Until one day, a whisper threaded its way through the tightly coiled corridors of the Imperial Palace—a whisper quiet enough to be dismissed, yet sharp enough to pierce Lohang’s ears. It came from the dying lips of a rebel soldier captured near the southeastern coast.

"The Empress holds a foreign royal… hidden in the depth of Fujian. A child of kings... sealed beneath the earth."

Lohang dismissed it at first. The Empress had her share of enemies and secrets, but imprisoning a royal from another land? It seemed too far-fetched, too reckless, even for her. But the rebel had bled truth into the stone floor, and the look in his eyes—fevered, broken, terrified—clung to Lohang’s thoughts like a burr that wouldn’t shake loose.

Days passed. He slept less. Dug deeper. Quietly, beneath the cover of dusk, he began tracing old border records, reading intercepted letters from southern patrols, and scouring ancient archives the Empress had long forgotten. He pieced together fragments: strange ships sighted off Fujian’s coast, a sudden reshuffling of guards in a long-abandoned province, scrolls written in a script long dead in China but still alive in the mountain monasteries of the Nepalese highlands.

And then a name. A title. A story he hadn't heard in years.

“The Child of the Cloud Kings.”

It was a myth he'd once heard as a boy, huddled in a Nepalese temple during a monsoon. The old monk had spoken softly as thunder rolled in the distance. "There is still one. A descendant of the mountain royals, veiled by time. Their soul is not lost—only hidden, waiting for the day the gods call them forth to balance the world again."

Lohang had laughed then. A child clinging to anger, he didn’t believe in saviors. But now… now the story echoed with a dangerous weight.

Because that descendant—was you.

You, imprisoned in silence, bloodline traced to the royal dynasties of the Himalayan kingdoms, locked far away from your land and people. A threat not by sword, but by lineage. A single breath of your name could ripple rebellions across borders. And that, the Empress could not allow.

But she wouldn’t kill you. She feared divine consequence. The gods still favored mountain kings, or so the old rites claimed. To spill your blood would bring storms. So instead, she hid you, buried you in a prison that time and tide had erased from maps and memory.

Lohang acted. He summoned his most trusted warriors in secret, the few who would follow him without question. They met under moonlight, blades swathed in black silk, oaths spoken without words. Their target: the coast of Fujian, to seek the ruins of a stronghold so old even the locals thought it part of a legend—the Fortress of the Drowned Moon.

After weeks of travel, misdirection, and blood spilled in silence, they found it.

Hidden behind a cliff swallowed by sea mist and ivy, they uncovered the remains of the fortress. Its stone towers had collapsed into rubble, and the gates were sealed by time and salt. They forced their way in, prepared for a labyrinth of cells, guards, and chains.

But what awaited them was not a prison hall.

It was a vast, broken tunnel sloping downward into darkness—a flooded cave, hidden by the rise of the sea.

Once, it had been accessible. Long ago, before the coastline had shifted. But now, the path disappeared into black water. The only way forward was beneath the waves.

Lohang stood at the mouth of the cave, the cold sea lapping at his boots, eyes narrowing. His dragonblade stirred at his side, reacting to something below—its ancient spirit humming as if awakened by proximity.

“This is where they hid you,” he said, mostly to himself. “But not well enough.”

He turned to his men, jaw clenched.

"They buried the truth beneath the ocean." His voice was low. “But even the sea cannot drown fire.”

His soldiers remained silent, but their hands tightened around their hilts. The water was icy, treacherous. But none turned away.

“We dive.” he ordered.

Then, Lohang vanished beneath the surface, sword in hand— heading toward the one the Empress wanted the world to forget.