"A shadow is not weakness.
A shadow… is a legacy."
When the world rejected his blood, he embraced the darkness.
When the heavens turned away, he shook the roots of the earth.
He was no hero.
He was merely a shadow forced to rise.
And when the Shadow Veins were bestowed upon him…
the world would regret letting him live.
---
"Tianluo… do you know what shadows fear the most?"
"Light?"
"No."
"What they fear… is being forgotten."
---
The sky above the ruined altar was black as ink.
Night seemed stolen from the heavens, leaving only a darkness that devoured everything.
In the center of a dried blood circle lay a young man — broken, burned, and breathing by the thinnest thread. Patches of his hair were scorched away, and his left eye refused to open.
But he was still alive.
By all logic, he shouldn't be.
His name had once been spoken with pride: Xie Tianluo, heir of the Xie Clan. Yet since birth, he bore a curse — born without a Vein.
In this world, the Vein was everything. It was the channel for life force and the path to cultivation. Without it, one was like a body without blood — forever barred from the road of power. To a great clan, a child without a Vein was nothing but a shame and a burden.
On his seventeenth birthday, Tianluo was led to the altar of sacrifice… by his own father's hand.
"With this blood, we offer the useless son for Heaven's blessing."
Tianluo was meant to die that night.
Yet his scream tore through the boundary between life and death.
And… something answered.
---
[Successor detected…]
[System: Eternal Veins of the Shadow Sovereign — Initializing…]
[Host: Xie Tianluo — Status: Deceased]
[Soul Conversion Protocol → Reincarnation: Commencing…]
---
Seven Days Later
Cold wind swept through a mist-filled valley.
The scent of damp earth mingled with the stench of old blood and burnt incense.
An old man in a gray hood dragged the body of a young man out from the mouth of a shadowed cave.
The young man's face was pale, his long black hair loosely tied with a faded ribbon. His eyes were closed, but faint violet lines traced from his temples to the back of his neck — as if something had been etched into his very blood.
The old man whispered under his breath.
"You are no longer Tianluo…"
"From today… you are Yan Zhi. A name without a clan. A shadow without a master."
He planted a small dagger into the soil beside the youth, then vanished into the fog.
---
When those eyes opened…
Time stopped.
Sound died.
The young man's right eye opened slowly, revealing a black iris glistening like wet stone. From its depths, a faint violet glow began to swirl.
---
[Welcome back, Successor.]
[Shadow Sovereign System active — 0.3%]
[Emergency Recovery Mode: Engaged]
---
His first breath was heavy, like a creature forced back into life against the will of fate.
He spoke no words.
But in his heart, he knew:
He would not return to the Upper Tower as the outcast of a clan.
He would return as something else.
As a curse that could not be erased.
As a shadow born from betrayal.
---
"I will carve my name into their bones."
"They will remember…"
"…the one they buried alive."
---
[End of Chapter 1]
Next: Chapter 2 — A Shadow Without Blood
Reincarnation is only the beginning. To survive in the accursed land of Nox'Ara, Yan Zhi must embrace the darkest part of himself — or be devoured by the shadows that hunt him.
---