The neon lights of the city blurred into streaks of blue and pink as Arga moved through the rain. Every step he took felt different than it had an hour ago. The heavy, sluggish gait of a man defeated by life had been replaced by the silent, predatory grace of a sovereign. The raindrops that fell toward him didn't just hit his skin; they sizzled and evaporated into a faint mist before they could even dampen his collar.
This mortal coil is far more damaged than I realized, Arga mused, his golden-flecked eyes scanning the towering skyscrapers. The previous owner of this body allowed his spirit to be crushed, and his physical foundation followed suit. If I don't temper these meridians soon, the Nine Sun Current will tear this flesh apart from the inside.
He needed a place of power. Even in a world as spiritually barren as this modern Earth, nature still clung to small pockets of vitality. After walking for several miles, Arga found himself at the entrance of Mount Salak Forest Reserve, a dark, wooded expanse on the outskirts of the metropolitan sprawl.
He didn't take the paved paths. Instead, he glided through the dense undergrowth, his feet barely touching the fallen leaves. He pushed deeper into the woods until he reached a hidden waterfall that tumbled into a crystal-clear stone basin. The air here was noticeably different cooler, crisper, and carrying a microscopic trace of the Earth's primal Qi.
Arga stripped off his ruined jacket and sat cross-legged on a flat basalt rock in the center of the stream. The icy water swirled around his waist, but he didn't shiver.
Nine Sun Current: First Revolving Cycle, he commanded.
He closed his eyes and began the breathing technique of the Gods. With every inhalation, he pulled the thin, green wisps of forest essence into his lungs. It felt like trying to fill a desert with a single cup of water. The process was agonizing. As the Qi entered his clogged meridians, it felt like molten lead being forced through narrow glass tubes.
Black, foul-smelling impurities began to seep from his pores, washed away instantly by the flowing stream. His bones creaked, shifting and hardening as the celestial energy began to knit the microscopic fractures left by years of malnutrition and abuse.
Hours passed in total silence. The moon reached its zenith, casting a silver glow over the waterfall. Arga's skin began to radiate a faint, bronze light. He was no longer just a man; he was becoming a vessel.
Suddenly, the stillness of the forest was shattered by the sound of heavy, uneven footsteps and the sharp, metallic click of a firearm being readied.
"I told you, Grandfather! We shouldn't have come this deep into the reserve at night!"
The voice was female sharp, authoritative, but tinged with a desperate edge of fear.
Arga didn't open his eyes, but his divine perception expanded like a ripple in a pond. Thirty meters away, a young woman in tactical gear was supporting an elderly man. The man was dressed in a traditional white silken robe, but it was stained with fresh, dark blood. Behind them, three shadows moved through the trees professional assassins, their movements disciplined and lethal.
"Yasmine... leave me," the old man wheezed, his breath rattling in his chest. "My heart... the frost poison has reached my core. I cannot run anymore."
"I am not leaving you, General Surya!" the woman snapped, drawing a suppressed pistol and firing two quick shots into the darkness. A muffled grunt followed, but the other two shadows continued to close in.
Arga's brow flickered. General Surya? The name sounds familiar in this man's memories. One of the founding pillars of the nation's military. A man of immense influence.
The assassins made their move. Two men in tactical masks leaped from the brush, brandishing curved daggers coated in a shimmering, purple toxin. Yasmine fired, but one assassin rolled behind a tree while the other closed the distance, his blade aimed at her throat.
"Die!" the assassin hissed.
Just as the blade was an inch from Yasmine's skin, a pebble no larger than a marble whistled through the air with the speed of a sniper round.
Thwack!
The pebble struck the assassin's temple with such force that his skull shattered instantly. He was dead before his body hit the mud.
The second assassin froze, his eyes darting toward the waterfall. "Who's there? Show yourself!"
Arga slowly stood up from the rock. He walked across the surface of the water, his feet creating ripples that moved in perfect, concentric circles. He didn't look like a beggar or a discarded husband. In the moonlight, with the bronze glow still fading from his skin, he looked like a deity descending from the heavens.
"You are disturbing my cultivation," Arga said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a weight that seemed to press down on the very lungs of everyone in the clearing.
"Another target!" the second assassin shouted, raising a silenced submachine gun.
He squeezed the trigger. A hail of 9mm rounds sprayed toward Arga. Yasmine screamed, expecting to see the stranger shredded by lead.
But the bullets never reached him. Three feet in front of Arga, the air shimmered. The bullets hit an invisible wall of vibrating Qi and stopped dead in mid-air, glowing red from the friction before falling harmlessly into the water.
"Im... impossible..." the assassin stammered, his face turning pale behind his mask. "A Grandmaster? No... this is beyond Grandmaster level!"
"In my world, we call your kind 'gnats,'" Arga said coldly.
He flicked his wrist. A blade of compressed air the Void Slash shot forward. It moved faster than the eye could follow. The assassin didn't even have time to scream as his body was neatly bisected from shoulder to hip. He collapsed into the brush, silent and still.
Arga turned his gaze toward the elderly man and the stunned woman.
Yasmine stood frozen, her gun pointed at Arga, but her hands were shaking so violently she could barely hold it. She had seen the "Special Icons" of the military, the secret martial arts experts, but she had never seen someone stop bullets with their breath.
"Lower your toy, girl," Arga commanded. "If I wanted you dead, you would have stopped breathing the moment I stood up."
General Surya looked at Arga with wide, bloodshot eyes. He felt the aura radiating from the young man a vast, primordial power that made his own legendary "Tiger Breath" technique feel like a child's toy.
"Senior..." the General coughed, more blood spilling onto his silk robe. "Please... save my granddaughter. I am already a dead man. The Frost Sect's poison has frozen my meridians. But she... she is innocent."
Arga walked toward them, his eyes scanning the old man's chest. His divine vision saw the jagged, icy energy clogging the General's heart. It was a crude poison, but lethal for someone in this low-level world.
"The Frost Sect? Another group of ants playing with cold air," Arga muttered. He reached out and placed a single finger on the General's forehead.
"Grandfather! Don't touch him!" Yasmine lunged forward, but Arga didn't even look at her. He simply released a fraction of his intent, and the air around Yasmine turned as heavy as lead, pinning her to the ground.
"Be silent," Arga said. "I am in a good mood tonight. Your grandfather has a destiny that hasn't ended yet."
Arga channeled a thread of the Nine Sun Current through his fingertip. To General Surya, it felt as if a miniature sun had been shoved into his brain. The agonizing cold that had plagued him for years suddenly met its match. The "ice" in his veins didn't just melt; it evaporated.
A moment later, the General let out a long, shaky breath. A cloud of black, frosty mist escaped his mouth, freezing the grass in front of him instantly. His face, which had been grey and sunken, suddenly regained a healthy, vibrant color.
"My... my meridians... they are clear?" the General whispered, standing up without any assistance. He felt stronger than he had in twenty years.
Arga pulled his hand back, his expression indifferent. "The poison is gone. I've also reinforced your heart. You'll live another fifty years, provided you don't bother me again."
General Surya didn't hesitate. This man, the most powerful military figure in the region, dropped to his knees and bowed his head to the dirt.
"Great Master! You have given me a second life. The Surya family owes you a debt that can never be repaid. My wealth, my soldiers, my influence... they are all at your disposal."
Arga looked down at the old man, then at the trembling Yasmine. He needed resources. He needed someone to handle the "mortal" annoyances while he rebuilt his empire.
"Fine," Arga said, his voice echoing through the trees. "I need a place to stay. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere far away from the filth of the Wijaya family."
General Surya looked up, his eyes burning with a new fire. "Master, I own a private estate on the Peak of the Clouds. It is the most secure and spiritual place in the city. It is yours. And as for this 'Wijaya' family... would you like me to erase them from existence tonight?"
Arga smiled, a cold, sharp expression that made Yasmine shiver. "No. Death is too easy for them. I want them to watch as the man they called 'trash' becomes the God of this city. I want them to witness my ascent from the very bottom of the pit they threw me into."
"As you command, Master," the General replied.
The Sovereign had found his first sword. And soon, the city would learn that some debts are paid in gold, but others... are paid in blood.