Chapter 3 – Crimson Battlefield
That night, Liang Shen's sleep was not his own.
He drifted into dreams that were too vivid, too heavy to be simple illusions. The air reeked of blood. The sky burned red, torn apart by streaks of lightning that clawed at the heavens themselves.
Mountains shattered. Rivers boiled into steam. Across the endless battlefield lay corpses—cultivators in robes of every colour, their weapons broken and their eyes frozen in terror.
And above it all, a single figure stood.
He was tall, his black hair whipping in the storm winds, his robes drenched in blood that was not his own. In one hand, he gripped a sword that shone with defiance; in the other, he carried nothing but his will. His aura was boundless, stretching beyond heaven and earth.
Liang Shen's chest seared with pain as he beheld the man. The silver mark flared, light spilling out of his skin even within the dream.
The man raised his sword to the heavens and roared. His voice shook the sky:
"Heaven decrees my erasure. Then I shall carve my name into eternity!"
Bolts of divine thunder fell, striking the battlefield. Each strike was enough to annihilate entire sects, yet the man stood unyielding, his figure burning against the crimson storm.
Liang Shen clutched his head, pain splitting his skull. His knees buckled as the dream grew too heavy, threatening to crush him.
Why… why does this feel like me?
Suddenly, the man turned. His gaze pierced through space, through time, through fate itself—until it landed squarely upon Liang Shen.
Their eyes met.
Shen's heart stopped. His lungs froze. It was not the gaze of a stranger. It was as if he were staring into a mirror reflecting not his face, but his soul.
The figure's lips moved, and the words were carved directly into Shen's mind.
"Even heaven cannot erase me."
The battlefield dissolved into darkness.
Liang Shen woke with a scream, his body drenched in sweat. Dawn's first light filtered weakly through the hut's cracks. His chest burned, but when he tugged at his tunic, the mark had gone silent once more, faint as ever.
His hands trembled. His breath shook.
Was it only a dream? No—it was too real. The blood, the thunder, the weight of that man's gaze… it all lingered.
Shen stood and stepped outside. The village was stirring, unaware of his torment. Smoke curled from chimneys, roosters crowed, children laughed as they ran with buckets. Life was as ordinary as ever.
But as Shen looked toward the eastern mountains, where faint streaks of light still crackled in the sky from last night's cultivator battle, he felt it in his bones—
His life would no longer remain ordinary.