Ten thousand years ago, the world was torn apart by an ancient chaos. The realms of mortals, immortals, and demons collapsed into one endless battlefield. Cities burned, their once majestic spires now reduced to smoldering ruins. Rivers turned to blood, flowing through the charred landscapes like veins of a dying beast. Mountains shattered, their peaks splintered and crumbling as divine beasts and corrupted gods clashed under a black sky that seemed to weep tears of fire. From that destruction, silence was born. The world died. Then came rebirth.
In a remote village hidden within the Shadow Mountain Range, a child was born during a night of blood rain and stormfire. His name was Lian Mu, a boy without a spiritual root, no clan, no bloodline to claim. To the villagers, he was a cursed orphan, a child of misfortune born under the most ominous of circumstances. To the heavens, he was nothing a mere speck of dust in the vast expanse of existence.
Raised by a blind old swordsman who never spoke of his past, Lian Mu learned to survive in the cruelest ways. While other children cultivated qi or awakened divine beasts, he trained with rusted blades and hunted shadow wolves with bare hands. He was faster than fear, colder than pain, and never asked why fate gave him nothing. But deep within his heart, a voice always whispered: "You are not meant to kneel."
The blind swordsman, known only as the Old Man, taught Lian Mu the ways of combat with a silence that was both comforting and unnerving. The Old Man's eyes, though blind, seemed to see right through Lian Mu, piercing his very soul. Yet, despite the harsh training, Lian Mu felt a sense of belonging with the Old Man, a sense of family that he had never known before.
As Lian Mu grew, his skills improved, and his determination hardened. He became a shadow in the village, moving unseen and unheard. The villagers whispered about him, their voices filled with a mix of fear and awe. Some said he was cursed, while others believed he was blessed by the gods. Lian Mu didn't care; he knew only one thing he had to survive.
The village was a small, secluded place, nestled deep within the mountains. The villagers lived simple lives, farming the land and trading with neighboring villages. But Lian Mu's life was different. He trained every day, honing his skills and building his strength. The Old Man watched over him, offering silent guidance and correction.
At age sixteen, Lian Mu climbed the forbidden peak of Hollow Wind Cliff, where the ruins of an ancient sect lay buried beneath vines and bones. The wind howled around him, threatening to sweep him off the mountain. But Lian Mu pressed on, driven by a curiosity he couldn't explain. There, he found a shattered stone tablet its surface carved with a single phrase: "The First Sword Never Bows." When he touched the stone, his body burned. Visions of gods, demons, and forgotten realms surged through his mind. A blade-shaped mark appeared on his back. His heartbeat changed. And for the first time in his life, the air around him stirred with qi.
The world seemed to shift around him, as if the very fabric of reality had been altered. Lian Mu felt a sense of purpose, a sense of destiny that he had never felt before. He descended the mountain in silence, his eyes colder than winter. He still had no bloodline, but now he had a purpose.
Three years passed. Lian Mu left the Shadow Mountain Range with nothing but a broken sword wrapped in cloth and the memory of the tablet's words etched into his soul. He wandered across the war scarred Mortal Realm through desolate plains, ruined temples, and cursed battlefields where the dead still whispered to the wind. In every village, he was called a beggar, a thief, a ghost. No sect took him in. No master accepted him. But he kept walking, driven by the voice in his heart and the mark on his back.
The Mortal Realm was a harsh and unforgiving place. The land was scarred and barren, the skies filled with dark clouds that seemed to weep tears of ash. But Lian Mu walked on, undeterred by the hardships and dangers that surrounded him. He was driven by a sense of purpose, a sense of destiny that he couldn't ignore.
By the age of nineteen, his body had become a weapon. He mastered no technique, yet his every movement held deadly precision. He held no cultivation method, yet qi clung to his bones like frost. The mark on his back glowed in silence whenever he neared ancient ruins or places soaked in blood.
Then came the day he reached the Gate of Fallen Sky a massive ruin where thousands of rogue cultivators sought power, treasure, or death. It was a graveyard for those who had nothing left to lose. Inside, Lian Mu met fire. A beast born from divine war the Flame Eyed Wyrm slumbered in its depths. It devoured intruders, turning flesh to ash and bone to dust. Cultivators fled at its roar. But Lian Mu walked forward, barefoot and calm.
As the wyrm lunged, he unsheathed the broken sword for the first time. The moment the rusted blade touched air, it screamed not with sound, but with memory. The flames recoiled. The wyrm froze. And Lian Mu struck once. The blade shattered. The beast howled. And from its dying breath, a crystal heart rolled toward him, wrapped in embered blood.
He swallowed it whole. Pain unlike anything he had ever known tore through his spirit veins. His skin burned, cracked, and then healed with ancient light. The dragon's fire fused with his body. His qi awakened not from method, but from will. He devoured cultivation.
As Lian Mu stood up, the Gate of Fallen Sky trembled. The skies above seemed to darken, as if the very heavens themselves were watching him. News spread quickly: A rogue boy with no sect had slain the Flame Eyed Wyrm. The Immortal Sect took notice. So did the Demon Clans. And in the clouds above the Mortal Realm, Xuner Xiao, now a disciple of the Immortal Sect, looked down upon the earth and felt her heart stir once more. The boy from her dreams was real.
The world was about to change, and Lian Mu was at the center of it all. The silence that had followed the ancient chaos was about to be broken, and the winds of war were gathering. The Mortal Realm would never be the same again, and Lian Mu's journey was only just beginning.