The blade, forged from Shadow Moon steel and imbued with killing intent that could shatter lesser minds, froze mere inches from Kuangshen's throat. The assassin's eyes widened behind his bone mask as an invisible force gripped his arm with the strength of a mountain's embrace. The child before him—this supposed helpless toddler—stood with perfect poise, one tiny hand raised as if casually swatting away a bothersome insect.
"Impossible," the assassin whispered, his Saint King cultivation trembling against the overwhelming pressure emanating from the two-year-old. "No child should possess such—"
His words died as Kuangshen's abyssal eyes met his own. In those depths, the assassin saw not innocence, but the accumulated wisdom of a soul that had died pursuing strength and been reborn with power beyond mortal comprehension. The Primordial Chaos Physique wasn't merely awakening—it was *remembering* what it meant to be the foundation upon which all cultivation was built.
"You came to my family's garden," Kuangshen spoke, his voice carrying harmonics that made the very air shiver. Though he appeared as a child, his words resonated with ancient authority. "You threatened what is mine. That was... unwise."
The remaining four assassins materialized from their concealment, their formation designed to overwhelm even Saint Emperor experts through coordinated strikes. They moved with lethal precision, their weapons trailing shadows that could devour light itself. But as they closed in, reality seemed to bend around the small figure at their center.
Kuangshen's bloodline erupted.
The Void Dragon heritage that flowed through his veins had slumbered since the dawn of creation, waiting for a vessel worthy of its terrible majesty. Now, as killing intent filled the sacred garden, that ancient power stirred. The air around Kuangshen began to ripple like water, and space itself seemed to fold and twist at his unconscious command.
The first assassin's blade passed harmlessly through what appeared to be the child's body—only to find his target had somehow shifted three feet to the left without moving. The second attacker's poison needle struck empty air as dimensional folds redirected his strike into the ground. The third and fourth assassins found their coordinated assault completely disrupted as the very concept of distance became meaningless in the child's presence.
"What kind of monster—" one of them began, but Kuangshen's patience had reached its limit.
The toddler raised both hands, and the garden exploded into chaos.
---
Yan Tianhuo felt the disturbance from his cultivation chamber three mountains away. The patriarch's meditation shattered as his son's aura blazed across his consciousness like a newborn star. In his eight hundred years of life, he had never felt anything like it—raw, primal power that seemed to predate the very foundations of their world.
"Xueling!" he roared, his voice carrying across the clan compound with enough force to crack stone. His wife's response came instantly through their soul bond, her mental voice tight with alarm.
*The garden—something's wrong with Kuangshen!*
Both parents moved with speed that turned them into blurs of motion, their Saint-level cultivation allowing them to cross vast distances in heartbeats. But even as they raced toward their son, they could feel the battle's conclusion approaching with the inevitability of an avalanche.
The Shadow Moon assassins were among the sect's finest killers, each one capable of slaughtering entire cities. They had planned this assault for months, studying the Yan family's defenses and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Their intelligence had identified the young heir as a prodigy, certainly, but still just a child whose potential could be snuffed out before it bloomed.
They had not accounted for the Primordial Chaos Physique.
They had not accounted for a soul that had already died once in pursuit of strength.
They had not accounted for the fury of awakened dragon blood.
---
When Yan Tianhuo and Mei Xueling arrived at the garden, they found their son standing amidst a scene of impossible devastation. The five Saint King assassins—experts who could level mountains with their techniques—lay scattered across the grounds like broken dolls. They were not dead, but something far worse had befallen them.
Their cultivation had been *unraveled*.
Kuangshen had somehow reached into their very souls and untied the knots of power they had spent centuries weaving. Their dantians were intact but empty, their meridians clear but powerless. They would live, but as mortals—a fate many cultivators considered worse than death.
The child himself appeared untouched by the violence, his pristine robes unmarked by battle. Only his eyes betrayed what had transpired, those abyssal depths now swirling with patterns that seemed to shift between dimensions. When he turned to face his parents, Mei Xueling gasped at the ancient wisdom she glimpsed in that gaze.
"Mother. Father," Kuangshen said simply, his voice once again that of a normal child. "Some uninvited guests disturbed my playtime. I hope I didn't damage the spiritual herbs too badly."
Yan Tianhuo stared at the crater where his prized Ten Thousand Year Ginseng had been growing, then at the five broken assassins, then at his son's innocent expression. A slow smile spread across the patriarch's weathered features.
"My boy," he said, kneeling to embrace the child who had just demonstrated power that defied all understanding, "I think it's time we began your formal cultivation training."
But even as relief flooded through both parents, neither noticed the shadow that detached itself from the garden's eastern wall—a sixth assassin whose concealment techniques surpassed even his fallen comrades. This one bore a different mark, the crimson seal of the Shadow Moon Sect's most elite killers.
And in his hand, he held a talisman that pulsed with malevolent energy, its surface inscribed with formations designed to bypass any defense.
The real attack was just beginning.
The sixth assassin, known only as "Whisper" among the Shadow Moon Sect's inner circle, had witnessed impossible things in his three centuries of killing. He had seen Saint Emperors fall to poison, watched entire bloodlines extinguished in single nights, and eliminated targets that others deemed untouchable. But never—*never*—had he observed a toddler unravel the cultivation of five Saint King experts with the casual ease of untying shoelaces.
His hand trembled slightly as he activated the Soul Severing Talisman, a forbidden artifact that could kill even Heavenly Venerate realm experts by directly attacking their spiritual essence. The talisman's crimson glow intensified as it locked onto Kuangshen's soul signature, its malevolent energy building toward an unstoppable crescendo.
But as Whisper prepared to complete his sect's most crucial mission, those abyssal eyes turned toward his hiding place. The child's gaze pierced through his concealment techniques as if they were mere shadows, and in that moment, the assassin understood a terrible truth: this was no ordinary prodigy. This was something that should not exist in their world.
"You're persistent," Kuangshen observed, his voice carrying a note of mild interest rather than fear. "I admire that quality. Father always says persistence is the foundation of true strength."
The Soul Severing Talisman reached critical resonance, its power now beyond recall. Whisper's lips curved into a grim smile behind his bone mask—even monsters could die if struck at their spiritual core.
The talisman's energy lanced toward Kuangshen like a crimson spear of annihilation.
And simply... stopped.
The deadly force hung suspended in the air between assassin and child, its malevolent glow casting dancing shadows across the garden. Kuangshen studied it with the detached curiosity of a scholar examining an interesting specimen.
"Soul attacks," he mused, reaching out to touch the frozen energy with one tiny finger. "Marcus always wondered what it would feel like to have his soul directly targeted. I suppose now I know."
The memories of his previous life surged forward—not just the desperate pursuit of physical strength, but the deeper hunger that had driven him. Marcus Chen had sought power not for its own sake, but to transcend the fundamental weakness of mortality itself. Death had been his greatest enemy, the one foe he could never defeat.
But death, Kuangshen realized, was merely another form of change. And the Primordial Chaos Physique was the embodiment of transformation itself.
"Thank you," he said to the paralyzed assassin, his words carrying genuine gratitude. "You've helped me understand something important about my new nature."
With a gesture that seemed to bend reality around his small hand, Kuangshen grasped the Soul Severing energy and *absorbed* it. The talisman's power flowed into his dantian like water into an ocean, becoming part of his ever-expanding reservoir of strength. The forbidden technique that should have destroyed him instead nourished his growth, adding another layer to his already incomprehensible foundation.
Whisper's eyes widened in horror as he felt his life's work—centuries of accumulated killing techniques and shadow arts—being drawn from his body like water from a broken vessel. But unlike his fallen comrades, he experienced no pain, only a strange sense of completion. His techniques were not being destroyed but *perfected*, refined into something greater than their original form.
"Sleep now," Kuangshen whispered, and the assassin's consciousness faded into peaceful darkness.
---
As the last echoes of battle faded, Yan Tianhuo and Mei Xueling approached their son with expressions mixing awe, pride, and just a touch of concern. The child who had moments ago demonstrated power that defied comprehension now sat cross-legged among the spiritual herbs, his posture that of a seasoned cultivator entering meditation.
"Kuangshen," Mei Xueling said softly, kneeling beside him. "Are you alright, my precious one?"
Those abyssal eyes opened, and for a moment she saw not her two-year-old son but something ancient and profound. Then the moment passed, and he was simply her child again, reaching up to touch her cheek with small, warm fingers.
"I'm perfect, Mother," he said, and she knew he spoke not with arrogance but simple truth. "I understand now why I was given this second chance. Marcus Chen sought strength to overcome death, but Yan Kuangshen will seek strength to overcome everything."
As the family stood together in their devastated garden, surrounded by the unconscious forms of neutralized assassins, none of them noticed the subtle changes beginning to manifest in the very air around them. The Primordial Chaos Physique had truly awakened, and with it, the first stirrings of a legend that would reshape their world.
The battle maniac genius of the Yan family had officially begun his cultivation journey.
And the heavens themselves trembled at what was to come.