Death tasted like copper and regret.
Ye Xian should have known. He had just experienced it.
The X-shaped gash across his chest had stopped bleeding minutes ago, along with his heart. Two men stood over his corpse, their swords still dripping with his blood, debating whether he'd lost his mind before dying.
"Was he smiling?" one asked.
"Probably went insane. We cut too deep."
'If only you knew.' Ye Xian thought from somewhere between life and death, 'I was smiling because I finally understood my role. Cannon fodder. A stepping stone. A prop to make other people look cool.'
The bastard son. Average talent, humble birth, and the spectacular ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Seventeen years old with grey hair, a consequence of a backlash from cultivating a high-grade technique that had dropped his cultivation a full realm back to the Ki Refining Realm. His onyx-black eyes, deep and glossy like pools of obsidian, held no illusions about his place in the world.
He was ready for the afterlife. Hell, he was looking forward to it.
Then someone else's memories crashed into his dying consciousness like a meteor.
CAdler.' A name that felt like swallowing glass. Images of betrayal, of a woman named Fiona dying in his arms, of something called the Hero Party turning their backs on him.
'Wang Chi. Wei Zu. Lux Layman. Ash Vickman. Lu Ziyan.'
Names that made his soul burn with a rage that wasn't his own.
And then.
Ye Xian gasped.
Eyes snapped open. Lungs filled with air. Heart hammered against ribs that should have been shattered.
Both attackers leaped back like he'd sprouted wings and breathed fire.
"AH—!! What the hell?!"
He sat up and touched his chest. The deadly wound was healed, but a mark remained, reminding him it had truly happened.
"I'm alive?" he whispered, then louder: "I'm alive!"
Ye Xian looked around, half-expecting some glowing system panel or mysterious old master to explain this miracle.
[Congratulations, Host! You've awakened the Protagonist System!]
Nothing.
Only the awkward breeze and the faces of two very confused
"Tch." He spat blood and grinned.
"Those cultivation novels were lies. No system? No mysterious inheritance? Just back from the dead with a headache and someone else's memories?"
The taller attacker found his voice first. "You didn't kill him properly, Brother Mu."
Brother Mu cracked his neck, twin blades gleaming.
"So what if the brat's still breathing? I'll just carve him up again. This time, I'm taking his head."
"Ye Shen's dogs." Ye Xian realized with cold clarity. His half-brother's servants, here to finish what their master had started.
It figured. Ye Shen. The golden child, son of Ye Feng's legal wife, blessed with genius-level talent that made the clan elders weep with joy.
Meanwhile, Ye Xian was the son of a maid who died from blood loss shortly after giving birth to him, leaving him to grow up facing his father's neglect and cold indifference.
"Your aptitude is low. It's a waste to spend resources on you."
His stepmother's words echoed in his mind. Even when his small allowance was taken away to support Ye Shen's cultivation, Ye Xian never complained. He understood how things were. With average talent and low birth, he had accepted his place as the forgotten son.
But apparently, even that wasn't enough for them.
Something stirred deep in Ye Xian's chest. Not his profound ki. That was still pathetically weak at the first step of the Ki Refining Realm. This was something else. Something that belonged to Adler's memories.
LIMIT RELEASE
The knowledge flooded through him like liquid lightning. A technique to break past normal limits by forcing ki into specific body parts and releasing it in controlled bursts.
He stood slowly, every movement deliberate. His hand found his sword's hilt.
"Is running your mouth all you're good at?" Ye Xian asked, his voice colder than he'd ever heard it.
Brother Mu's face twisted. "I'll tear you apart, you arrogant brat!"
He charged.
Ye Xian smiled.
'Let's see how well your genius master prepared you for this.'
Using the limit release,profound Ki surged into his left leg. The ground cracked. He exploded forward, covering the distance between them in a heartbeat.
His sword sang through the air.
Brother Mu's head hit the dirt before his body realized it was dead.
The second attacker was already moving, crescent blade aimed at Ye Xian's back. He felt the killing intent like ice water down his spine.
'Too slow.'
Ye Xian gathered profound ki in his legs, body weightless. He jumped, flipped, landed behind his opponent in perfect silence.
His blade found the man's neck.
Steel parted flesh. Life leaked out onto the mountain stones.
Two heartbeats. Two deaths.
Ye Xian stood among the corpses, breathing hard, staring at his hands. For years, he'd fantasized about having enough power to push his stepmother down and spank her for her cruelty. Now he'd killed two men without breaking a sweat.
"What the hell am I?"
The memories weren't his, but the pain was real. Adler's agony over Fiona's death carved through his chest like a living thing. He doubled over, coughing blood.
"Ahhhhh!" The scream tore from his throat, raw and primal.
He slammed his fists into the ground, tears streaming down his face. The betrayal, the loss, the rage. It all felt like broken glass in his soul.
Under the cold mountain stars, Ye Xian made a vow that would stain his hands red for years to come.
"Wang Chi... I'll make you regret everything. Even if I have to crawl through rivers of blood or climb over mountains of corpses... I'll bring hell to all of you."
He wiped his eyes and searched the bodies. A few profound ki stones, some low-grade elixirs. Pathetic, but more than his stepmother had ever allowed him.
His space pouch yielded clean clothes, and he changed out of the blood-soaked rags.
Ye Xian. The bastard son who'd swallowed his pride and trained diligently with scraps, only to be ambushed and killed by his half-brother's men.
Adler. A name wrapped in mystery and pain, whose half-foggy memories now lived in his mind like unwelcome guests.
"And something else."Something that brought him back from death itself, a strange phenomenon that changed everything.
Ye Xian looked up at the stars, feeling the weight of two lifetimes on his shoulders.
"Ye Shen sent these dogs to kill me," he whispered.
"But death was supposed to be final."
He picked up Brother Mu's twin blades, testing their weight, then took both of their heads and placed them into his spatial pouch.
"Guess I'll have to teach him that some rules are meant to be broken."
The mountain wind carried his laughter into the night, cold, sharp, and utterly unforgiving.
Ye Xian, now wearing his clean blue robes, closed his eyes and took a deep, peaceful breath. But as he did, he suddenly heard a voice in his mind.
"Concentrate... concentrate more... focus!"
He clearly heard it, so he quickly opened his eyes and looked around. But no one was there. He was surprised and confused.
"Was that just my imagination?" he wondered.
Still curious, he decided to try again. He closed his eyes and focused just like before, trying to see if he could hear the voice again.
Then he did the same thing again and once more, he heard that voice.
As he focused, he suddenly found himself inside his own inner world. In front of him was a thick mist, like a fog. From within that mist, he saw two glowing golden orbs, like eyes, staring straight at him.