CHAPTER 4 – The Truth Buried for Forty Years
The dojo stood frozen.
Victor Kane slowly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and began to laugh.
"You still move like a ghost, Master."
Evelyn didn't answer.
Instead, she stared into his eyes—the same eyes that had once belonged to the most gifted student she had ever trained.
The Grandmaster stepped forward.
"Forty years ago... everyone believed you died in the mountain fire."
Victor smiled.
"That was the plan."
Gasps echoed across the dojo.
The legendary fire that destroyed the Ancient Dragon Temple...
...had never been an accident.
Victor reached into his jacket and tossed an old newspaper onto the floor.
The headline read:
'Ancient Martial Temple Destroyed—No Survivors Found.'
"No survivors?" Victor laughed. "I made sure of that."
Noah's face turned pale.
"You... burned the temple?"
Victor nodded proudly.
"I wanted the Dragon Scroll."
The students looked at Evelyn in confusion.
"What is the Dragon Scroll?"
Evelyn closed her eyes.
"It wasn't a weapon."
"It was a list."
"A list of every child hidden under our protection from powerful families who wanted them erased forever."
Victor grinned.
"And I finally found the last name."
He slowly turned toward Noah.
"His."
The room exploded into chaos.
Noah staggered backward.
"What are you talking about?"
Victor pulled out an old photograph.
In it, a smiling couple stood beside a five-year-old boy.
The boy was Noah.
His parents weren't ordinary people.
His father had been the final guardian of the Dragon Scroll.
When Victor burned the temple, he believed the entire bloodline had died.
But one child survived.
Noah.
Victor smiled with terrifying satisfaction.
"You aren't just another student."
"You're the last keeper of a secret worth billions."
Evelyn tightened her grip on the wooden staff.
For forty years, she had hidden Noah's identity.
She became a school janitor...
Watched over him from a distance...
And waited for the day Victor returned.
That day had finally come.
Then Victor clapped his hands.
The dojo lights suddenly went out.
When the emergency lights flickered back on...
Noah was gone.
Only a single black dragon pendant lay on the floor.
Victor's voice echoed through the darkness.
"If you want the boy alive..."
"Meet me where the temple burned."
"At sunrise."
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The war that began forty years ago...
...had finally returned.
