The sky was red.
Not the warm red of a sunset, not the soft haze before twilight — this was blood-red. Thick, choking, pulsing across the heavens like a wound that refused to close.
Jiang Xuan stood at the edge of the world, his black robes fluttering in the ash-filled wind. Behind him, mountains cracked. Rivers boiled. The bodies of gods and kings littered the burned earth like fallen leaves.
He did not look back.
There was nothing left worth seeing.
Ahead of him, a crumbling pagoda stood alone in the ruins. One last light flickered within. He stepped forward, boots crunching over bones, the world silent except for the wind.
Inside the pagoda, she waited.
Yao Xi — the last Saintess.
She stood amidst shattered jade tiles and broken pillars, her sword clutched in trembling hands. Her robes were torn. Her face streaked with blood and dust. But her eyes…
They were steady.
Even as they looked upon the monster she had failed to kill.
"You destroyed everything," she said, voice low.
Jiang Xuan didn't answer.
"You killed them," she whispered. "My father… my mother… everyone."
He stepped onto the cracked floor, eyes glowing faintly crimson.
"I know," he said, calmly. "They fought well."
Yao Xi's grip tightened. Her breathing was shallow, every breath dragging knives through her chest. "You—"
He moved before she could finish.
A flicker of shadow. A whisper of wind.
And then he stood before her.
Too close.
She flinched, barely. Her body wanted to move, to run, to fight — but her soul knew it was already over.
His claws hovered inches from her face — not attacking. Just… there.
He leaned in, his voice low.
"You've grown," he said. "But you're still the same."
Yao Xi's eyes widened.
He raised one hand. His fingers, twisted and blackened with demonic power, curled softly under her chin.
And then, with that same cruel gentleness, he tapped her cheek.
"Crybaby."
The word landed like a curse.
Her legs gave out.
She fell to her knees — not because she was weak, not because she wanted to — but because her body remembered. Her heart remembered. The little girl she had once been screamed inside her.
She had trained for five hundred years to kill him.
And still, in that moment, she could do nothing.
His presence crushed her like the weight of the sky.
But Jiang Xuan… he just looked down at her. Not with hatred. Not with joy. Just silence.
Then he turned away.
Behind him, the last pagoda crumbled into dust.
---
Five Hundred Years Earlier…
The wind in the Southern Mortal Realm carried the scent of rain and blooming plum blossoms. Children chased each other through fields, laughter echoing across the hills. The sect bells chimed in the distance.
It was a peaceful day.
Too peaceful for what was coming.
At the edge of the mountains, a crack split the air.
It wasn't a sound. Not exactly. More like the world itself had been torn open, and through that wound, something ancient poured in — lightless, endless, burning with intent.
And then…
She fell from the sky.
Yao Xi landed hard, her knees hitting the stone, her palms scraping against sharp gravel.
She gasped, eyes wide.
Air. Real air. Warm, filled with life. Her chest heaved, overwhelmed. Her body trembled not from pain… but from the sheer wrongness of feeling alive again.
Time travel was not a technique meant for mortals.
Her soul felt like it had been stretched, shredded, and pieced back together with thread thinner than spider silk.
But she was here.
She opened her eyes, breath shaking, and looked around.
Blue sky. Green trees. Birds chirping.
The world... still existed.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she knelt there, silent, fists clenched in the dirt, her body trembling with too many memories.
Jiang Xuan wasn't a god yet.
Not here.
Not now.
But he would be.
Unless she stopped him.
----
Yao Xi stood.
Slowly.
Her limbs ached. Her vision blurred. But her purpose was unshaken.
She turned her gaze toward the horizon — toward the sect that once raised him.
The Fallen Star Sect.
In the future, it had been reduced to ashes. Jiang Xuan had destroyed it himself, they said. Buried its legacy. Slaughtered every disciple. All for a grudge no one remembered.
But in this time… the sect was still standing.
Still whole.
Still proud.
She clenched her jaw.
"I'll find you," she whispered. "While you're still human."
---
Jiang Xuan sat on a stone step, one arm resting across his knee, the other loosely holding a long, curved training blade. The courtyard around him buzzed with noise — sect disciples shouting, running drills, spiritual beasts snorting in the distance. But he didn't hear any of it.
He was still.
Too still.
His eyes were half-lidded, unreadable. He looked like he was relaxing.
He was not.
Across the courtyard, two disciples watched him cautiously from behind a pillar.
"Is that… him?"
"Yeah. Jiang Xuan. The one they say the elders found after a village massacre."
"He doesn't look that strong…"
"Shh. You say that now, but last week he beat Senior Brother Hao with a single strike. And didn't even use spirit energy."
The first disciple looked again, uneasy.
Jiang Xuan's face was almost too perfect — like a painting. Calm. Cold. Slightly amused, as if the world was just a long, boring joke.
But there was something wrong with him.
Something you didn't see until he moved.
The way the shadows clung too closely to his body. The way even birds avoided the space around him. The way, for just a second, if you looked too long into his eyes… you forgot your own name.
Jiang Xuan stood.
And the air around him changed.
Without a word, the two disciples turned and fled.
He didn't watch them go. He only stared up at the sky, one hand reaching to his neck — tracing the jagged scar that never healed.
A reminder of the day everything changed.
The day he woke up with blood on his hands… and no memory of how it got there.
---
That night, the moon was full.
Not cursed. Not cracked. Just a simple silver circle in the sky, hanging over the quiet rooftops of the Fallen Star Sect.
But Yao Xi couldn't sleep.
She sat in the shadows of a pine tree just outside the outer disciple quarters, robes wrapped tightly around her, her sword sheathed beside her knee. Her eyes were fixed on the inner courtyard ahead.
And the boy walking through it.
Jiang Xuan.
He moved like a ghost — quiet, unhurried, alone.
He didn't notice her.
He didn't look up.
He simply stopped at the edge of the training ground, gazed at the night sky, and closed his eyes. His hands relaxed at his sides, as if the tension that held him up had briefly vanished.
Yao Xi couldn't breathe.
He was right there.
No guards. No power. No titles. No flames. No crown.
She could kill him.
Right now.
A single strike.
She reached for her blade.
Her fingers hovered over the hilt.
But then…
He turned his head slightly.
Not fully. Just enough that moonlight caught his face — that same face. The one she remembered from the ruins. The face that stood over her while her parents bled out. The face that said crybaby like it meant nothing.
But now…
Now he looked tired.
Not evil. Not cruel. Just… tired.
Yao Xi froze.
Her fingers curled away from the sword.
No.
Not yet.
She had studied the Demon God Physique. She knew its rules. If she killed him now, without weakening the source of his corruption, he wouldn't die.
He'd awaken.
And the end would come early.
She pulled her hand back.
Watched him one last time.
Then vanished into the trees.
---
Far above, the moon flickered behind clouds.
And deep within Jiang Xuan's body… something pulsed.
Just once.
Like a heartbeat.
But it wasn't his.
------
End of Chapter 1