Screams echoed for miles. The land trembled. Murim descended into chaos.

  That was the day they appeared.

  The sky split open like torn flesh, a jagged wound of crimson light. Screams tore through the land as gates of black and gold erupted from the earth. Sect houses crumbled. The great clans fell one by one.

  In the distance, a masked figure stood at the heart of it all...serene amidst the carnage. Then, a blade flashed. A Head rolled across the ground… my head.

  A flash of light. Blinding. All-consuming.

  And then...silence.

  I opened my eyes.

  I woke to the sterile smell of disinfectant and the hum of machines. My body felt strange young, fragile, untested. Around me were strangers calling me “Blue.” At first, I thought it was a dream. Then a punishment. A chance to start again...or a cruel trick from the heavens.

  I was ten years old. My parents claimed I’d collapsed from pneumonia. No signs of martial trauma. No qi deviation. Nothing to suggest the warrior I had been. The world I woke into was Earth. No qi. No clans. No monsters. No Murim.

  For weeks, I lay in silence. Observing. Studying. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to understand what I’d become.

  The ceiling blinked with lights. Machines beeped beside me. People wore white coats and masks instead of robes and armor. They spoke quickly, kindly, but I couldn’t understand most of it. The energy of this world was different. Dead. The air held no weight. No tension. I felt like I’d drowned and surfaced in a mirror of reality where nothing resonated.

  I wanted to hate them...David and Mary, the parents who called me “son” and wept at my bedside. But they were kind. Honest. And slowly, over months, their warmth softened something frozen inside me. Still, I couldn’t forget who I had been.

  Tang Jiung. A brother. A warrior. A protector. And the last thing I remembered before dying—So-Yeon, screaming as monsters poured through the red gate. A flash of poison. A burst of qi. Then darkness.

  The dreams came often. Fire. Screams. Blood. Sometimes it was the moment I died—pierced by that black blade, the monster in the horned helm looming over me. Other nights, I saw So-Yeon again. Standing in the burning courtyard. Crying out. Reaching for me. Always just out of reach.

  And then there was the voice. It didn’t speak often. But when it did, it echoed through the dreams like thunder in a canyon.

  "When you get to where you belong… we’ll begin."

  The first time I heard it, I thought it was my grandfather. The second time, I thought I was going mad. The third time, I stopped thinking about it at all. Just my imagination, I told myself. A relic of the past.

  Earth was bizarre. The streets were loud and wide. Steel beasts rolled by on black roads, honking and coughing smoke. Glass towers rose into the clouds, and lights blinked from every corner. There were no sects, no guards at the city gates, no martial houses or sparring courtyards. Just stores. Machines. Screens that shouted at you from walls.

  The first time I took a shower, I nearly jumped through the wall. The water came from a silver serpent’s neck with a twist. I thought it was enchanted. I called it a spirit pipe. David laughed until he cried. Mary showed me how to use it, again and again, patient and warm. She taught me how to brush my teeth, how to open food containers, how to use something called a microwave. I watched her carefully. I copied her. But inside, I felt lost.

  The doctors told them I’d been in a coma for weeks. That I might not remember anything—names, routines, even parts of myself.

  “Be patient,” they said. “Let him find his way back.” So they waited. Gently. Painfully. Treating me like fragile glass that might crack if pressed too hard.

  They thought I was lost. But the truth was worse. I wasn’t the boy they’d raised. I was someone else entirely. And yet… they loved me anyway.

  School was awkward. I barely spoke. I watched everyone. I listened. I learned quickly, but I was different. My posture. My gaze. The way I carried myself. One boy asked if I was a foreign exchange student. Another called me “Blue-bot” because of how quiet I was. I didn’t care. I kept to myself.

  Until I met her.

  She had purple hair and purple eyes. Quiet. Always sitting by herself. There was something about her—like she didn’t belong here either. Her name was Eve. She noticed things. She understood things that others missed.

  One day, a boy tried to trip her in the hallway. She didn’t react. Just kept walking. That same boy came after me next. Called me a freak. He swung. I moved without thinking, sidestepped, twisted his wrist, and dropped him. No injuries. Just a soft thud. Everyone stared

  .

  They left me alone after that. Eve started walking with me. Sitting near me at lunch. Watching me train behind the school. She never said much, just copied my stances, breathing when I breathed. I never told her about Murim. Never shared who I truly was. But we fell into rhythm. Pizza after school. Long walks through the suburbs. Quiet evenings playing video games she insisted I try. She became my best friend. My anchor.

  My parents—David and Mary—did their best. I never called them Mom and Dad out loud, but I thought it once, quietly, after Mary stayed up with me during a fever. After David built me a wooden dummy so I could practice, he converted the basement into a proper training area for me. The dummy sat in the center. Mary watched with bright eyes, telling me to always follow the path that made me happy. That night, I said it for the first time:

  “Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.”

  At night, after homework, after the house grew quiet, I trained. I moved the coffee table aside and rolled out the old yoga mat Mary had given me. It wasn’t much, but it was space—and that was all I needed. I stood in the center of the room, breathing slow and deep, the way Grandfather had taught me. Inhale. Draw the energy inward. Visualize the meridians. Focus on the dantian, just beneath the navel. The qi was barely there. A spark. Smaller than a pea. But it pulsed. Real. Alive. It responded when I called.

  I flowed through basic stances—low, deliberate movements that burned my legs. The air around me grew still, heavy with silent focus. Each motion aligned breath and intent. Each breath drew a little more strength. Sometimes, Eve watched from the porch. She never said much...just leaned on the railing, purple hair tucked behind her ear, curiosity in her gaze. I knew she had questions. I always knew.

  “What are you doing?” she asked one night, her voice low.

  “Breathing,” I said.

  “That doesn’t look like breathing.”

  I gave a small shrug and shifted into the next stance.

  “Is it a martial art?” she asked another time.

  “Sort of,” I said, not looking at her.

  “Just something my grandfather taught me.”

  She accepted it, like she always did. Never pushed. Never pried. But she kept coming back.

  By high school, I was stronger than anyone my age. Faster. More precise. Reflexes beyond natural. All thanks to the small amount of qi i had been ansorbing through the years. But I never showed it. Never needed to. At least I thought.

  The hallway smelled of sweat and cheap cologne. The chatter of students faded as he stepped into the middle of it.

  The quarterback—a mountain of a kid with a sneer and shoulders like boulders—grabbed Eve’s backpack and shoved her against the lockers.

  “Hey, freak girl. Why not come hang out with a real man instead of that douchebag,” he laughed.

  Something inside me stirred. The memory hit like a strike to the chest: a boy reaching for So-Yeon, that burning anger, the red gates, the chaos… and me, standing between her and danger.

  The world slowed. My hands clenched. My legs moved before my brain caught up.

  “Let go,” I said.

  The words barely left my lips. The next moment, he flew ten feet through the air, landing on his back with a thud. The hallway fell silent.

  I stood over him, heart pounding, fists clenched. I could feel the surge in my chest, my dantian pulsing faintly—but strong enough that anyone could see I wasn’t joking.

  The kid’s eyes widened, terror written across his face. He realized—too late—that he had underestimated me.

  Eve stepped forward, hand on my arm. “Thanks… Blue. Let’s go,” she said quietly, pulling me back as whispers spread down the hall.

  I exhaled, letting the tension fade. Calm returned. No one ever bothered her again.

  That night, I stood in my room, breathing slowly. Calm. Still. My dantian pulsed faintly. The qi was growing.

  Maybe Earth didn’t have Murim—but I carried it inside me all the same.

  And soon, this Earth would resemble Murim more than I could ever imagine.