The ghostly memory of my mother solidified before me. She rose from the throne, her long, silver hair flowing behind her like a waterfall of moonlight.
She was beautiful, powerful, and as cold as the winter wind. She seemed to float towards me, her ruby-red eyes fixing me with an intense gaze.
"I had every right to destroy you," her voice, both grand and chilling, echoed in my mind. "But I showed you mercy. I gave you the legacy of our clan, the Black Heart. It is a gift that lets you absorb all the evil in this world. With it, you were destined to become a tool of fate, a weapon in my hands. Do you truly accept this destiny?"
I remained on my knees, my head bowed low before her magnificent presence. "Forever and always," I vowed.
Her red eyes narrowed slightly, a sign of her satisfaction. A gentle, pale hand reached out and softly stroked my black hair.
"Good boy," she whispered, her voice a little warmer now. "Even though your hair is not the silver of my true children, it is just as soft as your brothers'."
"I am glad," I murmured, my heart swelling with a desperate need for her approval.
Overcome with emotion, I reached up, wanting to feel the warmth of her hand in mine. I knew it was disrespectful to touch the clan leader, that I would be punished, but I didn't care. But my fingers closed on empty air.
The illusion shattered. I was alone again, staring up at the endless purple sky of my own soul.
The grand throne in the center of the burnt island was empty. It had always been empty. I slowly clenched and unclenched my hand, the feeling of loss a physical ache in my chest.
I settled back down on the ground, leaning against the cold stone of the throne. I had to clear my mind. If I dwelled on the past, the painful memories would swallow me whole.
Time began to flow strangely, speeding up as it always did when I was trapped in my own mind.
Normally, I would be meditating, gathering the world's energy, but this was different.
Taking over a new body was a long, slow process. Sometimes it took years to reshape a new vessel to fit my soul, and all that time, I had to stay awake in my Soul Mirror. I hated it.
This place, this sea of blood and dead bodies, was a constant reminder of my failures. I had not destroyed all the righteous sects.
I had not broken the chains of the Heavenly Dao that treated all living things like cattle. I had not saved my mother.
Suddenly, a deep rumble shook my inner world. The purple sky grew dark, and great waves rolled across the sea of blood, tossing the floating corpses back and forth.
The transfer was almost complete. The fake consciousness I had created to control the body was about to awaken my true self. Good.
My mind raced, forming a plan. It would take months to regain my strength, to reach the Foundation Establishment stage of my power.
I could speed that up to a few days if I absorbed the life force of a few hundred people.
Then I would need to leave this place quickly, before any of the righteous sect elders arrived.
After that, I had to find the secret caches of artifacts I had hidden long ago.
They would help me deal with any remnants of the Black Heavens alliance who might have gotten bold enough to challenge my leadership. I had no doubt some of them had survived.
A powerful vibration hummed through the Soul Mirror. It was time. I stood up, taking one last look at the empty throne.
My plan was solid. A second later, my vision went black.
The ghostly feeling of my soul-form vanished, replaced by the weight and warmth of a physical body.
But something was different. There was a strange energy flowing through this new vessel, something I had never felt before.
I took a deep breath. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers, and soft grass tickled my back. I opened my eyes, expecting to see a familiar blue sky. Instead, I was staring up at a purple one.
"What?"
Feeling incredibly foolish, I sat up and looked around. I saw a tree nearby, then a whole garden stretching out around me.
The plants were lush and green, but many of them were strange, species I had never seen before. In the distance, a massive building complex rose into the sky, built in an architectural style that was completely alien to me. This wasn't my Soul Mirror playing tricks on me.
A sharp pain lanced through my temple, and then, a flood of memories poured into my mind, the memories of the body's original owner.
I started to laugh. It was a wild, uncontrollable sound that echoed through the peaceful garden. "So, they were right," I gasped between laughs. "Those old fools always promised I would end up in hell! Ha!"
The irony was just too perfect. The righteous masters I had killed always screamed that my soul would be cast out of the cycle of rebirth and sent to the underworld to be judged by King Yama.
And they were partially right. But they never could have imagined this. I wasn't here as a tortured sinner. I was here as a demon, a noble of high rank, even. But there was a problem.
I lifted my hand and tried to pull the natural energy, the qi, from the air around me. Nothing happened. The air was nearly empty of it.
This was not the hell connected to my old world.
Giving up on qi, I focused on the new power flowing through my veins. It was part of this body, and now, part of my soul.
A stream of dark red energy flowed from my hand.
Following the new memories of what this power was, "demonic magic", I pictured an image in my mind. A cool breeze blew against my face, and a flat rectangle of ice appeared in the air before me.
Reflected in it was an eight-year-old boy with black hair and crimson eyes, dressed in the fine clothes of an aristocrat.
I grimaced at the sight of the tight-fitting pants and strange shirt. I desperately wanted to trade them for a comfortable robe that didn't cling to my body so awkwardly.
But, when in a strange new land, one must follow its customs. I let the ice mirror fall and shatter on the grass.
Then, a simple, crushing thought hit me with its full force. This world, this dimension, had such poor conditions for cultivation that no one here had ever even heard of it.
Was there any connection to my home world at all? If not, could I ever go back? Could I ever finish my mission and fulfill my duty to my mother?
The small, childish body swayed, and a fresh wave of pain crashed over my mind.
I can't finish my duty. I failed her. Again.
Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin.
I clutched my head, my hands tangled in my hair. I felt hot tears streaming down my face, but I didn't care. If I could not carry out my mother's last command, what was the point of anything?
My new power, what the memories called a "demonic aura," exploded from me in a dark halo.
The grass at my feet turned to ash, and the leaves on the nearby tree withered and died. I was on the verge of losing myself to madness, just as I almost had when I first learned of my mother's death.
But then, a few specific memories from the body's previous owner flashed in my mind, and they were enough to pull me back from the edge. It was a memory of his older sister, teaching him the basics of demonic magic.
A sister who looked almost exactly like my mother.
"Hey, freak! Father is calling for us!"
I turned my head. A boy with light-blond hair was glaring at me with open dislike. This was Euclis Lucifuge. My new… brother. And according to these memories, he had never liked the boy whose body I now possessed.
The boy named Inflis Lucifuge. The boy who was now me.