Yao Yi collapsed.
The moment the shadow arm brushed against his chest, his vision cracked like shattered glass. It wasn't pain—it was something else, something worse.
A memory.
He was seven again, standing outside his father's study. It was raining. His father was inside, speaking to someone Yao Yi never saw. Their voices were hushed, frantic.
"We can't let the Sect find out. If the seal breaks too early—"
Then lightning, and the memory dissolved.
He gasped as if surfacing from drowning. Ling Yue was shouting his name.
The shadow arm had vanished, recoiling into the altar like smoke sucked into a bottle. But its touch lingered.
Across Yao Yi's chest, beneath his robe, something burned.
He tore his inner tunic open.
On his skin, over his heart, a sigil had formed—not carved, not inked, but grown. A sun with ten rays. Nine of them blackened. One still glowing faintly.
He froze.
Ling Yue's eyes widened in horror. "That's... the ancestral mark. It's not supposed to appear unless—"
A shrill cry cut through the air.
A raven. Perched on the broken lintel of the shrine, its feathers oozing black ichor. Its eyes glowed gold.
Yao Yi's body reacted before thought.
He flung his hand forward.
The mirror launched from his hip like a blade, spinning through the air and slicing through the raven with impossible force. It exploded in a flash of molten darkness.
Silence returned.
But Ling Yue was staring at him. Not with awe. Not anymore.
With fear.
"You're not... just some lost heir," she said, voice trembling. "That mark… it's older than the Sect itself."
Before he could reply, the shrine shook. The copper bands on the stone pillar reformed with a metallic scream, sealing the altar once more. The drop of blood was gone.
The mirror returned to his hand, humming low.
"I don't know what you are," Ling Yue said finally. "But others will come looking for that mark. And they won't ask questions before cutting you open."
She turned and vanished into the night.
Yao Yi stood alone beneath the cracked roof.
The mark on his chest pulsed with each heartbeat, not burning now—but whispering.