[Profound Continent, in an unnamed village located on the outskirts of South Moon Mountain. ]
"Shennnn!! Dinner is ready! Come inside before it gets cold!"
The sound of a woman's voice pierced the night sky, entering the ear of a certain teenager chopping some wood not too far away.
WHOOSH! THUD!
With one swing of hus rusted axe, the teenager cut down a large tree, calmly pushing it away as if it weighed nothing when it fell towards him.
"Whew...that makes five trees today. I'll cut them up and give it the villagers later, for now, I need to get some dinner. Ahh, I'm so hungry~."
The young man, tall and very muscular for his age, felt his stomach eating itself as the smell of dinner filled the air around him.
His ethereal white hair, which extended down all the way to his waist fluttered in the chilling winds flowing through the night sky.
Purple lightly glowing irises darted about, looking for any pieces of firewood he might have missed as he carried them back to his little shack at the edge of the village.
WHOOSH!
Lightly nudging the door with his toes, the door almost flew off of its hinges, causing the woman in the shack to squint her eyes as she looked at the young man.
"Shen...what did I tell you about destroying the doors around this house?"
Placing the firewood down beside the door, Shen chuckled lightly as he lowered his head, saying, "Hehe, I'm sorry, Mom. You know it's been getting harder to control my strength lately. I'll try to do better, I promise."
Tapping her toes on the floor, his mother laid her hands upon his head as she sighed and responded, "Tch, I'll make you fix all the doors in the village if you keep this up. Hm...it feels like you've gotten taller, Shen. You're only 15 years old and yet you're taller than all of the men in the village. What have you been eating when I'm not looking, boy?"
A small smile appeared across Shen's face as he felt his mother's hand upon his head. In this place where everyone joined hands together to survive, it was his mother's love that kept him going every day.
"Hehe, it's your cooking, mother."
Yue Ling, his mother patted his head as she shook hers.
"You and your sweet words. Come on, let's eat son."
After starting the fireplace, the two of them sat down to eat and Shen simply went to bed right after.
That night, a familiar dream assailed his mind.
A man, similar in appearance to him, would draw his sword and fight against endless enemies, cutting everything that appeared in his path. Nothing could stand against him.
In the next scene, an extremely tall woman with flaming red hair and artificial golden limbs would join him, the two of them seemingly cutting through the heavens themselves, their swordsmanship unable to be matched by anyone or anything under the sky.
A path of blood and steel. Unwavering conviction in the way of the sword. Defeat was never an option.
These are the words the two would periodically say as they fought. It was as if they were talking to someone else.
As if, they were talking to him.
In the end of the battle, the man would always sheathe his blade and hold it out towards Shen, his purple eyes filled with expectation.
"Urgh...that dream again..."
Every morning, Shen would wake up and his body would be filled with cold sweat. He had been having this exact dream since he was a baby, but nothing could be done about it. No matter who his mother brought in to help him, the dream would never stop.
Now, he had just accepted it for what it was.
That morning, Shen showered, put on his signature ragged black robe that his mother made for him, waved goodbye to his her, and left for the village market after cutting up the excess firewood from the day before.
'I have a lot this time, so I can take some to the homes of the older folks on the way, and sell the rest. I almost have enough money saved up for us to move into a bigger house in one of the better villages. Heh, mother might faint from happiness when she finds out.'
Just as he had given the first elderly woman a bit of firewood, several roars sounded out, causing the ground itself to shake from their heavy vibrations.
'What is this?!'
Shen had never heard about something like this before. He heard that ferocious beasts lurked the forests far away from here, but they were usually handled by their overlords, the Xiao Sect.
Something like this had never happened.
"Go inside, Miss Han! Lock your doors!"
Dropping all of his firewood, Shen frantically ran back to his home, only for an innumerable amount of creatures to stop him in his tracks, their terrifying bodies blowing him away like a piece of paper.
Even though he was stronger than the average human, Shen had never trained. So the moment he got hit, he passed out from the sudden shock to his system.
Unbeknownst to him, his village had turned into a scene of total chaos.
Fire and blood flowed through the streets.
Bloodcurdling screams of the young and the elderly rang out, red mist covering the morning sky with each heartwrenching bellow.
Shen laid on the ground, unresponsive, as the beasts laid seige to the village, turning it into a wasteland within moments.
CRCKKKK!! KRCKKKKC!!
As the beasts chewed and gorgeous themselves upon the corpses of the villagers, a sudden voice rang out within the bleak atmosphere.
"Quick! The creature's are distracted, take them out before they start moving again!"
Several figures dressed in black robes with silver eagles attached to their shoulders appeared and started slaughtering the beasts with incredible speed.
It was as if they were waiting for the creature's to be distracted.
At this moment, Shen started to wake up.
"Urghh..."
His eyes blurred as he struggled to stand up.
The moment he regained his bearings, Shen remembered why he was in such a frantic rush.
"Mother!"
Seemingly regaining all of his strength, Shen sprinted towards the edge of the village, hoping that his mother was still alive, hoping that some good samaritan had saved her.
Unfortunately, the moment he entered the clearing to his home, he was just in time to see a figure use his mother as a human shield to block the jaws of a beast from attacking what seemed to be his master.
"Now, young master! The beast is distracted!"
The teenager that was saved by the other figure's 'heroic actions' quickly gritted his teeth and lunged at the beast, cutting it down swiftly.
Sheathing his blade, the teenager looked at the figure and lowered his head a little, saying, "Thank you for saving me from this wretched beast, third elder. It's movements were too quiet."
The older man, now identified as the third elder, laughed heartily as he patted the young man on the shoulder and replied, "How could I let the young master of our Xiao Sect perish so easily? Come, let's go clean up any stragglers...hm?"
"...mother...?"
Shen's trembling voice disrupted their conversation, causing them to quickly glance over at him.
Shen saw her dismembered body within the dead creature's maws and his eyes couldn't believe the scene he was seeing.
Just moments ago, she had a warm smile on her face.
How could this have happened?
Shen knelt down, pulled her limbless torso out of the creature's mouth and hugged her tightly as tears of blood streamed down his face.
"What...did you do to deserve this? Mother...you were so kind..."
In his heart, his wrath was directed at the old man that threw his mother into death's door, but his grief just overwhelmed any other emotion he felt at the moment.
'I need to calm down...mother would not want me to harm anyone else...just need to calm down...'
As he spoke to himself within his mind, a figure suddenly appeared behind him with a blade within their grasp.
"You should not have come here, friend. You have seen too much."
WHOOSH!!
"Gargh!!"
Unable to dodge the flurry of slashes that assailed him, Shen was at least able to protect the remains of his mother's body as he collapsed on top of her, his body riddled with fatal wounds.
"Excellent, young master. When extinguishing weeds, we must always do it by the root. It's an honor that you remember my teachings so clearly. The same applies to these slaves."
Walking away, the two of them continued chatting and killing as if the lives of the villagers meant nothing.
To them, Shen was already dead. It was impossible for him to return from such fatal wounds.
At least, that's what they thought.