Winter of 9618 gnawed at the Great Yan Empire’s bones. Frost etched fractal patterns across the capital’s cobblestones, the air sharp with the metallic tang of impending snowstorms. In the palace district, icicles daggered from eaves like crystallized threats.

  16:33 – Conspiracy

  Prince Yan Peng’s breath fogged against leaded glass as he surveyed the snow-choked courtyard. Two years of political bloodletting had honed his features to blade-like severity. The study reeked of sandalwood ink and ambition.

  “The eastern barracks are ours.” Marshal Wang’s armor clinked like coins in a beggar’s bowl. “All that remains is the storm’s catalyst.”

  The prince’s fingertip traced the frost-ferns blooming on the windowpane. “And the thorn in our side?”

  Marshal Wang hesitated. His gaze flicked to the shadowed corner where Sun Mu stood—a specter in oiled leathers still stinking of grave soil.

  16:35 – Calculation

  “Three percent,” Sun Mu rasped. His voice carried the dry rattle of a snake shedding skin. “To kill General Qin outright. Eighty to delay.”

  The numbers hung like executioner’s weights. Yan Peng’s knuckles whitened against the windowsill. Across the city, General Qin’s compound glowed defiantly—a bonfire of loyalty in the gathering dark.

  16:37 – Artifact

  Yan Peng produced the Cycle Compass. Twin hemispheres of obsidian and alabaster spun soundlessly, their central needle thrumming with contained lightning. Sun Mu’s pupils dilated—the scent of ozone and power dilated his nostrils.

  “Sixth-tier spiritual artifact,” the prince murmured. “Harvested from the Tomb of Ten Thousand Regrets.”

  Sun Mu’s tongue darted across chapped lips. “With this… one hundred percent.”

  16:39 – Resonance

  Memories flickered—two years prior, a masked interloper stealing the spirit embryo from under his claws. Sun Mu’s phantom limb ached where Lin Hao’s blade had severed his right arm. The tomb’s stone guardians still haunted his nightmares.

  “The Fourth Prince’s faction weakens daily.” Yan Peng rotated the compass, its shadows crawling across Sun Mu’s cadaverous features. “Qin’s death will be the final tremor.”

  16:41 – Preparation

  Beyond the study walls, celebratory banners flapped like trapped phoenixes. Merchants hawked plum wine infused with numbing agents, their breath steaming through forced smiles. The capital’s festive veneer barely concealed the rot beneath—gutter assassins exchanging coded whispers, black market alchemists stockpiling paralysis powders.

  16:43 – Revelation

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  Marshal Wang departed through hidden passages, his boot soles leaving melted trails in the frost. Sun Mu lingered, tracing the Cycle Compass’s grooves. His remaining hand trembled—not from cold, but bloodlust.

  “The compass resonates with tomb energy.” Yan Peng’s reflection warped in the artifact’s polished surface. “Use it wisely.”

  Sun Mu’s chuckle rasped like a whetstone. “When have I ever been otherwise?”

  16:45 – Epiphany

  As night deepened, the prince stood vigil. Snow muted the city’s death throes—a drunkard’s frozen corpse outside a brothel, a merchant’s daughter sold to slavers for three sacks of winter wheat. His breath fogged the glass anew, temporarily obscuring General Qin’s illuminated stronghold.

  16:47 – Resolve

  Yan Peng’s fingertip etched invisible plans across the condensation. The compass’s power sang in his marrow, its song harmonizing with the tomb guardians’ distant roar. Somewhere beneath the capital’s foundations, four stone golems stirred in their storage vaults—hungry, patient, expensive.

  “Soon,” he promised the night.

  The wind howled its approval.

  Resonance Protocol

  The blizzard howled like a wounded leviathan. Snowflakes crystallized midair around Lin Hao’s thermal signature as he ascended Tianyan Academy’s thousand-step approach. His cycle eyes parsed the environment in hyperspectral layers—ice fractals blooming on stone lions’ manes, stress fractures in ancient guardrails, two first-years shivering beneath threadbare cloaks.

  16:33 – Recognition

  “Credentials?” The shovel-wielding boy’s breath plumed white. His companion froze mid-sweep, eyes widening at Lin Hao’s ash-pale irises—corneas swirling with captured starlight.

  “First-year cohort six. Xuanwu Hall.” Lin Hao’s voice rasped from disuse. Ice crackled in his beard.

  The boys exchanged glances. Their thermal signatures spiked—pulse rates accelerating, capillaries dilating. The shorter one blurted, “But Cohort Six’s roster doesn’t—”

  16:35 – Revelation

  Fourprestige preened on Lin Hao’s shoulder, bioluminescent feathers humming at 400Hz. The A-class thunderbird’s upgraded talons left smoking divots in permafrost whenever it shifted weight.

  “Impossible.” The taller recruit dropped his broom. “Lin Hao’s dead. Everyone knows the ice wyrm got him in the Northern Wastes.”

  Lin Hao chuckled. The sound startled a murder of frost crows from nearby pines. “Reports of my demise…” He tapped his academy badge. Authentication runes flared cobalt.

  16:37 – Validation

  The badge’s resonance frequency triggered buried security arrays. Warning chimes cascaded through the mountain—a carillon of crystalline alerts vibrating teacups in distant dormitories. Lin Hao’s enhanced hearing caught the chaos unfolding:

  Sixth-floor archives: “Impossible! His life sigil’s been dark for twenty-three months!”

  Combat arena: “Bullshit! I’ve got ten spirit stones riding on that corpse staying dead!”

  Headmaster’s tower: “Mobilize containment squad seven. Assume identity theft or revenant protocol.”

  16:39 – Convergence

  The avalanche began with a single shouted epithet. Lin Hao smelled the mob before seeing it—a tsunami of adrenaline-sour sweat and heated metal. Fourprestige’s feathers stood erect, discharging static that made snowflakes orbit them in glittering halos.

  First came the duelists—bare-chested despite subzero temperatures, practice blades trailing steam. Then the alchemy track students, glass vials of corrosive reagents clinking in bandoliers. Last came the faculty, their ceremonial robes flapping like storm-tossed sails.

  16:41 – Epiphany

  Dean Wu materialized through the throng, frost forming on his monocle. “Cycle eyes. Thunderbird companion. Verified bone density matching last medical scan.” His voice carried the weight of tectonic plates shifting. “Welcome back from oblivion, Mr. Lin.”

  Fourprestige squawked a territorial warning. The dean’s monocle cracked from sudden pressure differentials.

  16:43 – Ascendancy

  Lin Hao’s enhanced vision parsed the crowd’s biosigns—rapid pupil dilation in the weapon smiths, irregular heartbeats among the illusion track adepts, a senior lecturer discreetly activating a soul-binding talisman. He smiled, breath fogging in the sudden silence.

  “Miss me?”

  The mountain trembled as five hundred voices answered.