The silence was deafening.
After Li Wei left the battlefield like a phantom swallowed by mist,
five to six cultivators cautiously arrived at the edge of the desolate land.
They were not ordinary men
each had experienced battles,
each had seen corpses,
each had smelled blood.
But nothing
nothing they had ever known
had prepared them for this.
As they stepped onto the blackened earth,
the first thing that struck them wasn't the stench
it was the pressure.
A residual heaviness hung in the air,
as if a great beast still breathed somewhere nearby,
watching them.
They moved slowly, weapons drawn,
their eyes darting across the silent graveyard of carnage.
"What… what happened here?" one whispered, barely able to speak.
All around them were shattered corpses,
some torn in half,
others missing limbs,
and many with expressions of utter terror still frozen on their faces.
The blood hadn't dried.
It was fresh, steaming in patches, soaking the land.
One cultivator knelt slowly and pressed his hand to the soil.
His fingers sunk into it slightly.
Not because it was muddy…
but because the very soil had turned to pulp beneath the flood of blood.
He brought his hand up,
and it was dripping
not mud, not water
but thick, dark red blood.
"Gods..." he muttered, shaking.
"The soil itself… it's been dyed with blood. This entire land has been soaked to its roots."
One of the others gagged behind him.
Another turned pale as he stepped on something soft
a half-dissolved ribcage.
There were no survivors.
No final cries.
No signs of retreat.
Just ruin.
The trees nearby had been stripped of leaves.
Their bark was blackened and cracked, as if they had burned from the inside out.
Even the stones had cracks running through them
as though they had been crying silently during the massacre.
They walked deeper in,
and saw where the center of the battle had taken place.
There, the ground was not just red
it was glowing faintly, as if cursed.
The energy of death and blood had left behind a scar in reality,
a place that might never return to peace.
"What kind of demon… did this?" one of them asked.
No one answered.
Because in their hearts,
they already knew:
This was not done by a beast, or even a group of powerful cultivators.
This was the work of one man.
And not just any man.
A monster who walked like a man, smiled like a god, and killed like a devil.
They stood in silence,
too terrified to speak,
afraid even their voices might awaken some lingering presence.
Above them, the wind began to howl —
not naturally —
but like a whisper that echoed from hell itself:
"He's still watching…"
And in that moment, every one of them made the same vow —
never to speak of this place again.
Because to speak of him was to invite his shadow.
While the ruined battlefield slowly swallowed its silence beneath blood-soaked soil and lingering whispers of death,
the world shifted far away, deep beneath the earth.
A hidden cave, buried beneath jagged mountains and sealed away with ancient formations,
began to tremble softly — as if awakened by the chaos above.
The air inside the cave was unnaturally cold.
But not the kind of cold that numbed skin.
It was a cold that crept into the bones.
A cold that whispered of stillness… and revenge.
At the heart of this forgotten cavern was a pond —
but it wasn't filled with water.
No.
This pond swirled with a white, luminescent liquid that pulsed faintly, like the heartbeats of the dead.
It wasn't of this world.
Not divine.
Not demonic.
Something older. Something cursed. Something pure… and dangerous.
A strange silence hung over the pond…
until suddenly —
a single ripple spread across its surface.
Then another.
Then came the sound — not of splashing, but of something breaking free.
From the center of the pond,
the liquid bubbled violently, swirling into a vortex of blinding light and steam.
And then — he rose.
A figure began to emerge from beneath the glowing liquid.
First the outline of a hand — pale, elegant, yet tense with fury.
Then his face.
He was young, barely twenty-two by appearance.
But behind his calm expression, his aura spoke of pain, of patience, and of a storm long contained.
His hair was snow-white, cascading down his shoulders,
dripping with the glowing essence of the pond, like strands of moonlight soaked in fire.
His body was lean but sculpted, the frame of a warrior-monk.
As his form fully emerged from the pond, the liquid clung to his skin before evaporating into mist.
The light dimmed.
And in the oppressive silence, he opened his eyes.
They were not red.
They were not black.
They were crystal white, glowing softly —
like two calm stars in an endless night sky.
But behind that calm glow,
a quiet rage simmered.
"He did this… didn't he…"
His voice was low, barely a whisper
yet the cavern trembled, as if the earth itself heard the weight of his words.
He stood at the edge of the pond, letting the droplets slide off him, unmoving.
Then he clenched his fists
and a single crack appeared on the smooth stone floor beneath him.
Not from power.
But from fury.
He took one step forward.
"I told myself I would never kill again."
Another step.
"But I see… fate has decided otherwise."
The white light in his eyes dimmed for a moment,
replaced by a sharp glint of something darker
a storm, long restrained, now begging to be unleashed.
Then he said just one sentence, his voice echoing through the cave like a prophecy:
"Li Wei... I will kill you."
And as he said those words,
the pond behind him boiled.
Not from heat —
but from sheer killing intent.
The ancient formations in the cave flickered.
The light from the walls dimmed.
Even time seemed to hold its breath.
Outside, far away,
birds suddenly took flight.
Animals scattered.
Far away from the blood-stained battlefield, in the core domain of one of the ancient noble clans, the atmosphere was burning with fury.
Inside an enormous grand hall — carved of black jade and veined with spirit-gold — a storm was gathering.
BOOM!
A thunderous voice echoed like a divine wrath, shaking even the reinforced pillars of the palace:
"Who dared lay a hand on my nephew?!"
The walls groaned from the pressure of his voice.
The spiritual lanterns hanging above flickered violently, as if afraid to remain lit in the presence of this wrath.
At the center of the hall sat a towering man, his presence like a mountain crushing the heavens.
He looked to be in his late 40s, yet his body was still chiseled and powerful, veins like molten steel bulging under his dark crimson robe, which shimmered with protective runes.
His long black hair flowed behind him, tied with a golden band — the mark of an elder war general.
His sharp jawline and broad shoulders radiated authority.
But more terrifying than his looks was the raw pressure he released.
Stage 6 — last Realm.
But there was nothing peaceful about the aura he unleashed.
The entire hall trembled, and the kneeling cultivators before him could hardly breathe.
They weren't just kneeling — they were pinned down by his cultivation pressure,
like insects crushed under an unseen force.
Their foreheads touched the floor, their backs cracked under the weight.
One of them coughed up blood, yet still dared not lift his head.
"M-Master Su-Shen… we… we don't know who the attacker was. It happened during the chaos at the demon beast front…"
CRACK!
A sudden wave of force exploded from Shen's hand without him even moving.
The speaking cultivator was sent flying across the room, smashing into a wall of soul-engraved stone.
He slumped down, unconscious — or dead.
"Don't waste my time with excuses!" Shen's voice boomed again. "My nephew — my blood — was humiliated. And you dare tell me 'we don't know'?!"
He stood up now.
And when he did, the entire palace felt like it was sinking.
"I want every rat in that battlefield dragged to me. Dead or alive. And the one who dared touch my family…"
His eyes narrowed, glowing with spiritual fire.
"I will turn his bones to ash."
He stepped down from his throne-like seat.
As his boot hit the stone floor, lightning sparked beneath his feet from sheer force.
Behind him, an imperial-level spirit beast — bound to his bloodline — let out a low growl.
It was silent until now.
The beast too... wanted blood.
And outside the hall, the skies began to darken, as if reacting to the rage of a man who once commanded armies in the name of heaven.
Inside the inner chamber of the powerful Su family's ancestral palace, the atmosphere was on the brink of eruption.
The once-calm aura of discipline had been shattered. Silence had become a trembling witness to unforgivable humiliation.
His eyes blazed with fury, veins bulging along his temples as he spoke through gritted teeth:
"My elder niece is missing… the younger one returned from the battlefield bloodied and broken… and someone dared to kill my nephew?!"
The words echoed like hammer blows against iron.
The steward standing before him shook violently, struggling to form a response. But no answer would suffice. Not for this man. Not for this disgrace.
"Do you know what this means…?" Su-Shen whispered — his voice cold, but more terrifying than a roar. "It means someone has forgotten who we are."
He turned, robes fluttering like war banners.
"The Su family was once a pillar of this city. We ruled three districts with a glance. And now? Our blood is spilled on mud, and no one fears the consequences."
He approached the hall's center, where the war banners of the Su clan hung proudly. His footsteps thundered like a war drum — each step laced with rising anger.
"Where is my brother?" he barked.
No one answered.
"He meditates in the forbidden chamber, doesn't he?" Su Shen's lip curled in disgust. "He seeks ascension while the family bleeds. While enemies erase our name from the walls of Dong City."
Suddenly, he slammed his fist into the marble pillar beside him.
CRACK!
The entire pillar shattered into dust, collapsing in a spray of spiritual fragments and stone.
"Fine. Let him stay hidden in cultivation. But I will remind this city of what the Su family means."
He began to walk toward the exit. His spiritual pressure surged, tearing through the air around him like knives.
Every step he took bent the ground beneath his feet, and even the spirit guards along the path knelt involuntarily.
> "I will find the one who hurt my family. I will find the one who dared kill my blood. And when I do…"
He looked up at the black sky beyond the great doors, his eyes like twin flames:
"They will beg for death before the end."
And with that, su-Shen vanished in a flash of wind and fire.
Behind him, the Su palace trembled not from fear—but from the awakening of an ancient wrath, a wrath that had slept too long.