The wind swept through the Bone Fang Mountains like an old ghost returning home. It carried the scent of moss, damp rock, and blood too old to see. Mists curled low, clinging to twisted roots and pale, skeletal trees. Distant cries of spirit beasts echoed faintly—long, mournful sounds that disappeared into the peaks like forgotten memories.
Xuan Long walked alone.
No weapons. No companions.
Just silence.
Behind him, tucked away in a ravine wrapped in illusion barriers, his three subordinates were still deep in training. Mu Chen, hunched over a table of powders and herbs, tested poisonous concoctions that could melt organs or paralyze on contact. The demi-human twins blurred between illusions, phasing in and out of view as they honed their footwork techniques—creating mirror doubles and phantoms that confused even their own senses.
But Xuan Long didn't stay to supervise. He didn't need to.
They were strong now. Usable. And they would only grow stronger.
His concern lay elsewhere.
Ahead of him—the future.
A future built in silence and soaked in retribution.
Xuan Long's boots crunched lightly over damp gravel. His long robe fluttered behind him, a shade of black and crimson that seemed to absorb the mist rather than be stained by it. His eyes wandered—taking in the shape of cliff walls, the hidden entrances of half-buried caves, natural ridges that could be turned into kill zones.
He was scouting.
But not just the terrain.
He was scouting for foundations.
After an hour of walking, he stopped beside a dried riverbed. The pale stone path stretched like a scar across the forest floor, lined with moss-covered rocks and the brittle skeletons of trees that had once drank from the stream.
Xuan Long sat down on a wide boulder. It was cool under his palm, as if untouched by the sun for centuries.
The air stilled.
He lowered his head and exhaled slowly.
Then he spoke—not aloud, but not silently either. The mountain heard him. The wind listened.
"I've read enough novels and manhwa in my past life…"
"…I know exactly what this system is."
He looked at his hand, watching faint red veins pulse beneath his skin.
"It's not just powerful. It's terrifying."
His fingers curled slowly into a fist.
"No attack can reach me. No blade can pierce me."
"All of it… is devoured."
His gaze sharpened, cold fire burning in his irises.
"I don't just reflect their power."
"I own it. Reshape it. Rebuild it in my image."
He let his arm drop, flexing his shoulder.
"Killing intent strengthens my muscles."
"Bloodlust sharpens my senses."
"Battle… evolves me."
For a moment, a flicker of pride passed over his face.
But it vanished quickly.
Because beneath that strength lay something deeper.
A memory.
A scream.
His mother's last cry.
Burned into the air like a curse.
The image of her reaching for him while flames consumed the garden behind her. Her fingers twitching one last time. Her mouth moving—but her words drowned beneath the roar of laughter from cloaked ministers.
His little sister—barely five.
Slain beside the fishpond she loved.
Her silk hairpin still bobbing in the water days later.
His elder brothers—ambushed and executed.
His father—dragged from the throne, beaten in front of the palace gates, yet never once cursing them.
And then—
Silence.
The empire his family built shattered in a day.
Five nations—ones that once pledged alliance—split the lands like scavengers around a corpse.
"I am a transmigrator," Xuan Long whispered.
"But my love for them was real."
He looked up at the cloudy sky.
"That world raised me. But this one broke me."
He clenched his jaw. His voice trembled—not from weakness, but from restraint.
"They betrayed my father."
"Butchered his children."
"Mocked his kindness. Twisted his mercy into weakness."
A long silence.
Then a single name passed his lips—
"Father…"
And with it came steel.
"He was honorable," Xuan Long continued.
"A scholar. A warrior. A just ruler."
"But that was his mistake."
"He never built a shadow army."
"Never prepared assassins or spies."
"He trusted ministers—vipers in silk robes."
Xuan Long rose to his feet.
His shadow stretched long behind him in the twilight mist.
"But I won't make his mistake."
"I will build what he never did."
"An army."
"Not of flags and formations…"
"...but of ghosts."
"An army that kills in silence. That vanishes after striking. That lives only for my command."
He stepped forward, walking along the dry river path as if it were a corridor of destiny.
"They will call me ruthless."
"A tyrant."
"But they will kneel."
He paused again.
And his voice changed—lower, colder.
"I will love my own like blood. Like family."
"But to my enemies…"
"…I will leave nothing."
"Not their sons. Not their names. Not even their ashes."
Ahead, the mountains opened into a high valley. Xuan Long climbed to a ridge and looked down.
He saw a small village in the distance—just a few orange lights glowing like fireflies. They didn't know him. They didn't know what slept beneath their feet. They believed they were safe.
Xuan Long smiled faintly.
"Let them believe I am gone."
"Let them feast. Celebrate. Think the dragons have died."
"Because the moment their guard falls…"
"…I will return."
"Not as a prince."
"Not as a cultivator."
"But as a god."
"The god they can't kill."
He spent the next hours walking every ridge, marking each choke point, memorizing the strongest spiritual veins, planning ambush points, backup shelters, and emergency escape routes.
This would be more than a base.
It would be a kingdom.
A shadow empire beneath the mountains.
A nation built not on laws, but on loyalty.
Not on peace—but on vengeance.
By the time he returned to camp, the stars were out. Cold and uncaring, they stared down from the night sky like eyes of ancient beasts.
Mu Chen was asleep beside a pot of cooled poison. The demi-humans stood guard near the cliffs, their eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
Xuan Long stood over them and whispered, more to himself than anyone else:
"You will be the first."
"The first of my father's army reborn."
He sat on a stone outside the cave, robe billowing in the wind.
The fire flickered inside.
And far beyond the mountains, in the lands where thrones were stolen and crowns bought with blood—
The traitors still slept peacefully.
For now.
A kingdom had died once.
But now...
It would rise again.
And this time... it would be born in blood.