Qingyang Town. The branch compound of the Mu Clan sat quietly under the heavy gray sky, a subtle tension in the air that went unnoticed by most. The Mu Clan valued bloodline above all else. The main descendants were born and nurtured as talented warriors, prodigies from the start. Impure-blooded descendants, however, were sent to the branch family, a place where one could only hope to survive, to work, to exist in the shadow of the main line.
Several miles from the branch family compound, deep within a small, dense forest, a lone youth lay motionless on the damp ground. Cuts and bruises marred his body, and a gaping wound at the back of his head soaked his robes in crimson.
A groan escaped him. Minutes passed before he stirred, slowly forcing himself onto his back with a painful grunt, every movement sending sharp pangs through his battered body. His eyes fluttered open. Pale sclera, dead pupils reflecting no light.
"Ughh! Why did I have to deserve this?!" he cursed bitterly, pressing his face into his palms, anger and despair tangled in his voice.
David. He had died in a gas explosion in New York only to awaken a year ago in a cruel new reality, reborn in the body of Mu Qingxuan, a thirteen-year-old orphan. Born blind, born to a branch clan that despised him, born with no talent for the martial dao. In this world, these were more than misfortunes, they were death sentences.
Was a Supreme Being mocking him? Or perhaps the Heavens themselves were blind? He didn't know. And frankly, he didn't care anymore.
Gritting his teeth, he reached out to the ground, searching blindly for a branch, a stick, anything to help him rise. Finding one, he used it to push himself up. Despite his blindness, his other senses, refined through years of hardship, allowed him to find his way back to the branch family courtyard without difficulty.
"That fucking Mu Jiang Bo…" he muttered under his breath. His frail body shivered in the cold wind. As a disabled child, he was almost useless within the branch compound, confined mostly to his courtyard. Other children, led by the cruel Mu Jiang Bo, son of one of the branch workers, delighted in tormenting him. Games were excuses. Taunts and bruises were the truth.
The original Mu Qingxuan had died from a rock to the head during one such bullying session. Now, reborn in the same weak, blind body, Qingxuan was left to endure the same fate, or so he believed.
He stepped out of the forest, robes flapping violently in the sudden gusts of wind. The force nearly toppled him, but he gripped his walking stick tightly and cursed. Clouds rolled in, thick and heavy, and the first distant rumbles of thunder shook the air.
For a moment, Qingxuan paused, lifting his head to the stormy sky. He was normally calm, unprovoked by minor irritations. But today, everything, the pain, the cruelty, the weight of a lifetime of suffering, pressed down on him.
"Of course… just my luck. Right when I'm trying to make it back… of course this happens!" he cursed again, voice carrying over the trees. In other circumstances, he might have felt embarrassed shouting aloud in such a state. But he no longer cared. His life, he thought, had already been decided: a blind, powerless Shadow, destined for suffering and ridicule.
Then, a deafening crack of thunder shook the forest. Lightning split the sky, illuminating his pale face. Heavy rain poured, mixing with tears that finally broke through his composure. He fell to his knees, sobbing openly for the first time, unleashing all the anguish of his past life and this one: losing his parents, facing tragedy after tragedy, dying alone in a foreign world, only to be reborn into further misery.
"Why?!" he screamed into the storm, voice cracking. "Why me?! What did I do to deserve this?!"
The heavens seemed to answer. BOOOOOOM! Lightning struck, immense, almost impossibly thick, colliding with his small frame. The smell of ozone filled his senses, hair and robes whipping violently in the wind.
Pain unlike any he had ever known tore through every nerve in his body. He was hurled like a ragdoll through the thick trunk of a tree, crashing to the wet ground, skin smoking where the lightning touched, burns etching through his clothes and flesh alike.
And then… nothing. Darkness. Unconsciousness claimed him entirely.
As Qingxuan lay unconscious, something within him stirred, a force as old as the Heavens themselves, one that caused the clouds above to shrink in fear and dissipate, a terrifying existence.
Deep in the core of his being, a profound energy, one that stirred with the laws of existence itself, burned cold in the void of his blindness. Within the darkness of his mind, a silver crescent moon formed, glowing faintly like molten metal. Through this foreign energy the world itself with its complex structures began to unravel, ,even in the absence of sight, sensing every particle, every molecule, the very fabric of matter itself.
Simultaneously, another energy arose within, one that balanced and completed the former, it burned with the laws of creation and life, piercing through the essence of the world. The flow of Yuan Qi previously invisible, now danced, threading through his body and extending outward, linking him to the rain, the trees, even the distant stones. His dantian, once cold and isolated now shone with an incredible sheen, and pulsed with divine light and power of Heavenly Yuan Qi.
A column of energy, a visible pillar of silver and gold, shot upward from his body, connecting the boy with the storm above. The constellations hidden deep within the cosmos began to bow one after the other, as if paying homage to a rather terrifying existence. Winds twisted, lightning arced erratically, and a foreign mist perfused the surrounding air like fog, and for a brief, impossible moment, Qingyang Town itself seemed to pause.
From the main Mu Clan to the branch compound, from the elders to the townspeople, every eye capable of seeing the storm was drawn involuntarily toward the unnatural pillar. Whispers spread immediately among the elders. One middle aged man rushed out of his chambers, dressed in black dragon robes. His eyes scanned the unnatural phenomenon and then he froze in shock. His mouth widened right then, unable to close as his mind tried to comprehend what he was seeing.
"It.. It really is Heavenly Yuan Qi rising in pillars of mist! This godly phenomenon.." His mind raced as he tried to comprehend the situation, however the next moment another shocking thing happened that took his attention off the godly phenomenon.
A comet streaked across the sky, trailing gold and silver light that mirrored nascent creative and destructive energies, representing death and rebirth. Lightning danced in impossible, geometric patterns through the clouds. Birds froze mid-flight; even the winds seemed to halt as if watching the birth of something extraordinary.
"Clan Leader… this!!" One white haired elder turned to the middle aged man in shock.
The clan leader on the other hand first squinted his brows and then beamed in joy.
"It really is! Celestial comet shooting into the Heavens?!! Two celestial phenomena occurring at the same time! My Mu clan is blessed. Do you know what this means?!!" The normally stoic man was unable to calm himself as he grabbed the shoulders of one of the elders beside him.
"My Mu clan has been blessed with divine luck from the Heavens! A hidden dragon would soon soar from the clan!" He beamed in joy and then turned to the others.
"Gather all the direct descendants! We need to ascertain who this child of luck is and send men into the forest to investigate the origin of the phenomena!!"…
Meanwhile, within Qingxuan's unconscious mind, a strange awareness blossomed. The world was no longer formless, chaotic, and cruel. Matter revealed its structure; energy revealed its patterns. A voice, ancient and resonant, whispered through the storm and into the deepest recesses of his soul:
"The one who bears both shadow and radiance… the one who sees all that is hidden… will reshape the path of Heaven itself."
The storm raged on, rain and thunder unrelenting, but something had shifted. Deep within the body of the boy known as Mu Qingxuan, something had awakened, something that defied Fate and Destiny, and the world would never treat a Shadow the same way again.
A/N: So we begin.