Bzzzzzzzzz!
A housefly, a pathetic creature named by its own tragic life, buzzed its last flight. It looked like a tiny, handsome man with eyes of bright silver—a cruel jest of nature. For sixty whole days, it had struggled, a minuscule blur flying from one stray crumb to another, perpetually evading the thunderous claps of human hands. Today, its struggling life was finally meant to end.
The fly spiraled lazily near a vast, sunken bathing pool carved from obsidian. Inside, the water was dark and still, and a naked man was submerged up to his shoulders, clearly annoyed by the insistent, disturbing sound.
"Shoo, shoo," the man growled, the single word dripping with regal impatience.
Bzzzzz! Zzzzzzzzz!
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
He tried to wave his hand, shaking his head against the relentless drone near his ears. The constant buzzing was an irritating distraction that threatened to drive him insane. He swatted the air, but the tiny pest evaded his wide, furious sweeps with impossible ease.
"Shoo! Get out of here, you annoying little thing!" he repeated, waving a hand more frantically.
The fly seemed to mock him, landing directly on the edge of his nose and rubbing its front legs together in a delicate, taunting manner.
The man's patience snapped. Determined to rid himself of the bothersome insect, he slowly lifted his wrist. A dark, obsidian aura instantly coalesced onto his palm, blazing with a cold, contained fire. He prepared to incinerate the fly, but the insect darted back and forth, always managing to stay just out of reach of the lethal energy.
"Hold still, you little witch!" The man bellowed, his face turning crimson with pure, petty frustration.
After several near misses, he finally landed a solid hit, trapping the fly between his clenched fist. He grinned, triumphantly, but his smile quickly faded when he opened his hand and saw a small drop of his own blood on his knuckle.
"You pest! You tried to hurt me? Huh?"
The fly was no ordinary insect; its six half-dead legs had scraped desperately against his palm, a tiny act of defense. Though the injury was negligible to the man, a minute amount of his blood had touched the fly's heart, causing a faint red light to glow on its back.
He opened his fist to inspect his minuscule opponent. The insect, utterly furious, began rubbing its six legs together in a futile attempt to injure him more, leaving faint, barely visible scratches on his palm.
Out of pure, spiteful anger, the man grabbed the fly and deliberately drenched it in the bathing pool. The fly felt stifled, its tiny lungs seizing, but it tried, desperately, to lift its wings and fly away.
The man held it under until it stopped struggling. The prolonged exposure to the cold, dark water impaired the insect's ability to move and regulate its body temperature.
Finally, with a sigh of satisfied exhaustion, the man tossed the lifeless fly into the deep water and relaxed his head against the cool stone of the tub's edge.
But something strange was happening beneath the surface. The fly's entire body was glowing with the furious, insistent red light it had absorbed. After a minute, the glow intensified.
The insect's body elongated, its delicate wings morphed into human arms, and its six segmented legs became fully formed human limbs. Within seconds, the pathetic housefly transformed into a naked man with blazing golden eyes.
He surfaced with a loud, violent splash.
The man in the tub, Dong Fang Cang Yan, the Ruler of the Demon Realm, jerked his eyes open. His red eyes widened in disbelief, his mouth clamping shut. A dripping-wet, naked stranger was standing before him, gasping and sputtering for air.
"What the—?" Dong Fang Cang Yan exclaimed, blinking twice to make sure the apparition was real.
The transformed man coughed and sputtered, water streaming from his hair and down his face. He looked around the richly decorated room, his golden eyes wide with confusion and fear.
"Where am I?" he asked, his voice hoarse and trembling.
Dong Fang Cang Yan, also known as the Moon's Son, stared at the stranger, his mind racing with disbelief. A man, fully formed, had just emerged from the water he had been soaking in.
"How dare you sneak into my palace?"