Pain was the first thing he felt.
A silent ringing that pierced through bone.
His fingers trembled as if rejecting his ownership, and his eyes...
His eyes were torn clouds flashing with lightning.
Liu Jian sat on the muddy ground, gasping like someone clawing his way out of a grave.
His left hand rose instinctively, clutched his wild black hair—
And he screamed.
"Who am I?!"
A moment of void—then memories rushed in like rivers of fire.
Her face…
That face he had once loved.
Her quiet laugh when they climbed the forbidden mountains together.
The way she looked at him when he whispered:
"I want to show you something… something that cannot be seen."
It was she who asked to see the inheritance.
He only wanted to give her something eternal.
But he didn't know…
Didn't know she was planning his betrayal.
"Traitor..." he hissed, venom dripping from his voice.
"You handed me over... to the Grand Elder, to the Sect..."
The Demon Dragon Sect.
Home of shadows.
Where the weak are raised to be devoured—
And the strong are cleansed to become tools.
He was one of them.
But that night… he appeared.
The man with the straw hat.
His steps made no sound.
His eyes hidden.
But Liu felt something...
Something like death.
Something like annihilation.
He never understood what happened.
One elder burned from the inside out.
Another exploded into blooming black flowers.
That man… never even looked at him.
Why?
Why didn't he kill him?
Why did he leave him alive?
When he opened his eyes again, he was here—
In this dark valley.
And the sword… the sword was still in his hand.
A black sword, pulsing like a demonic heart.
Veins of dark qi coiled around it,
as if the sword was breathing.
He stepped closer.
Whispered:
"Was it… was it you? Spirit of the Devil Saint's blade?"
Then—something happened.
From the sword… a mark emerged.
A lotus.
A black lotus.
With seven petals.
Each petal… bleeding.
He couldn't move.
His body began to boil, as if rivers of magma surged through his veins.
Something was invading him—
The sword… was trying to devour his spiritual core.
He screamed—
But it was not a human scream.
It was the cry of something from a deeper abyss.
Then he saw.
A city drowning in blood.
A sword piercing the sky.
And a single eye… weeping in the darkness.
Then he appeared.
A man standing over a sea of corpses.
Behind him—fire, and forgetting.
Clad in a simple robe.
Hair as white as ancient bone.
His voice—
"You... are good enough."
Simple words.
But they shattered something inside him.
Liu Jian fell—
Like a corpse that had forgotten how to move.
His chest shook.
Eyes wide open.
Then—everything went dark.
.
.
.
When he opened his eyes again…
The sun had risen.
But it wasn't a sun he recognized.
He rose slowly.
His hand… was no longer his.
His skin—darker.
Muscles—tighter.
And his eyes…
They were not his eyes.
He could feel every drop of blood in his body.
Every stone beneath him.
Every wind that dared to pass by.
He had changed.
This was not the Liu Jian who entered the valley.
He had died there.
And the one who stood now…
Was something else.
Something that carried the spirit of a Devil Saint...
Something that knew no mercy.
Something that was born to slaughter.