It didn't just look back. It moved.
The shadow inside the obsidian coffin detached itself from the black stone like a sticker being peeled off glass. It hit the floor with a wet, heavy thud.
"Ren," his grandmother whispered, her voice paralyzed. "Don't move."
Ren couldn't have moved if he wanted to. The air pressure in the hallway had dropped, making his ears pop. The smell of iron and ash spiked, turning sharp and metallic.
The shadow rose. It wasn't just a beast. It was a mass of tangled, black hair that writhed like snakes, protecting something glowing faintly in its center.
It hissed—a sound like static on a dead radio channel.
Tick.
The sound came from inside Ren's head.
[ SYSTEM INITIALIZATION... ]
Text burned itself into the air. It wasn't a hallucination. It was his own soul trying to make sense of the chaos, translating ancient intent into modern data.
[ ENTITY DETECTED: CORRUPTED GUARDIAN ] [ THREAT LEVEL: LETHAL ]
The Guardian lunged.
Grandma didn't shout a generic prayer. She moved with practiced speed.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a yellow paper talisman drawn with red ink. She snapped her wrist, and the paper ignited in mid-air with a burst of green flame.
WHOOSH.
A translucent green barrier shimmered into existence between them and the monster.
Ren's eyes widened. It's real.
He didn't know what "mana" was. But he felt the air vibrating against his skin. He felt the heat of the green fire. For eighteen years, he thought she was crazy—but she had been holding back the dark this whole time.
CRACK.
The barrier shattered instantly against the Guardian's claws. The beast was too strong. It tore through the green light like tissue paper.
Ren stepped forward. He didn't think. Instinct took the wheel.
He raised his right hand. Thumb pressed against the middle finger. Index finger pointing up.
"Kneel."
He didn't shout it. He stated it. Like a law of physics.
The air above the Guardian hardened into a hammer.
BOOM.
The beast slammed face-first into the floorboards. The wood cracked. The house shook.
Grandma gasped, clutching her chest. She stared at Ren's hand sign, her face draining of color.
"That Mudra..." she whispered. "That is the Imperial Suppression Art. That magic has been lost for two thousand years."
Ren ignored her. He couldn't hear her. All he could hear was the hum of the object trapped inside the shadow.
He twisted his wrist downward.
"Compress."
The shadow imploded. The darkness was crushed into nothingness, revealing what it had been hiding.
Clink.
A small object fell onto the floorboards.
It wasn't a crystal. It was a white jade hairpin, carved in the shape of a phoenix.
Ren fell to his knees. The numbness in his arm turned into agonizing pain. He reached out and picked up the hairpin.
It was warm.
[ ARTIFACT RECLAIMED: THE PHOENIX PIN ] [ MEMORY FRAGMENT UNLOCKED: "THE BOND" ]
A sudden, violent grief crashed into Ren's chest.
It wasn't just sadness. It was an amputation. He felt a phantom pain in a soul he didn't know he had. He saw a woman in a garden, her back turned to him. He felt the crushing weight of a promise made in blood—a bond that defied the cycle of reincarnation.
"Wait for me," he had told her. "I will anchor you," she had promised.
Tears blurred Ren's vision. Hot, confused tears that didn't belong to an eighteen-year-old boy.
"Ren?"
Grandma was standing over him. She wasn't looking at the monster anymore. She was looking at him with suspicion.
"You... you destroyed a Spirit Guardian with a single word," she said, her voice trembling. "And you used a Royal Mudra. Ren... look at me."
Ren looked up. His eyes were fading from green back to brown, but the sadness in them was centuries old.
"Who are you?" she asked, stepping back. "Because my grandson gets a C in History. He thinks 'Qi' is a yoga term. He definitely doesn't know the Ancient Arts."
Ren wiped the tears from his face. He felt disoriented, like he was waking up from two different dreams at once.
"I'm Ren," he said softly. "I'm still me, Grandma."
He stood up, swaying slightly. He held up the hairpin.
"But when I touched that coffin... I felt it. The Shaman's memories. They aren't just pictures. They're... heavy."
Grandma stared at him. She looked at the hairpin—an artifact that clearly didn't belong in the 21st century.
"The Prophecy," she whispered, touching the amulet at her neck. "The Ancestors warned us. They said the bloodline was a lock, not a gift. We were meant to keep the power sleeping, Ren. We were the jailers."
She looked at the empty coffin.
"And you just turned the key."
Suddenly, the blue text in Ren's vision scrolled faster.
[ SYSTEM STATUS: ONLINE ] [ WELCOME BACK, MINISTER. ]
[ ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED MAGIC DETECTED. ] [ THE UNDERWORLD HAS LOGGED YOUR SIGNATURE. ] [ DELETION PROTOCOL INITIATED. ]
[ TIME UNTIL PURGE: 71 HOURS, 59 MINUTES. ]
Ren's blood ran cold.
"Grandma," Ren said, his voice hardening. "We have a problem."
"What is it?"
"That spirit wasn't just a monster. It was a seal," Ren said, clutching the hairpin. "And by breaking it, I just pinged the radar."
He looked at the ceiling, as if he could see through the roof, straight into the dark dimension that was watching him.
"The Underworld knows I'm here."
Grandma grabbed his arm. Her grip was tight, painful. The color had left her face completely.
"The Underworld?" she choked out. "Ren, if they tracked that energy... they will send Enforcers. They will send Reapers."
"Reapers?" Ren asked, trying to force a laugh, but it came out as a cough. "Like... skeletons in cloaks? Like in the movies?"
"Movies are stories," Grandma said grimly. "Reapers are executioners. And to them, you are a virus that needs to be purged."
Ren looked at his shaking hand. He could still feel the hum of the 'Kneel' command buzzing in his nerves.
"I have this power," Ren admitted, clenching his fist. "It feels like a nuclear reactor inside a battery. But I don't know the controls. If they come for us tonight, I can't fight them. Not yet."
Grandma took a deep breath. The fear in her eyes was replaced by a steel resolve. She wasn't just a grandmother anymore; she was the Protector of the Wu Family.
"Then we do not fight," she said sharply. "We hide. We use the Old Ways."
She pointed to the kitchen.
"Go. Get the jar of coarse salt and the cinnabar ink. If we line every threshold before midnight, we might be able to mask your signal."
[ NEW QUEST GENERATED: THE SAFE HOUSE ] [ OBJECTIVE: ASSIST GRANDMA IN WARDING THE PERIMETER ]
Ren nodded. He put the hairpin in his pocket. It felt heavy, like carrying a tombstone.
"I'll get the salt," Ren said.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked back at the messy hallway, the shattered floorboards, and the empty coffin.
"Grandma?"
"Yes?" she said, already pulling more yellow papers from her pocket.
"I have school tomorrow," Ren said. It sounded ridiculous, but he needed to know. "Do I still have to go?"
Grandma paused. She looked at the glowing green embers of her talisman, then at her grandson who was suddenly a target for the entire Underworld.
"Ren," she said grimly. "The Reapers look for spiritual anomalies. If you stay home, you look suspicious. If you go to school, you are just another face in the crowd."
She met his eyes.
"You need camouflage, Ren. Being normal is your best defense."
Ren nodded slowly.
"Camouflage," he whispered. "I can do that."
He turned and ran toward the kitchen.
They had seventy-one hours. And the war had just begun.