Helen's Story

Alex walked into his mother's single-roomed house and made his way towards the back of the room where he could see some brush, inks on a stone slab, and a talisman laid flat on a smooth metal plate.

"Were you making talismans before I came, mother?" Alex asked.

"Oh yes, I was practicing," Helen said as she walked up to the brushes to quickly clear away the place for him to stay in.

Old man Qin walked behind them, carefully watching Alex as he found a place for him to sit in.

"Quick, tell me! Where have you been all these years? Were you on a different continent? How did you get here?" Helen asked.

"I… I was in a different part of this continent before everything went wrong," Alex said. "It was only afterward that I came to this empire."

"You are from a different empire? There's a different empire in this continent?" the old man Qin showed a shocked face.