Thuta didn't sleep that night.
He lay under a torn plastic tarp just beyond the tomb's ruins, the fireless cold clinging to his bones.
The jungle pulsed with life — insects, frogs, whispering trees — but inside him, there was only silence and the lingering heat of the sigil burned into his palm.
It glowed faintly, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
A red spiral, surrounded by concentric rings — like a target, or a keyhole.
He hadn't meant to take it. He hadn't meant to awaken anything.
He had only meant to sell it.
"I really am an idiot,"he muttered into the night.
His satchel was empty except for water, dried fish, and the scroll — now strangely warm, as if responding to the sigil. The orb was gone. Absorbed? Fused? Or was it inside him now?
He didn't feel different.
Except… he hadn't needed fire to boil water. He'd waved his hand over the pot and it had simmered by itself. That was new.
He kept looking at his palm. The sigil remained.
By morning, his indecision had withered. There was no more treasure. No more tomb. Just questions. And danger.
He had to get out.
It took him two days to navigate back toward civilization, ducking military patrols and river pirates. The jungle had grown stranger. Trees creaked with language he didn't know. On the second night, he dreamed of red-robed figures walking in rows through ash — and one of them turned to look at him. Its eyes burned. Its mouth opened.
And he woke up choking on smoke.
But there was no fire.
In that same dream, just before waking, he glimpsed something else: A shadow — a man standing motionless, face hidden under a wide-brimmed hat.
He said nothing.
But Thuta remembered the way the man tilted his head, as if watching.
As if waiting.
Three days later, he was back in Yangon — half-dead, starving, and dirtier than a street dog.
He went straight to the university.
Professor Sein Myint, the only man who didn't hate him, was in his office. A scholar of ancient Burmese mysticism, the old man had been working on translating fragments from the same era as the scroll.
When Thuta burst into the office and slapped the scroll and his glowing palm onto the desk, Sein Myint nearly spilled his tea.
"What is this? Ink? A prank?"
"It's real, teacher,"Thuta said."The tomb exists. And something… woke up."
The professor peered at the sigil.
Then at the scroll.
Then back at Thuta.
His face lost color."This is the Mark of the Crimson Flame,"he whispered."A seal once used by the Zawgyi to lock forbidden alchemy."
"Yeah, well… guess what? It's unlocked now."
U Sein Myint stood slowly, eyes wide.
"You didn't just find a relic,"he said."You opened a gate."
The next few hours were a blur of whispers, books, and frantic research.
Thuta learned quickly:
TheZawgyi were real, but not as myth painted them. They were more than sorcerers. They were alchemical warlocks— scientists of soul, flame, and transmutation. They'd ruled the shadows of kingdoms for centuries, walking as immortals among men. But they hadn't vanished. They'd beensealed away.
According to the scroll's forgotten footnote, there had been a war. Amassive purgecalled theAsh Rebellion, led by an alliance of monks, early scientists, and a secret order.
The last Zawgyi, driven mad by power and immortality, had gone too far. So the world locked them down — tomb by tomb, seal by seal.
And now one was open.
Thuta's hand was the key.
"Then why didn't I explode?"Thuta asked."Why didn't a demon possess me?"
"You were chosen,"said the professor."Or you inherited something ancient. Either way, the orb didn't reject you."
Thuta leaned back in the chair. His body was trembling slightly. Not from fear — from something deeper.
Awakening.
U Sein Myint added,"If someone else finds out about this… you won't be safe. There are watchers. Organizations that believe the Zawgyi bloodline must never return. And others… who might be waiting for someone like you to appear."
"Waiting?"
The professor hesitated."There's a name I've seen. Very rare. Very feared. A mysterious figure. But I don't know if he's real… or legend."
That night, Thuta went back to his rented room. It was little more than a box with a fan and a rice cooker, but it was home.
He stared at the sigil again.
"Okay,"he said to it."You're either going to kill me… or save me."
He held his hand out to the air.
"Light something."
Nothing happened.
He concentrated.
Nothing.
Then, like a match struck inside his bones,heatflowed from his chest to his palm. The sigil pulsed.
And a flame appeared. Tiny. Flickering. Floating in the air.
He gasped.
Then laughed.
And passed out.
Elsewhere, far from the city, deep in the salt-cracked ruins of an old alchemy sanctuary buried beneath Mount Victoria…
A mirror cracked.
A long-sealed vault throbbed.
And a figure cloaked in shadows, face hidden, turned toward the east.
The return of the sigil had been detected.
The old flame was burning again.
And far away, in a hidden room beneath an abandoned temple, a folder marked with an ancient symbol was opened.
A name had been written inside it:Thuta.
Someone — or something — had noticed.
And the agent had been watching.