering the words Raion already knew. “She won’t last long…”

  He stepped in quietly She saw him And smiled. “Raion… come here.”

  His throat caught He hadn’t heard her voice in about 50 years.

  “You… look like you’ve grown,” she chuckled weakly. “Have you been eating well?”

  Raion stepped closer. She reached up with trembling fingers and touched his cheek the warmth, the scent of her soap and a flood of memory hit him. Tears slid down his face before he could stop them.

  She blinked. “Why are you crying?”

  “I... I just missed you,” he whispered, his voice small again.

  She laughed gently. “But I’m right here, silly.” Her hand cupped his cheek, soft and kind. “You’ve always been such a gentle soul”

  She smiled then the smile faded, slower this time. Her hand dropped. Her eyes fluttered closed.

  And then she was gone. The physician sighed. The room held its breath. Raion did not move.

  He sat there, clutching her hand until it grew cold Forty years of rage had done nothing to heal this moment.

  But now he had something he’d never had before: a goodbye. After a long, silent minute, Raion left the birthing chamber.

  Suddenly the air felt heavier than before. The whispers of servants melted into the stone, fading behind him And then he heard it.

  The footsteps.

  Slow.

  Steady.

  Too heavy for any servant.

  Raion turned the corner and saw his father.

  Daeryon Kang.

  The great patriarch of the Kang family. The feared leader of a demonic sect. The strongest man Raion had ever known.

  But what stood before him now… was not a monster.

  It was a man.

  And a father.

  For the first time in Raion's life he felt happy to see his father alive.

  Then Daeryon stepped into the chamber no guards, no robes of power. Just a plain black coat, sleeves rolled from the ride.

  He approached the bedside. Raion stayed behind the door, watching.

  He did not turn away. Daeryon reached out slowly and touched her face with a gentleness that reminded Raion of his teacher’s words about his father.

  His large fingers brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, now forever closed.

  “You said you'd survive this,” he whispered. “You said you'd stay.”

  His voice cracked.

  Daeryon gripped the edge of the bed.

  For a man who had never bowed to a single soul.

  his knees trembled.

  And then… he broke.

  “I didn’t want more heirs. I didn’t want more power. I just wanted you.”

  He fell to his knees beside her, pressing his forehead to her hand.

  Raion understood his father more because of his teacher.

  Daeryon didn’t stop loving. He just didn’t know how to show it after she died.

  Raion then promised. “I will save them this time. Every one”

  My heart got lighter. “He really is my hero. But my memory cuts off after that. That same feeling again... nothing is coming together anymore. Maybe... writer's view could help.”

  “Let’s try...”

  [Writer’s view is unable to complete the story]

  “Oh, what did I expect would happen?”

  I frowned. “But even with all of this information, I still don’t know where I am in the timeline. I think I should just watch Raion to figure it out.”

  “But Daeryon doesn’t usually meet his children. He watches them from afar. He is a monster who can see you from another city. He even sensed me. What the hell is this? How am I supposed to get any more information now?”

  “Wait. Where is he going now? I can’t even move too far from him. He’s walking too fast. He’s pulling me!”

  I screamed at him.

  “STOP, YOU BASTARD!”