Neon lights flickered above narrow alleys as sleek transport pods zoomed quietly through the skyline. Skyscrapers, though modest by galactic standards, reached for the heavens. This was Lowterra , a minor city-state in the outer rim of the Federation—a civilization technologically modern, yet weak in the cosmic hierarchy of power.
Atop a modest high-rise orphanage, a teenager sat with his legs dangling over the edge. His black hair danced in the wind, and his dark eyes scanned the twin moons above. Long Yan looked like any other seventeen-year-old: thin, quiet, a little lost.
But inside, something stirred.
"Another dream," he muttered, rubbing his temple.
Lately, his nights had been filled with violent flashes—battles beneath shattered stars, roars that split the heavens, and a warmth… of a family he had never known. The images felt like memories, yet none of them belonged to the life he remembered.
He had grown up in this city, raised by machines and underpaid caretakers in the state orphanage since he was ten. Before that? Nothing. A complete void. Not a single image, name, or memory.
The official record said he was found unconscious outside the city's perimeter wall during a dust storm—alone, half-dead, no ID, no DNA match. Just a boy from nowhere.
But Long Yan knew there had to be more.
Despite living in a tech-driven society, where everyone was indexed, monitored, and databased, he remained a mystery. No records. No implants. No spiritual energy signature either—completely unable to cultivate, in a world where even the weak had basic energy flows.
It wasn't just weird.
It was wrong.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of ozone from the power plants beyond the city. He stared upward, his eyes narrowing at the stars. Somewhere out there were great empires—celestial clans, beast emperors, divine sects. This place? A blip. A backwater.
And yet… something inside him whispered that he hadn't always belonged here.
That night, as he lay in his small bunk bed, crammed between two rows of snoring orphans, a pressure built inside his chest. Not pain—something deeper. Like a door creaking open.
His vision blurred.
The stars he had seen in his dreams returned—only this time, clearer. A memory… no, a reality.
A family. A child. A battle. And a terrible power.
Then a voice, buried and broken:
"Protect them… even if it means losing everything."
Long Yan sat up in bed, gasping.
His heart pounded.
His skin prickled.
And in that moment, though he didn't understand it yet, the slumbering half of his soul had begun to awaken.
He still didn't know what had led him here—that something far beyond his understanding had shaped his fate.
That his body, his soul, his very existence… was never ordinary.
He had lived unaware, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the realm.
But that was about to change.