Zhao Zheng could only see blood. His vision blurred; all he could make out was a grim glimpse of the ashen sky above. He turned his head to the right, the movement sending fresh agony through his neck. There, he saw monks-his brothers from the Shaolin Temple-fighting with everything they had. Their golden robes were stained dark, their powerful forms straining against the relentless, grinding forces of the War God's Banner that subdued them with brutal, mechanical efficiency.
He was on the brink of dying. A single, precise strike to his lower abdomen had left him undone. His cultivation, the fragile golden core he had built over a decade of struggle, was shattered. His Qi bled out into the frozen dirt of the Mountain Pass of Mourning, mingling with the blood of his sect.
Then, through the curtain of blood and chaos, he saw him.
Old Man Gwan was on his feet. Blood dripped from a cut on his temple, matting his grey hair. His robes were torn. Yet, one thing never changed: his smile.
The same gentle, crinkling smile that had given Zhao Zheng hope that this world was still worth it. From birth, Zhao had always been seen as a demon. Born with crimson eyes that shone like cursed jewels, he had lost his parents to a mob's fear and had grown within the Righteous Sect with people always looking down at him, whispering, "Why is he like that?"
But Old Man Gwan had shown him that the world was not all darkness. Gwan had been the single pillar of light, the hand that pulled him up from the mud of scorn and said he had worth beyond his accursed eyes.
Now, they had taken everything. The monastery was burning. His friends were dying. His body was broken. And the man who had been his sun was smiling amidst the ruin.
I won't end here, the thought clawed its way through the pain. Humans will always be driven by their desires to succeed... What about me?
He had goals. Simple dreams. To prove himself. To stand tall. To show Old Man Gwan that he was worth the mercy, the patience, the kindness he had been shown. To show the world that a boy with crimson eyes could be righteous.
Just a chance... he pleaded silently to a heaven that had never listened. He was on the brink of death, his breath coming in shallow, wet gasps.
And in that brink, a new resolve, cold and sharp as glacial ice, formed in the ashes of his heart.
I will prove to this accursed world that even the weak can rise.
I will destroy anyone who comes my way.
And I will show the people who made me feel like this-all of them-what it truly means to be weak.
The Wudang Sect had been attacked by the Forge-Fire Mountain, a powerhouse of the War God's Banner. Their molten siege engines and living-metal weaponry had broken the peaceful valleys. And Wudang had been betrayed from within-by Lin Fei, their own prodigy. A disciple who had secretly felt the sect did not know his true worth, who saw the alliance with the ruthless pragmatism of War not as a betrayal, but as a promotion.
As Zhao Zheng's crimson eyes began to dim, filming over with the final veil, that cold resolve did not fade. It crystallized. It became a seed, planted in the deepest, darkest soil of his soul, watered by betrayal and blood.
He would not accept death.
No matter what it took.
And he would break the world that broke him.