The first thing Ling Canglong remembered in this life was the sound of lightning.
Not thunder lightning. Sharp, violent cracks that split the sky open as if something up there wanted him dead before he could cry.
He was told that when he was born, the wind howled like a beast and every flame in the clan hall went out. The elders panicked. Babies with great fortune were supposed to summon auspicious visions: golden light, lotus blooms, celestial cries.
But Ling Canglong summoned nothing.
Worse than nothing.
The moment he breathed, every fate-measuring stone in the hall shattered on its own.
The clan chief held him up to the heavens, chanting the technique that revealed a newborn's destiny. The spell exploded in a blast of cold air, knocking three elders unconscious.
When they woke, their verdict was simple.
"This child has no fate."
A cultivator without fate was like a bird without wings. A lamp with no oil. A body the heavens did not acknowledge. Even mortals with failing health were considered more blessed.
And so, on the night he was born, the decision was made.Ling Canglong would not be raised as a clan child.He would be cast out quietly, so the heavens would not punish the clan for keeping a mistake.
But his mother fought them. She screamed, begged, and cursed heaven itself. They compromised only because she threatened to end her own life.
Canglong was allowed to live but only in the mortal outskirts, nameless among farmers, hunters, and beggars. A child the clan pretended didn't exist.
He grew up hearing two things.
No fate.No future.
But he survived.
He learned to swing a wooden saber to chase wolves from livestock. He learned how to move silently to steal fruit from orchards when he was starving. He learned how to read spiritual manuals discarded by pampered young masters too lazy to keep their books.
And every night, when he lay on a straw mat staring at the moon, he felt something deep inside him heartbeat. Slow. Heavy. Ancient. A sound no one else seemed to hear.
At twelve years old, the first change happened.
He was hauling water when his vision suddenly turned dark. A roar not from outside but from within ripped through his mind. The bucket shattered. The ground under his feet cracked like dry clay.
Villagers screamed and ran, thinking a beast tide was coming.
Canglong knelt in the dust, clutching his skull as something monstrous stirred inside his blood. His veins burned. His bones felt like they were melting and reforging. For a moment, he truly thought he was dying.
Then it stopped.
A wordless growl echoed in the depth of his consciousness, like a dragon buried beneath the sea of his mind opening one eye.
He whispered to himself.
"What… are you?"
The answer was another heartbeat.
After that day, everything changed.
Strength poured into him with every breath. His senses sharpened. He could hear ants walking on bark. He could see the trail of spiritual energy flowing faintly in the air.
But he told no one.He wasn't sure if this was a blessing…
…or something waiting to kill him.
One month later, fate finally snapped.
A rogue cultivator passed through the mortal village. His eyes were red with greed when he sensed something unusual inside Canglong's body. That night, he dragged the boy to the forest and tried to slice open his dantian to seize whatever treasure lay hidden.
The moment steel touched skin, the ancient heartbeat thundered. A force erupted from Canglong's body, smashing the rogue cultivator through three trees and burying him in a mound of dirt.
Canglong stared at his trembling hands. The rogue's blood dripped from his fingertips.
"Impossible…" the rogue gasped, crawling away. "A child with no fate… should not have a beast like that inside… This is wrong… all wrong…"
He fled into the night, screaming.
Canglong stood alone beneath the moon, heart pounding with fear… and exhilaration.
He had no fate.He had no destiny.He had no protection.
But something inside him did not care about fate.Something ancient.Something furious.
He looked toward the horizon, toward the world that rejected him.
From this day forward, he would carve a path the heavens could not predict.
Even if it killed him.