The garden slept.

  Or perhaps it waited.

  Lin Xian crept through the misty ruins, each step a prayer to the broken stones beneath his feet.

  Moonlight filtered down in thin, trembling beams, casting the shattered statues and crumbling walls in silver outlines.

  Above, the banners of the Verdant Heart Sect hung limp and tattered, their faded green sigils little more than ghosts.

  He should not be here.

  The thought whispered at the edge of his mind, cold and sharp.

  Every disciple knew the Sealed Grove was forbidden.

  Not by law alone — but by something deeper.

  Older.

  A weight that settled over the bones of the sect like a forgotten curse.

  Those who wandered too close whispered of voices in the mist.

  Of dreams that bled into waking hours.

  Of gardens that grew where none were planted — and died when none touched them.

  Lin Xian pressed forward anyway.

  Because the dreams would not let him rest.

  Because the ache in his chest, the longing buried deep, would not be silenced.

  Because somewhere ahead, something called to him — and he was done pretending not to hear.

  The outermost ring of the abandoned sector lay behind him now, the stones cracked wider with each passing year.

  Ahead, the path narrowed into a choking tangle of vines and thorny bramble.

  Lin Xian paused, scanning the overgrowth.

  The Sealed Grove had once been the heart of the Verdant Heart Sect’s glory — the place where Spirit Gardens bloomed, tended by generations of masters who shaped the very world with their will.

  But that was before the wars.

  Before the betrayals.

  Before the fire.

  Now, the paths were left to rot, the seals left to crumble.

  And yet... something lived here still.

  He could feel it, a low hum thrumming through the earth, pulsing faintly through his feet.

  He ducked low, pushing through the vines.

  Thorns scraped his arms and snagged his robes, drawing thin lines of blood across his skin. He grimaced but did not slow.

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  The vines seemed reluctant to release him, dragging like fingers across his back as he slipped free into a clearing beyond.

  The air changed instantly.

  Thicker. Heavier.

  The mist here glowed faintly green, catching motes of pollen that drifted like slow-falling snow.

  Massive trees towered around the clearing, their trunks blackened by fire but unbowed.

  Vines hung from skeletal branches like weeping hair.

  And at the center —

  A massive, ancient tree.

  Or rather, what remained of it.

  Its trunk was hollowed, split by some ancient wound.

  The bark peeled in great curling sheets, revealing dark, charred wood beneath.

  The roots sprawled across the clearing like a web of petrified serpents.

  But despite the scars of age and fire, the tree pulsed faintly.

  Alive.

  Barely.

  And nestled within the cradle of twisted roots at its base —

  A seed.

  No bigger than his thumb.

  Cracked.

  Flickering with pale green light.

  Lin Xian's breath caught.

  The dreams — they had not lied.

  He stepped forward slowly, reverently, his boots whispering against the soft moss.

  Every instinct screamed at him to stop.

  To turn back.

  But stronger than fear was the pull.

  The recognition.

  This is what you were meant to find.

  The mist thickened around him, swirling into fleeting shapes — faces half-remembered, hands reaching from the edges of sight.

  He ignored them.

  Eyes locked on the seed.

  As he drew closer, he saw that the roots cradling the seed were not entirely natural.

  Symbols — old, cracked, worn almost to nothing — had been carved into the wood.

  Protective sigils.

  Binding scripts.

  All faded now.

  All failing.

  He knelt slowly before the root cradle, heart hammering.

  The seed pulsed once — a weak, struggling heartbeat.

  It was not beautiful.

  Not in the way the sect taught to worship — the gleam of golden cores, the shimmer of polished spirit stones.

  It was battered.

  Broken.

  Fragile.

  Alive.

  And somehow, impossibly, it answered something inside him.

  The Spirit Garden he had glimpsed in dreams — the endless fields of stars and vines — flickered again behind his eyes.

  Faint.

  Dying.

  But real.

  He reached out a trembling hand.

  The mist recoiled slightly, like a living thing wary of fire.

  His fingers hovered a hair’s breadth from the cracked shell.

  Warmth radiated from it — faint, but undeniable.

  A whisper brushed his mind.

  Not words exactly.

  A feeling.

  Hope.

  Long-forgotten.

  Waiting.

  But behind it, another feeling lurked — a warning.

  This path would not be easy.

  It would not be safe.

  It would not make him powerful in the way the sect measured strength.

  It would make him something else.

  Something... forgotten.

  Or forbidden.

  Lin Xian hesitated, his hand shaking.

  Could he turn back?

  Walk away?

  Pretend he never found this place?

  Live out his life pulling weeds, tending to graves no one visited, scorned and forgotten?

  The cracked seed pulsed again.

  Weakly.

  Patiently.

  It would not demand.

  It would only wait.

  Lin Xian closed his eyes, breath ragged.

  He remembered Han Zhi’s laughter.

  The sneers of the Inner Disciples.

  The cold disdain of Elder Mo.

  He remembered the empty halls.

  The nights spent scrubbing floors while others soared toward golden glory.

  He remembered the dreams — gardens that sang, roots that wove through stars.

  He remembered the ache in his chest, the hunger for something more.

  Something real.

  He opened his eyes.

  And he chose.

  His hand closed gently around the cracked seed.

  The world tilted.

  The mist howled, swirling into a vortex of blinding green light.

  The ground shuddered beneath him, roots twisting and writhing like wounded serpents.

  The air split with a soundless scream.

  And Lin Xian fell.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Into the heart of the Verdant Heart’s last memory.

  Verdant Sovereign is a story about stubborn growth, about finding strength where others only see weakness — and I’m honored you're here at the start.

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