Chapter 2: Born in Dust
Darkness chokes me, thick as smoke. Screams of my family echo in the void. Lila's smile, burned away in a wreck. Flora's hand, slipping from mine. Michael's scared eyes, swallowed by fire. The Concord's bomb took everything.
'I was a president,' I think, chest tight as a noose. 'Eryndor's king, they called me.' My comrades' voices haunt me: Take the world, Joseph. Be the king. I refused, clinging to goodness, to limits. Now their blood stains my hands. Regret's heavier than this damn darkness. 'Powerless. Weak.'
Grandfather Luke's voice cuts through, rough and warm from years ago: "Power changes the world, boy. Presidents have it." I failed as one.
A light stabs the void sharp, blinding, like a zyrite blade. I flinch. My scream comes out wrong high, shrill, a child's cry.
'What the hell?'
A face looms close a woman's, beautiful despite hunger's toll. High cheekbones frame full lips, bronze skin glowing faint under her gaunt frame. Ribs peek through patched robes, collarbones sharp as daggers. Black hair tied back with frayed cloth.
"Oh, my son…" she whispers, kissing my forehead. "Kael. Kael Voss." Her voice cracks. "Forgive me for bringing you into this world with nothing. Your father and I… barely gold for two moons. We scrape to eat."
My mind reels. 'Who is she? Son? Kael?' My arms flail tiny, weak, useless. Her robes scratch my skin, coarse as burlap. The hut's crumbling mud walls patched with straw, a clay stove spitting weak smoke. Air stinks of stale rice and despair.
'This ain't Eryndor.'
My eyes catch a rusted sword in the corner, dulled by time. A mercenary's home? No. No way. My infant body trembles, a cry slipping out.
'Reincarnated? A damn murim world?'
Michael's comics flash through my head cultivators clashing, qi sparking, sects ruling with blood and blades. And worse I'm no noble. I'm poor. Powerless. Forgotten. 'Lord, why?'
She Elara, her name hits me somehow shoves a clay bottle of warm milk into my mouth. Scarred hands, gentle but firm.
"Hush, Kael," she murmurs. "Sleep now."
I choke on the milk, mind screaming while my body softens. 'I was a president. I had everything.' Eryndor's neon spires, my orphanages, 500,000 followers gone. Lila's death, Flora's warmth, Michael's defiance gone. Luke's words burn: "Power, Joseph. You need power." I failed once. Too weak to fight the Concord's shadows. 'Not again.'
The hut's door bursts open, cold air slicing through like a blade. A man stumbles in—broad-shouldered, battered. His face weathered leather, a jagged scar running temple to jaw. Black hair streaked gray, tied back rough. Torn clothes, bloodied. But his gap-toothed smile lights up when he sees us.
"Elara," he rasps. "Made a few coppers. Enough for bread."
Elara looks up, her gaunt beauty softening.
"Dren, you're hurt again."
She shifts me in her arms as he kneels. He brushes my snowy white hair, smile fading.
"Those eyes…" he mutters. "Crimson. Like embers. And that white hair… not mine. Not ours."
Elara sighs, rocking me.
"He's ours, Dren. Always."
Dren's fists clench, scar twitching. "Pitiful man I am. Weak qi, broken body can't even give you a child. We're so poor I let you… lie with strangers for coin. Just to eat. I hate it." His voice breaks. "And this boy… looks like that bastard. Torren. Son of the old demonic cult leader. A weakling, failed even basic training. Used his family's name to roam, force himself on women." He looks away. "He took you, Elara. In that courtyard. Drunk, desperate."
Elara's eyes well, but her jaw sets.
"Torren's dead. This boy's not him. He's Kael Voss. Our son. We'll raise him right your sword, my heart. He'll have the best we can give."
Dren nods slow, a fierce smile creeping back.
"He will. Those crimson eyes… they'll burn brighter than that bastard's ever did."
Their voices fade. My mind infant body, ancient soul reels. 'Torren? My real father? A demonic cult's disgrace? Gutted by his own brother?' Luke's voice whispers: Power, boy.
Milk warms my belly, blackness pulling me under. No fear this time. Just fire.
'I'll rise. For them. For Lila, Flora, Michael. This world will bleed before it breaks me.'
A month drags by in this cursed world. Thirty days of cold porridge, cracked bowls, and Elara's bones pressing through her skin as she hums lullabies with a smile too weak to hold. Thirty days of Dren stumbling home, bruised and bleeding for a few coppers or a bruised fruit.
'We're nothing here,' I think, watching them. Less than nothing.
Elara's got no cultivation, her body too frail, qi nonexistent. She trades cloth scraps, forages herbs to keep us fed. Dren's got some qi jagged, shallow but it's not enough for respect, even among commoners. Once a low-tier mercenary, now a "limping blade" mocked behind his back. And me? A baby with crimson eyes and white hair. Villagers whisper when Elara walks through the market.
"That cursed child…"
"Spits in heaven's face, those eyes. Demonic blood, bet my teeth."
Elara holds me tighter, smiles softer. I watch. Listen. Absorb.
Morning dawns, sharp wind blowing from the mountain where the Heavenly Path Sect looms like a silent god. Its red banner whips in the sky, bleeding color against pale gold. Light seeps through the hut's torn cloth window, dust-thick, warm.
I stir, my newborn body aching with uselessness, but my mind old, sharp snaps awake. Smoke, rice, sweat hit my nose. Elara's humming guides me to warmth.
"Time to wash, my little storm," she whispers, scooping me into her thin arms. She lays me in a cracked wooden bowl by the stove, pours warm water from a dented kettle, dips a cloth into soaproot.
"Today's market day," she says, like I'm not a month old. "If we're lucky, Dren'll find dried duck. Maybe red fruit, if the Heaven-Sent aren't hoarding."
'Soaproot. Heaven-Sent.' I log the names, words of this world. Her hands wipe my limbs, worn but graceful. Her breath catches at my scarlet eyes too aware for a baby's face.
"You really came from the heavens, didn't you?" she murmurs. I gurgle damn it, accidentally and she smiles.
She wraps me in a faded linen sling, secures me to her back, and dons a wide-brimmed straw hat. We step into morning light. The world hits me.
Our hut clings to a dusty hillside. The sky's pale gold, bruised, not blue. Dozens of homes sprawl in ragged clusters, kids chasing goats between cracked fences. Air smells of earth, steel, distant incense. Far off, stone steps climb a cliff to a spire a sect, I bet. A crimson banner flaps above, letters carved:
Heavenly Path Sect—Pride in Strength. Death in Weakness.
'That's this world's law,' I think. 'No mercy. No elections. Just blades and names.'
The market's a mess noisy, muddy, alive. Vendors squat behind crates, mats piled with herbs, grains, smoked meats, dull daggers, wild furs. Carts creak. Roosters squawk. Kids in rough robes chase a dog with a bone.
A man barks, "Five copper for flame-lotus! Boil it twice, your qi flows like new!" Another yells, "Wheatcake! Hot wheatcake, blessed by the Laughing Monk's piss!"
I blink. 'Commerce and chaos. Cultivators and clowns. No power grid in sight.'
Elara passes two men in gray uniforms, jade sashes, one with a sheathed sword, the other a scroll in his belt. Villagers bow or look away.
"Enforcers," Elara mutters. "From the sect. Don't meet their eyes."
'Sect Enforcers. Local cops with swords,' I note.
Then crash! A clay pot shatters. A scream. Steel hisses from a scabbard. I twist in the sling, eyes catching motion. Two men clash in the square.
One's bony, middle-aged, red-robed, shaved head. The other's younger, wiry, eyes wild, black gi, sword gleaming.
"You sold me rotten leafroot, pig!" the young one shouts.
"I did no such thing, dog! Your qi's weak 'cause your master taught you piss-poor control!"
Steel rings on steel. Villagers scatter like birds. Some run. Others haggle, barely glancing up.
"Another one," someone mutters. "Fools fighting over spirit cabbage."
A kid laughs, "Look, mama! His arm's bleeding!"
My tiny hand clenches. 'Wildness. Apathy. Violence as normal.'
Elara turns away, shielding me with her hat.
"Don't look, Kael. Fools bleed for nothing. If they were true martial men, they'd settle it on the platform."
"What platform?" someone asks.
"Challenge Stage. By the sect. Cowards don't want rules."
Clang! A howl. The young man falls, clutching his shoulder, blood soaking his sleeve. Enforcers approach, silent, short spears drawn. The red-robed trader spits, bows to them, walks off. No one protests. No one flinches.
'Strength is law,' I think. 'Power walks. Weakness dies.'
'Not again,' my crimson eyes burn in the sunlight. 'Never again.'