The northern stronghold rises like a dark crown against the stormy sky, banners snapping in the wind, its walls echoing centuries of arrogance and cruelty. Zhen Yan steps into the courtyard, robes as black as midnight, red blossoms embroidered at the hem swaying with the wind. Ghost mask tilted, daggers spinning at his sides, sword sheathed but restless, he advances, a shadow that carries the weight of years of vengeance. The inner sanctum of the estate looms ahead, doors taller than men, carved from blackened oak and adorned with crimson blossoms. The air is heavy, scented with incense and the faint metallic tang of blood long spilled. Zhen Yan steps forward, the ghost mask shadowing his face, daggers spinning at his sides, sword ready. His companions fan out behind him, every muscle taut, every sense alert.
Inside, the room is vast. Velvet drapes hang along the walls, embroidered with the family sigil. A raised dais sits at the far end, where two figures recline in gilded chairs: his father and mother, both masked, both exuding authority and indifference. Their eyes, sharp beneath the masks, glint with recognition, amusement, and the faintest trace of caution.
"W-Windshadow?? How dare you enter my hall?!" A man seated on the chair slams his hands on the armrest.
"Zhen Family..."
"Zhen Family?" The man thinks for a moment, "w-what Zhen Family, I know nothing."
"No need to play dumb..." Zhen Yan's voice low, then remains silent after, only raising his hands, grabbing his mask on all edges with the tip of his fingers, then taking it off his face for once of many years.
The man's eyes widen when he sees his face, "Z-Zhen Yan..." Not a surprised tone—he knew this young boy he had abandoned many years ago, would someday return not as someone they can recognise easily.
"Ah," the man says in tremble, voice carrying through the hall. "The prodigal son arrives. You've walked through shadow and blood to reach us… and yet, did you expect mercy?"
As expected, the man was only playing dumb when asked about the Zhen Family, but this will never fool a man soaked in blood.
"So...you are my parents?"
The mother smiles faintly, hands folded in her lap. "Or did you expect recognition? After all, we shaped you in ways your adoptive family never could." Not intending to hide their true heart. Father tried to stop her from finishing her sentence, but was late.
Zhen Yan's grip tightens on his sword. Beneath the mask, his gaze is relentless. "Recognition? Mercy? You slaughtered the Zhen Family for amusement. You played with lives as if they were chess pieces, and now you sit here as if nothing has happened. Do you truly believe the Windshadow bows to sin?"
The father leans forward, mask tilted. "You have grown… powerful, yes. But power is hollow without understanding the design. We act not for cruelty alone, but to preserve order, legacy, dominance. Your adoptive family… a minor ripple in a sea of our authority."
Zhen Yan laughs bitterly beneath the mask. "Minor? Their lives were stolen! Their laughter, their dreams, their blood… all yours to spill like water. And you call it order?"
The mother rises, gliding forward, robes flowing like liquid shadow. "You speak of blood and death as if they belong to you alone. You were born to this house, Zhen Yan. Your survival… your rage… they are extensions of what we created. You are both predator and heir, yet you fail to see the game in its entirety."
Zhen Yan steps forward, sword slicing the air in a slow, deliberate arc. "Then let me teach you the consequences of games played with innocent lives."
"Very well then...you betrayer of your own blood...your own family..." The father slams his palm onto the armrest, and in seconds, two protectors whose presence radiates a power greater than Zhen Yan has ever faced appears. Their eyes glint like steel in the dim light. "You are of my blood, yet you bring death upon your own. These two will end you before you soil our family's name any further."
The protectors move as one, a storm of lethal precision, closing in on him with uncanny speed. Zhen Yan meets them, steel clashing, daggers spinning in arcs of red and black. Every strike forces him backward, pain lancing through his body as spear and sword tear through his defenses. Blood spills from his mouth; iron warms his tongue. For a moment, the world narrows. Each breath is agony, and death seems near.
Yet then, the memory hits him—the Zhen Family annihilated in a single night, his adoptive parents and siblings slaughtered mercilessly. The killers had no mercy, no hesitation, no honor. Anger ignites within him, sharper than any blade. Pain becomes fuel; blood becomes fire. His vision steadies, and laughter bubbles from deep within him, chilling, bitter, triumphant. "You… you think you can kill me?" he hisses through bloodied teeth. "hahaha...no...I won't let you all die so easily..." He swings his hands past his hem, "as long as this bloodline exists..."
Steel flashes in the candlelit hall, daggers spinning like deadly petals. The two protectors press on, striking with precision and strength, but each blow draws more fire from Zhen Yan. A spear pierces his abdomen, a sword slashes across his chest, yet he moves, driven by fury and grief. Every wound strengthens him, every drop of blood fuels the storm within. He fights like a man possessed, each strike leaving crippling injuries, each swing a promise of vengeance.
Seeing this young man still only hungry for blood, only aiming for nothing else but to kill everyone in this hall, the protectors feel a sense of death approaching fast when the young man, pierced by sword and spear, leaps forward towards them. Being able to laugh and continue, this man, feels no pain from those injuries. His laughter...is he enjoying this? A human should not be so happy to be so close to death. No, he is no longer a human in their eyes, instead, he is a monster.
One protector falters beneath a spinning dagger, the other roars in pain as a sword arcs across his chest. Both lie dying, gaping wounds painting the stone floor crimson. Zhen Yan stands amidst the ruin of their strength, chest heaving, laughter spilling over bloodied lips. Pain and rage intertwine, yet his eyes remain clear, mind razor-sharp, spirit unbroken.
This fearless monster frightens them, weakening their combat performances significantly. Finally, Zhen Yan disarms them both in tandem, daggers pressing against their chests. Ghost mask reflecting firelight, he steps closer, voice low and deadly. "Don't play with lives," he repeats, echoing the words spoken to his brother. "You might end up losing your own."—A sentence he repeats once more even with dripping blood.
The father glances at his son, shock flickering beneath the mask. The mother exhales softly, realizing too late that control has shifted.
Zhen Yan tilts the sword, whispering beneath the mask: "You made me into what I am today. You played with my life, with countless others. And now… you will answer."
Steel, shadows, and vengeance converge in the center of the hall. Outside, the estate trembles under the weight of judgment. The Windshadow has reached the heart, and the legacy of sin cannot withstand the reckoning.
The hall is silent now, save for the heavy breaths of the fallen and the low hum of anticipation that seems to rise from the very walls. Zhen Yan stands at its center, wearing the ghost mask on his face, daggers glinting, sword whispering against its sheath. His blood-related family—the father, mother, and brother—kneel before him, unmasked yet stripped of the authority they once wielded with such arrogance.
Outside, corridors twist endlessly, but the inner estate holds no further defense. Every hidden blade, every trap, every loyal enforcer who survived the previous battles has either fallen or fled. The Windshadow's path has been paved by vengeance, strategy, and the cold precision of a man forged in grief and loss.
The father raises his hand, voice trembling despite attempts at composure. "You… you were born to power. You were meant to continue this house. We… we offered guidance… structure…"
Zhen Yan steps forward, dagger pressing lightly against his father's chest. "Guidance? Structure? You call slaughter, manipulation, and amusement... guidance? You toyed with lives—my adoptive family, countless villages. And now you dare lecture me?"
The mother's eyes glint with a mixture of fear and fury. "Do you not see? You are of this blood. You are… one of us. Without our shaping, without our games, you would not be here, not powerful, not feared...no life..."
Zhen Yan's laugh is low, bitter, and cold beneath the mask. "Never would I have known… thank the ones who murdered my entire adoptive family… is to be my real family." The words hang like smoke, curling in the air, choking and inevitable. He shifts his gaze to the brother, daggers resting lightly against his shoulders. "And you," he says, voice quiet but deadly, "who shares my blood, who was meant to be my kin… chose cruelty over loyalty. Do you remember the lives you destroyed for amusement?" He walks forward to the chair the father once sits—the throne. Yet, he does not sit on it, instead, he stops and sits down on the stairs. He will never sit on something once sat by such fools.
The brother swallows hard, eyes flickering between defiance and fear. "You… you cannot understand the design. We are bound by heritage, by power, by legacy. Everything we do… serves the family."
Zhen Yan tilts his head, daggers spinning slowly, lazily. "Legacy? The legacy of fear, of blood, of death masquerading as entertainment? That is not legacy—that is decay. And decay… dies beneath the blade."
Zhen Yan stands up, steps forward, voice cold, echoing through the hall: "Don't play with lives. You might end up losing your own..."
He stops his dagger, and in a blink of an eye, he strikes decisively. The flash of steel, the hiss of air...
"Yan'er! MERCY PLEA-"
...And the heavy silence that follows mark the culmination of decades of vengeance.
The house of his blood, the orchestrators of massacres, lie defeated. The corridors seem to exhale, as if the estate itself recognizes the passing of judgment. Ghost mask tilted, daggers still glinting, sword resting lightly, Zhen Yan surveys the hall. Blood puddles more and more around the motionless body of the three. But both are lifeless bodies except for the father, however, is now crippled, unable to even try to escape from death that is slowly walking towards them.
The father opens his mouth, but then closes a few times. He tries to talk, but no words are allowed to leave his mouth.
Zhen Yan unsheathes his sword, dragging it across the concrete floor with a haunting screech. "Remember to kneel...and apologize to them when you meet them later..."
He first cuts the father's arms off slowly, mercilessly. He wants the father to suffer. No blink of an eye every time blood splatters into the air, only an emotionless face carried behind the mask. The father tries to scream, but nothing is heard each time. Only screaming silently under such pain.
First his arm, then his legs, and now...it should be his heart.
He lifts the sword above the father, his eyes staring deadly at him as he raises the sword higher. "This is the end...for all those innocents..."
Then, the father's eyes widens in pain before his muscles relax, his vision turns red just before he stops breathing.
Standing before the lifeless body of the father, memories of Zhen Yan's adoptive family—their laughter, their warmth, their untimely deaths—flash sharply, mingling with the irony of the truth he has discovered.
He falls back standing, laughing sinisterly behind the mask. This is his first time being so cruel towards someone who deserves cruelty. "I was forged in loss," he whispers beneath the mask, voice barely more than a shadow, also trembling. "I was tempered by grief. And now… I am free."
Exhausted, wounded, yet unbroken, Zhen Yan turns away from the hall. A spear wound in his abdomen, and a sword wound through his chest, his body weakens with every step, yet determination drives him onward. He retraces the path to the sacred burial grounds of the Zhen Family, the place where his adoptive parents, siblings, and loved ones lie beneath earth and stone.
Kneeling before the tombstones, trembling hands pressed to cold stone, he speaks, voice choked with blood and grief:
"I… avenged you all…" His fingers tighten on the sword—the blade crafted by his adoptive father, the very weapon that shaped his destiny. "…with this sword you gave me… thank you…"
Pain wracks his body, limbs trembling, vision blurring. Life drains from him with terrifying swiftness; the sword, still warm with the blood of his enemies, rests in his hand as his chest heaves. Yet even as darkness presses at the edges of his consciousness, a smile curves his lips. He has fulfilled his purpose; justice has been done. Heart slowing, breath weakening, he leans gently against the tombstone. With a final, quiet exhale, his energy drains fully. His body stills. His heart stops. And the Windshadow, the avenger, the son of both grief and blood, dies at peace, smiling.
The wind shifts in the valley, carrying petals from distant cherry trees. From the shadows, the elder appears, walking slowly to stand beside the lifeless form. Ghost mask and black robes no longer needed; only the quiet witness remains. Kneeling beside Zhen Yan, the elder places a hand over the sword, resting atop the chest of the dead warrior, and smiles softly.
A voice low, resonant, full of weight and meaning breaks the silence, reciting a poem to honor the fallen:
"A blossom falls where shadows tread, Its fragrance lingers though the soul has fled. Steel and blood have sung their song, Yet in the quiet, the righteous belong."
The wind carries the words across the valley, across the tombstones, across the life Zhen Yan saved and avenged. The Windshadow has passed into legend, the last blossom fallen yet eternal in memory. The adoptive family sleeps peacefully beneath the earth, the blooded family's tyranny ended, and the sword that began as a gift, a symbol of love, has fulfilled its destiny in the hands of the son who became a storm, a shadow, and ultimately… the last blossom.
"Windshadow...what a great title..." The elder places his hand gently on the pommel of Zhen Yan's sword, "you know what is better, boy?" He crouches down in front of Zhen Yan, "that the blossom...is as still as it already was..."