Chapter 4 – Ashes of the Past
The world was silent. Too silent.
Where once laughter had echoed within the Xu family courtyard, now only embers crackled over scorched wood. The fragrance of his mother's cooking had been replaced by the stench of burnt flesh.
Lian stood in the ruins of his home, his fists trembling, his eyes hollow. His knees sank into the blood-soaked soil, where the bodies of his kin lay scattered—cold, lifeless, and robbed of dignity.
The emissaries of the Seven Realms had not merely killed them.
They had made a statement.
"A boy like you must never rise. Even your bloodline shall be erased."
The words echoed in Lian's skull, a torment that stabbed deeper than any blade. He had been away, training by the river when the attack came. He was not there to protect them. Not there to shield his little sister's cries. Not there to stop the slaughter.
Tears blurred his vision, but he did not wipe them away. He let them fall, each drop burning like molten iron.
"Is this… the fate of the weak?" he whispered, his voice breaking.
The night answered with silence. Only the flames crackled. Only the wind howled.
His heart fractured, but in that fracture, something terrifying was born.
As he buried the remains of his family beneath the ancient oak at the edge of the courtyard, Lian felt something stir in his veins. His father's jade pendant—half-broken, smeared in blood—throbbed with light.
He clutched it. And the voice of his ancestors roared in his mind:
"Our blood is not meant to kneel. You carry the inheritance of the Primordial Sovereign. Rise, Lian. Or let us all die in shame."
The jade shattered. A surge of energy ripped through his body. His meridians, once sluggish, now flowed with raging rivers of qi. His bones groaned as if reforged by divine hammer. His dantian flared like a newborn star.
Pain seared him, but he did not scream. He endured. He welcomed it.
By dawn, Lian stood before the graves, his black hair whipping in the wind, his eyes no longer the eyes of a grieving boy. They burned with crimson light, cold and merciless.
He tied the blood-stained cloth of his mother around his wrist.
He wore his father's cracked blade at his side.
He carried his sister's wooden hairpin in his pouch.
Each relic was a vow.
He looked toward the horizon where the Seven Realms towered in arrogance.
"I swear on these graves… on this blood… on the heavens themselves…" His voice rumbled like distant thunder.
"I will not stop until your realms burn. I will not rest until every last one of you kneels at my feet. I will become the Overlord of All Realms."
The wind shifted. The heavens above darkened, as if even fate trembled at his declaration.
Thus, in blood and fire, Xu Lian's path began—not as a boy chasing strength, but as a sovereign destined to drown the Seven Realms in their own fear.