Amid the hushed stillness of a dark, desolate forest, the sharp metallic clash of blades rang out again and again, shattering the silence like thunder rolling through the night.
Cold mist drifted low across the ground, curling and twisting around two shadowed figures locked in battle.
They were no ordinary men.
They were cultivators.
One of them stood tall and unmoving, his presence as steady as a mountain. Long obsidian hair flowed down his back in smooth, dark waves, shifting faintly with the night wind. His eyes were deep and piercing, burning with an intensity fierce enough to rival a blazing inferno.
He wore the traditional robes of a cultivator, their dark fabric embroidered with intricate patterns and ancient symbols that seemed to whisper of hidden power. Around his wrists were tightly wrapped bands of black leather, woven with such care that they resembled coiled serpents clinging to his arms.
Yet what set him apart was not his attire, nor his cultivation aura.
It was his gaze.
Within those eyes, in the very depths of his soul, lingered a quiet and unsettling darkness.
Unlike those who pursued cultivation for honor, protection, or enlightenment, he walked no righteous path. He possessed no moral compass to restrain him, no ideals to guide his choices.
He was a man driven by desire — an insatiable hunger that had grown over centuries. Power was both his obsession and his purpose, a fire that consumed everything in its path. To obtain it, he would not hesitate to step across the blurred boundary between right and wrong.
His name was Liang Yifei.
It was a name that struck fear into the hearts of countless people.
Many underestimated him, believing he was merely another ambitious cultivator striving to carve his name into history.
They were always wrong.
His descent into darkness had begun long ago, with something painfully ordinary.
Six hundred years earlier, he had been nothing more than a ten-year-old boy living in a quiet village.
On that day, two terrifying cultivators clashed above his home, their battle shaking heaven and earth. Flames engulfed the land, mountains split apart, and the village that had once been filled with life was reduced to a lifeless wasteland within moments.
Fate had spared him only because he had been far from the center of destruction.
But the sight carved itself permanently into his young mind.
He had witnessed, with his own eyes, the overwhelming power that could erase an entire world in the blink of an eye.
When the two god-like cultivators ultimately killed one another, their battle ending in mutual destruction, Liang Yifei stepped into the smoking ruins they left behind.
He gathered their belongings.
And from that moment onward, his mortal life ended.
He stepped onto the path of cultivation, determined to seize the same power that had destroyed everything he once knew.
The journey that followed lasted six centuries.
Year after year, he grew stronger. With every breakthrough, his heart grew colder. With every struggle, his ruthlessness deepened.
Cultivation was never an easy road.
It was a path that defied heaven itself, one that demanded endless struggle against fate, mortality, and even the laws of the world.
With nothing more than mediocre talent, he had clawed his way upward through sheer will and relentless effort, eventually reaching the Nascent Soul Realm — a realm where ordinary people would regard him as an immortal, a being capable of determining the fate of nations with a single decision.
And yet, even after centuries of effort, he could go no further.
No matter how hard he tried, his cultivation remained stagnant.
The Nascent Soul Realm had become an unbreakable limit.
He knew what that meant.
Sooner or later, even someone like him would wither into dust, no different from any ordinary mortal.
But Liang Yifei had never been someone who accepted fate.
Over the years, he had carefully prepared a plan — a grand design that would shatter his limits, rewrite his destiny, and push him toward the absolute pinnacle of power.
Now, standing at the edge of that final step, he looked down into the valley below.
Beside him lay the lifeless body of the opponent he had just slain.
For a brief moment, he lifted his gaze toward the sky.
The night was vast and silent, dotted with countless stars that stretched endlessly across the darkness.
A faint ripple of introspection stirred within his heart.
Was power truly everything?
Was the price he had paid worth it?
The questions surfaced quietly, gnawing at the deepest part of his soul.
But they did not remain long.
He suppressed them without hesitation.
In this world, only power held true authority.
Right and wrong were never absolute truths. They were merely definitions created by those strong enough to enforce them.
The powerful decided what was righteous.
The powerful decided what was evil.
After a long silence, Liang Yifei spoke softly to the empty night.
"Power is nothing more than a fleeting illusion."
His voice was calm, yet unwavering.
"Even so… I will carve my mark upon the world with that illusion."
Whatever awaited him — whether endless glory or utter ruin — he would face it without regret.
For he had long ago chosen his path.
And he would walk it to the very end.