Chapter 6 — From Ruins to the Dharma Lord's Throne

The mission group returned to Tinh Quang Academy when the sun had turned to the west, dyeing the whole plateau in a brilliant red-orange light. Dịch Phàm handed over the report about the battle with Tà Lang Nham Giáp and the collected artifacts, but he kept the small piece of jade pendant found in the ruins, hidden it in his pocket, and did not tell anyone, not even Tuyết Nhi, even though she asked a few more times on the way home.

"I just want to learn more about it first," he explained, and Tuyết Nhi, even though she was a little curious, did not force him to share right away.

That night, Dịch Phàm lay on a new bed in the main dormitory - a room much more spacious and warmer than the rickety wooden bed at Te Ban Institute, but he still found it difficult to sleep. The piece of jade was placed on the bedside table, the moonlight shining through the window made its surface sparkle strangely.

He had planned to hand over the jade pendant to the academy along with the other artifacts he had collected, as was the usual rule for ruin survey missions. But just as he was about to put it in the team's shared bag, a strong feeling of resistance arose in his heart, as if an invisible voice whispered that this object belonged to him, and only him. In the end, he decided to keep it, arguing to the professor in charge that it was just a worthless piece of broken rock he picked up by chance.

He remembered Tuyết Nhi's warning about not touching the ancient formations, but this piece of jade was different — it was not a formation on the ruined wall, but a small object he had carried with him all day, as if waiting for something from him, a recognition, an invitation.

He fell asleep without realizing it, and in his dream, the blurry images he had glimpsed when touching the stone wall in the ruins now became clearer.

He saw a desolate land, the wind whistling through barren cliffs, the gray sky covered with dark clouds. It was a battlefield—hundreds of wizards wearing robes embroidered with white winged crests facing another army, clad in shiny black armor, led by a tall man with long black hair, eyes as red as embers, and wielding a jet-black scimitar that radiated a chilling evil aura.

"Black Flame..." a voice rang out in the dream, full of anger but also full of fear. "He led the Hắc Toái army to attack us right at Borderline Tàn Dạ!"

In the dream, Dịch Phàm saw a young man with a determined appearance, his Fire spiritual roots burning fiercely around him, fighting tenaciously amid the enemy's siege. Next to him, a woman with an Earth spirit built stone walls to protect injured comrades, her face was determined but her eyes sparkled with tenderness.

"Hạo Nguyên, we can't hold out any longer!" the woman shouted over the roar of the wind and the clash of weapons. "The baby... we have to take the baby first!"

The man named Hạo Nguyên turned back, his face full of pain and helplessness. In his arms, wrapped in a small cloak, was a baby crying loudly amid the roar of the battlefield.

"Thanh Hà, take your child away now. I will hold them off," Hạo Nguyên said, his voice choked but determined. "Go back to Starlight Academy, send me to the principal. I'll be safe there."

"What about you?" Thanh Hà asked, tears rolling down her face covered in dust and blood.

"I'll keep up," Hạo Nguyên replied, but his eyes looked towards the approaching Black Flame, a painful truth that both understood but neither dared to say: perhaps this was the last time they would see each other.

Thanh Hà hugged the child tightly in her arms, turned and ran towards the distant mountains, where the light of a teleportation formation was waiting. But before she could run far, a giant black shadow blocked her path - one of Black Flame's subordinates, holding a jet-black scythe.

In the dream, Dịch Phàm felt an extreme fear rising in his chest, as if he were a child being held tightly in those arms. He wanted to scream, wanted to warn, but no sound could escape.

Thanh Hà fought tenaciously, stone walls continuously rising to protect the child in her arms, but in the end, an emergency teleportation array activated by another teammate was able to take the child away before she was completely overwhelmed. White light flashed, and the child disappeared from the battlefield, sent straight towards the distant Tinh Quang plateau.

Left alone in the middle of the siege, Thanh Hà turned to look at Hạo Nguyên, who was being gradually overwhelmed by Black Flame in a fierce one-on-one battle.

"You have remarkable strength, border guard mage," Hắc Diễm spoke, his voice was deep and hoarse, full of cruelty but also contained a strange respect for his opponent. "But today, you will not die. I need your blood, and that of your wife, for a purpose far greater than a senseless death on this battlefield."

"What are you going to do?" Hạo Nguyên roared, even though he was exhausted, he still tried to stand.

Hắc Diễm did not answer, just smiled coldly, signaling his subordinates to come forward and suppress both husband and wife. The last scene that Dịch Phàm saw in his dream was the image of his parents, tied tightly by evil chains glowing red, being escorted among the ruins of the battlefield, while the screams of his surviving comrades echoed throughout the space.

Dịch Phàm suddenly woke up, cold sweat broke out all over his body, his heart was pounding as if it wanted to jump out of his chest. He sat up in bed, panting, the moonlight through the window still illuminating the piece of jade on the table, as if it had just told him a painful story.

"Hạo Nguyên... Thanh Hà..." he whispered in the darkness, the two names were strange but strangely made his heart ache, as if they had been imprinted in his subconscious for a long time. "Are those...my parents?"

He closed his eyes, trying to recall any more details from the dream he had just had — the face of the woman named Thanh Hà, her gentle eyes mixed with pain at having to leave her baby; the deep voice of a man named Hạo Nguyên, so determined that he was almost cruel to himself when he chose to stay on the battlefield. The more he tried to remember, the more blurred the image became, disappearing like morning dew meeting the sun, leaving only a heavy emotional residue clinging tightly to his chest.

He wasn't sure whether the dream just now was a real memory buried deep in his subconscious, awakened by the resonance of the Primordial Spirit Root with the ancient jade piece, or just an illusion created by his imagination and desire to find his own origin. But the realness of it, the pain and fear he had just experienced, made him believe that this was more than just an ordinary dream.

He picked up the piece of jade pendant on the table, clasped it tightly in his palm, feeling the strange warmth still radiating from it. If this dream was true, if his parents were actually captured by the Dark Flame and not dead as he had always assumed for the past seventeen years, then it meant that they were probably still alive, somewhere on this vast continent, suffering captivity for all those years.

The name Black Diem was engraved into his mind like a new scar, along with a stronger determination than ever. He couldn't wait any longer. He must find the truth, must find clues, no matter how dangerous the road ahead is.

He sat silently in the dark for a long time, trying to rearrange the disparate pieces in his mind. If his parents were really talented border magicians of the White Wing Alliance, then why for the past seventeen years had no one from that alliance come to Starlight Academy to ask about their child? Perhaps the White Wing Alliance itself also believed that his entire family died in the Battle of Tàn Dạ, no one expected that a newborn child had been taken from the battlefield in the last moment. That thought both made him feel bitter and lit up a fragile glimmer of hope — if no one knew he was alive, then maybe no one knew his parents still existed somewhere, waiting for a miracle.

The next morning, when the sun had just risen over the Tinh Quang plateau, Dịch Phàm was waiting in front of Tuyết Nhi's room in the girls' dormitory, the piece of jade pendant still clutched in his hand, his eyes full of determination.

He knew it was time to share this secret with the only person he trusted enough to continue with him on the path to rediscovering that past full of blood and fire.

The morning wind on the plateau blew coldly across his neck, but Dịch Phàm did not shiver. At this moment, there was only iron determination left in his heart, as if all the fear and inferiority that had accumulated over the past seventeen years suddenly disappeared, giving way to a goal clearer than anything he had ever pursued in his life.