Feiyin stirred, a dull ache throbbing through his body. His mind swam in fusion, his senses hazy from whatever teique they had used to render him unscious. He tried to move, but the cold, jagged stoh him sent a sharp pain through his limbs, making him wince. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open.

  Darkness.

  An unending void surrounded him, stretg beyond what little he could perceive. His breath hitched as he pushed himself up onto his elbows, trying to shake off the lingering grogginess. The air was damp, thick with the st of mildew and somethiallic—blood. His heartbeat quied.

  The echoes of soft whimpers and hushed sobs filled the cavern around him.

  Other children.

  His breath steadied as his eyes adjusted to the dim glow ing from the very ter of the cave, where a single figure stood. The figure’s bck robes blended into the surrounding darkness, the only trast being the eerie light that illuminated him from below.

  Feiyin didn’t need his osciltion seo feel the suffog presence rolling off of the man.

  Terror g to the air.

  Despair festered imosphere, thid palpable.

  His gaze flickered around, taking ihers. Youth of various ages, their faces pale, their eyes wide with panid uainty. Some were curled up, trembling. Others stood frozen, eyes locked on the man in the ter, too afraid to speak.

  Then, the bck-robed man finally moved.

  "Wele to your new life." His voice was smooth, almost pleasant, but it carried an unmistakable edge of cruelty.

  Feiyin's fingers curled into fists.

  The man’s gaze swept over them, his expression unreadable. "You are all now the possessions of the Saint Spirit Sect."

  A collective shudder ran through the group.

  Possessions.

  Not disciples. Not even prisoners. Just possessions.

  "If you prove useful, you will live. If you do not..." The man tilted his head, his lips curling slightly. "You will either die, or we will kill you. It makes no differeo us."

  The sobs around him grew louder, some children gasping in fear. One boy, no older than nine, clutched his arms tightly, his entire body trembling. Another, a girl who seemed closer to twelve, gritted her teeth, her expression one of barely tained fury.

  Feiyin’s stomach twisted.

  The bck-robed maured to the cave around them. "This is your first trial. You will remain here for one month. There will be no food, no supplies, and no light to guide you."

  Silence.

  Someone hiccupped a sob.

  Feiyin’s heartbeat pounded in his ears.

  "You may find water if you're lucky, and if you're desperate enough, you eat the is as lurking within this cave system," the man tinued, his tone mogly casual. "That is, if they do you first."

  A few children gasped, and the fear among them spiked, sending another wave of shudders through the group.

  Feiyin swallowed hard, trying to steady his breathing. He had grown stronger. He had trained hard under his father’s guidance. But this—this was unlike anything he had ever faced before.

  "Of course," the man said, his voice turning almost pyful, "some of you may be thinking of escape."

  Feiyin stiffened.

  The man chuckled. "That would be foolish. Each of you has had a Heart-Eating Worm impnted inside you."

  A sharp, collective inhale. Horror rippled through the children.

  Feiyin's blood ran cold.

  Heart-Eating Worms.

  He had heard of them before—parasitic creatures used by cruel cultivators to trol their subordinates. As long as they were giveidote on a regur basis, they remained dormant. But if the antidote was withheld…

  The worms would burrow into their host’s heart and devour it from within.

  "You will receive an antidote once a month. That is, if you survive." The man’s gaze darkened, and his smile turned sharper. "But if you try to escape, disobey orders, or even think of resisting… you will not receive your dose."

  One boy colpsed to his knees, hands gripping his stomach as if he could already feel the worm inside of him. A girl bit her lip so hard it bled, her hands shaking at her sides.

  Feiyin forced himself to stay still.

  The Saint Spirit Sect.

  They weren’t just killing people. They were harvesting them—turning them into sves, ons, tools.

  A slow, burning anger ignited in his chest.

  The man surveyed them o time, as if sav their terror. "That is all. I suggest you get fortable with your new reality."

  And then, without another word, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows.

  The light in the ter of the cave flickered—then vanished.

  Darkness swallowed them whole.

  For a moment, there was nothing but silence.

  Then the chaos began.

  Someone screamed.

  A boy started hyperventiting, clutg his chest as if he could tear the worm out. Another child started sobbing untrolbly, wailing for his parents.

  "I don’t want to die!" a voice cried. "I don’t want to be here!"

  "Get away from me!" another yelled. "You might try to steal my food!"

  "There is no food!" someone else sheir voice trembling with hysteria. "We’re going to starve!"

  Feet shuffled. Someoripped in the dark, crashing onto the hard stone floor with a cry of pain.

  The cave was desding into madness.

  Feiyin ched his teeth.

  He could feel it. The desperation. The fear. The sheer hopelessness spreading through the group like wildfire.

  It was suffog.

  And it was dangerous.

  If they all lost themselves to paniow, they wouldn’t even st a day.

  A deep, steadying breath.

  Feiyi his senses expand.

  He focused, pushing past the fear, past the noise. He o find his ter—to drown out the chaos around him and think.

  The darkness was absolute, but the osciltions weren’t.

  He could feel them.

  The uneveic pulses of the terrified children. The shaking, unstable rhythm of those on the verge of colpse. The rapid, erratic thuds of frantic heartbeats.

  Then there were the surroundings—the cave itself. The cool, unmoving stability of the stoh him. The quiet, almost imperceptible skittering of is on the walls. The distant, rhythmic drips of water.

  It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  His fingers curled into fists.

  If he wao survive this, he had to stay calm. He had to keep his mind sharp.

  The others, however, were already losing trol.

  A scuffle broke out somewhere to his left, the sound of a body smming against the stone.

  "Back off!" a voiarled. "This is my spot!"

  "There’s nothing here!" another snapped. "We’re all going to die!"

  More shuffling. More panic.

  Feiyin exhaled slowly.

  This was only the first night.

  And it was already turning into hell.

  He had no ons.

  No food.

  No allies.

  Only the darkness and the monsters—both outside and within.

  His heartbeat slowed.

  Fine.

  If this was what they wanted…

  Then he would survive.

  He would endure.

  And one day—

  He would make them regret taking him.

  Feiyin exhaled slowly, f his thoughts into crity as the cacophony of panid despair tinued around him. His father’s words echoed in his mind, steady aain.

  "Trying to reason with a frightened mob is futile. Words fall on deaf ears when fear has taken hold. You either use overwhelming strength to shock them back to their senses… or you wait for the storm to pass."

  He ched his jaw. Overwhelming strength? That wasn’t an option, not yet. He had no ons, no clear advantage in this situation beyond his wits and training. And waiting? If he let things spiral too far, there might be no o sane enough to form any sembnce of order.

  No, the best course of a was to find people who weren’t pletely lost in terror—those who were still rational, still grounded enough to think beyond their immediate panic. If he could find them first, he could shift the tide.

  His father always said, “You don’t trol chaos. You guide it. Start with what you handle, ahe rest follow.”

  He closed his eyes, sharpening his senses, letting his inner perception expand.

  The cave was vast, stretg far beyond what he could see, but in this ing darkness, his senses were his greatest on. He felt out the frantic osciltioistable, trembling like thin reeds in a storm. The ragged breaths, the unevebeats, the restless shuffling of bodies searg blindly for some sense of stability.

  Then—something different.

  Something still.

  Amidst the turmoil, there was one frequency that stood in stark trast to the others. Not calm, not posed like a warrior fag death with acceptano, this was something else entirely.

  Dull.

  Unmoving.

  As if the boy didn’t care if he lived or died.

  Feiyin’s brow furrowed. Why? Was it shock? Resignation? Apathy?

  He stepped forward, maneuvering through the trembling forms of his fellotives. He had to be careful—not to touyooo suddenly, not to provoke someoo shing out in blind panic.

  The closer he got, the clearer the presence became. The boy was crouched in a shadowed er of the cavern, away from the worst of the chaos. When Feiyin finally reached him, his eyes adjusted enough to make out a faint silhouette.

  A thin frame, slightly hunched, with a quiet yet heavy presehat didn’t quite blend into the background. His posture was loose, almost slumped, his breathing steady, unshaken by the surrounding madness.

  And when Feiyin finally got a glimpse of his face—he uood.

  The boy wasn’t just calm.

  He had long since given up.

  His features were sharp, angur in a way that set him apart. His ears, slightly pointed. His skin, pale but with a faint underlying hue that hi something other than human. His hair was a deep charcoal gray, strands falling over emotionless red eyes that stared into nothing.

  A hybrid.

  A half-demon.

  Feiyin inhaled sharply. He had seeions in books, heard stories about the demon races that lived far beyond the borders of the Azure Cloud Kingdom. Half-bloods were rare, and those that existed were ofteed as lesser beings—outcasts among both humans and demons alike.

  It suddenly made sense.

  To someone like him, being thrown into this hellish pce meant little. What was ane when life had never beeo begin with?

  But Feiyin wasn’t about to let him sink further into that abyss.

  He crouched down, bringing himself level with the boy. "You’re really calm," he said.

  The half-demon’s gaze shifted slightly, but there was no spark of i, ion to the chaos around them. "No point in panig," he muttered. His voice was hoarse, dry, as if he hadn’t spoken in days.

  Feiyin tilted his head. "Why not?"

  The boy shrugged, his movements lethargic. "I was born worthless. Lived worthless. I’ll probably die worthless." A mirthless chuckle. "Whether it’s in this cave or in some alley baakes no difference."

  A slow, simmering frustration rose in Feiyin’s chest.

  "That’s stupid."

  The boy blihe first sign of actual emotion flickering across his face.

  Feiyin’s eyes narrowed. "How you think you’re worthless?"

  Silence.

  Feiyin pressed on. "Look around. Everyone else is panig, breaking down, losing their minds. But you’re not." He gestured toward the trembling figures in the darkness. "You’re calm. You’re aware. That’s not something just anyone do."

  The boy scoffed, looking away. "Doesn’t mean anything."

  "It means everything," Feiyin tered. His voice was firm, unyielding. "What do you think strength is? Just raw power? No. Strength is trol. Strength is endurarength is seeing clearly when no one else ."

  His fists ched. "If you were cast out, if people rejected you just because of how you were born—don’t you want to prove them wrong?"

  The half-demon’s red eyes flickered with something—something Feiyin couldn’t quite pce.

  Feiyin held his gaze. "Don’t you want to survive? To get out of here and make them regret throwing you away?"

  For the first time siheir versation started, the boy hesitated.

  Feiyin pushed forward. "I’m going to survive this," he said, his voice carrying a quiet certainty. "And I’m going to make sure those bastards pay for what they did to my vilge." His fingers curled into a fist. "But I ’t do that alone."

  The words hung in the air between them.

  Seds passed.

  Then—finally—the boy exhaled, a slow, tired sound.

  "...You’re strange," he muttered.

  Feiyin smirked. "I’ve been told."

  The half-demon was silent for a long moment. Then, he sighed. "Fine. If I’m going to die anyway, might as well see how far I go."

  Feiyin’s smirk grew into something sharper, something more determined.

  "Good," he said, standing up. "The’s survive together."

  The boy rose as well, his movements slow but steady. "...What’s your name?"

  "Feiyin," he answered. "Cai Feiyin."

  A beat of hesitation.

  Then, quietly, the boy said, "...Ren."

  Feiyin’s grin widened. "Alright, Re’s get started."

  As the chaos of the cave raged on around them, a single ember of defiance sparked to life.

  And from that ember, a fire would one day grow.