The days grew cooler. Autumn crept into the village with its golden leaves and chilly winds, brushing the rooftops like gentle fingertips of a long-forgotten spirit.
Ji-hyeon sat near the tree behind his house—the oldest tree in the village, its roots thick and gnarled, sinking deep into the earth like the fingers of an ancient god.
He placed a hand on the bark.
> "You've lived longer than any of us," he murmured. "You remember things… don't you?"
Of course, the tree didn't answer. But Ji-hyeon could feel it—the subtle energy within, the residue of magic long buried beneath the soil.
---
That morning, an elder named Shim Ga-hun came to visit.
A hunched old man with one eye clouded by time, Ga-hun was the keeper of stories—the kind passed down by firelight and half-truth.
> "You keep sitting near that tree, boy," he rasped. "You hear it speak?"
Ji-hyeon looked up. "No. But I think it listens."
Ga-hun chuckled. "Good answer. The wise don't always speak."
> He paused, then leaned in. "That tree's been standing since before the kingdom even named this land. Some say it grew from the tear of a dying mage. Others say… a demon prince bled there after a war."
Ji-hyeon stayed silent, though something about those words rippled in his chest.
---
Later that evening, while everyone was at the village square for harvest songs, Ji-hyeon slipped away and returned to the tree.
He dug.
Not deep—just enough to feel the soil shift.
Then his fingers brushed something cold.
A fragment of stone.
It was curved, etched faintly with a symbol—a sigil from the underworld, one he hadn't seen in this realm for lifetimes.
> "So… this place is not as simple as it looks," Ji-hyeon whispered.
> "And neither am I."
---
Far from the village, in a cloaked valley no map would mark, a raven flew in circles above a hooded woman.
She reached out her hand, and the raven landed.
> "The seal has stirred," she said softly. "He begins to remember."
Behind her, six figures in black turned their heads in unison.
> "Then it has begun," they said. "The Demon King's heart awakens."