Before dawn—several quiet hours before he went to stand before the elders—deep beneath the Mystic Wolves Temple, San Qi stood alone in a corridor untouched by ordinary footsteps.

  The air here was colder than the world above, heavy with age and reverence. Stone walls carved by ancestors long turned to dust stretched into shadow, their surfaces etched with fading lunar symbols that pulsed faintly, as though remembering power rather than holding it. Silence lived in this place. Not empty silence, but the kind that listened.

  At the end of the passage stood a pair of towering twin iron doors.

  They were ancient—older than the current temple, older even than the last three dynasties of wolf kings. Clawed runes spiraled across the metal like frozen lightning, each mark filled with dim silver light that breathed slowly in rhythm with unseen magic. Above the handles, two crescent moons faced one another, their tips nearly touching, forming a sacred symbol known only to the ruling bloodline and the Elder Council.

  The Holy Library of Lupin Arcana.

  A vault of memory.A sanctuary of forbidden knowledge.A place San Qi had not entered for years.

  Not because he had forgotten it existed—but because the man he had been until recently no longer believed he had the right.

  Now everything had changed.

  Bearing within his veins the renewed blood and spirit of two ancient wolves, San Qi lifted his hand. For a brief moment, his palm hovered just before the cold iron, and in that stillness lived a quiet recognition:

  The last time he had stood here, he had been weaker.Uncertain.Unready.

  Slowly, he pressed his palm to the gate.

  Silver light rippled outward from the point of contact, flowing through the clawed runes like awakened veins. The doors responded not with force, but with memory.

  They opened.

  Not quickly.Not easily.

  But with a deep, echoing groan that rolled down the corridor like something ancient stirring from sleep—as though the library itself recognized him again.

  Inside, the vast hall shimmered with soft, ethereal radiance.

  Shelves carved from obsidian wood rose in towering rows toward a distant domed ceiling. Each shelf carried tomes bound in materials no longer used in the modern world—moon-silk, spirit leather, bark from vanished forests. Faint whispers seemed to drift between the aisles, not voices exactly, but echoes of knowledge waiting to be remembered.

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  Above, a magical constellation stretched across the dome: glowing wolves formed from threads of silver light, moving slowly in an endless celestial hunt. Their silent dance filled the chamber with solemn reverence, as if every breath taken here required permission from history itself.

  Every book contained a secret.Of bloodlines.Of spirit wolves.Of hidden pacts and rituals forbidden even to most elders.

  San Qi did not wander.

  He moved with purpose, as though guided by instinct deeper than thought. His fingers passed over rows of sealed volumes before stopping at three specific tomes—each marked with silver wax reserved for royal study alone.

  He removed them carefully.

  "The Dichotomy of Frienor and Amarok.""Black Vein Rebirth: A Study of Dual Pulse Warriors.""The Throne-Bound Howl: Codes of Royal Descent."

  Carrying them to a stone reading table worn smooth by centuries, he opened the first.

  Time lost meaning.

  Hours passed in silence broken only by the turning of pages and the slow, steady rhythm of breath. His mind—sharpened and expanded by awakening—absorbed knowledge with unnatural clarity, layering truth upon truth without confusion or strain.

  He learned of Fused Wolves, descendants so rare their existence bordered on myth—beings capable of awakening more than one ancestral spirit without destruction.

  He studied the Moon Veil, a defensive technique said to bend lunar essence into a barrier untouched by blade or curse, lost to time after the fall of an ancient queen.

  He memorized the royal phrases of origin, syllables bound directly to the founding king's bloodline—words that could not be spoken falsely because the power within them would simply refuse to answer.

  With every page, certainty grew.

  He had the blood.Now, he had the knowledge.

  When at last he closed the final tome, the silence of the library felt different—no longer watching, but acknowledging.

  His original plan had been simple:return unseen, remain hidden, allow recovery to finish in secrecy.

  But fate, like the moon, rarely followed mortal plans.

  Leaving through one of the hidden tunnels beneath the temple, San Qi moved quietly through narrow stone passages known only to royalty and a handful of elders. The scent of damp earth and ancient incense lingered in the air.

  Then—

  Voices.

  Sharp.Hurried.Unaware they were heard.

  He slowed, stopping just before the tunnel's bend.

  Two figures stood ahead in partial shadow—elite guards loyal not to the temple… but to San Lang.

  Their words carried clearly in the confined space.

  "The poison should've done it by now. The elders will believe it. San Lang will act during the meeting—declare the body cremated and claim grief."

  A pause. Uneasy.

  "And if the body turns up?"

  "He'll say it was a fake. Or a rogue. He has the speech prepared."

  Silence followed.

  But inside San Qi, something colder than anger settled into place.

  A fake?

  The thought did not wound.It clarified.

  Very well.

  Let him try.

  Now, in the Elder Hall…

  San Lang had just spoken:

  "This man is not San Qi. He's a shadow-walker, a doppelg?nger or rogue sent to confuse us. The real San Qi is dead."

  The accusation hung in the sacred chamber like poison released into still air—spreading slowly, seeking belief, waiting to take root.