She looked at the fading ink realm and clicked her tongue.
"What a waste of such a good painting. Why didn't I bring even a single scroll? What a waste of such good paintings" But as she muttered, something flickered across her face, an old memory, a pain she hid well. When he regained consciousness, she asked gently, "Where are your old drawings? The ones you guarded with your life?"
He whispered, voice thin and quiet, as if it carried no weight anymore, "They burned them. All of them." Aunt froze. Her fingers trembled, but she hid it by pretending to adjust her sleeve. She was about to rest her brush against his left palm again, but stopped halfway. Then she resumed her stroking above the skin, creating invisible ripples of fate energy.
"What about the brush I gave you?" she asked, trying to sound casual. He answered with the same hollow softness, "Elder sister broke it." Those words did something terrible to the sky. A crimson swirl began gathering overhead. Clouds twisted, thickened, darkened into the colour of coagulated blood. The ground itself turned sickly blood red, as if soaked in old massacres.
Aunt's demonic eyes widened. "How dare they destroy my things?!" Her voice cracked space. The blood-coloured clouds roared as if answering her fury. From the centre of that storm, a massive red spear formed, pure hatred, pure killing intent, and shot downward like a divine punishment towards a distance.
Suddenly a golden radiance bloomed across the sky.
A woman floated there, golden, radiant, lotus beneath her feet, ten divine hands unfurled behind her like a mandala of judgment. She caught the spear, yet even with her power, but it pierced through her golden palms. Then a tiger-shaped aura slammed into it, redirecting the attack into the forest, where both spears detonated and shook the whole region.
He recognized the golden woman. His mother. Or rather, the person who once played the role of his mother. She descended slowly, her expression twisted into disdain. "So this is where the useless bastard hid," she said, voice dripping with disgust. "What a shameful day it was when I celebrated your birth. I should've crushed you when you were still in my womb." He whispered, "Mo—" "Shut your filthy mouth!" she snapped. "Don't use that word to address me. A heretic like you doesn't deserve to."
Her gaze shifted to his aunt, sharp as blades. "And you… you dare touch him again? After what you did? You think I will let you walk? Remember who I am." Aunt's demon aura flared, the air trembling like it was afraid to breathe. "Any time," she replied coldly. His mother snorted and turned away. "Another day. We will settle this when it matters. For now… both of you disgust me."
She vanished in a streak of gold, leaving the land trembling behind. Silence fell like ash. He sat down on the ground, staring at nothing. No tears came; even sorrow had dried inside him. His eyes were open, but they didn't see the world.
Aunt turned toward him, he had already opened his palm again. She pressed her final stroke into his fate lines. A surge of something, cold, heavy, merciless, washed through his veins. His body weakened instantly, as if his soul had lost the strength to hold flesh. Aunt steadied him gently.
"Now you are free," she said. "Don't worry… that empty feeling will fade after some time."
He exhaled slowly through his nose. "Now you can kill me, demoness." She blinked, caught off guard. Then she scoffed loudly. "Yes. Wait—demoness? Am I not your aunt anymore? You believe that bitch's words?" She jabbed a claw at the air. "She lies like she breathes."
He stared at the ground. "Both of you lie. Both of you hid things from me. You said you were fine when you were drowning in that dark power. And she, knowing I had nothing, still refused to see me as her child. She left me like I was some nuisance she could sweep away."
Memories rippled inside him, some warm, some cold, all tangled painfully. A mother's soft touch before she learned he was a "failure." An aunt's laugh before darkness consumed her. A sister holding his hand before breaking it. A father cheering before calling him an embarrassment. A childhood painting glowing under sunlight before it was thrown into fire. Those memories clashed, and his heart twisted like a rope pulled too tight.
Aunt stepped closer, shadows curling around her. "My child, listen, this world was never fair to you. Not even once. But you still breathe. That alone makes you worthy." He lifted his head weakly. "For what?" Her answer was soft but terrifyingly certain. "For rewriting everything they tried to erase."
He said, his voice hoarse yet steady, "No. You will never. You will just use me, turn me into your puppet, and throw me away like they did. There's no difference between you two. Both of you… are dogs."
The last word struck her like a divine lightning bolt. Her demonic pupils contracted into thin crimson threads. Her aura trembled, not with rage alone, but with something older and more wounded.
"If you say that one more time," she whispered, but the whisper carried the weight of a collapsing world, "I will kill you."
He smiled, a real smile, one that bent like a broken blade but still gleamed. "Dog. You're just a dog. A foolish… shit dog." "You—shut up!" She lunged to grab him, but another hand caught her wrist mid-air. Two hands—two selves—met. One hand was demonic: blackened nails, burning red fissures running across the skin, veins like molten chains. The other hand was human: pale, slender, trembling faintly with old memories she thought she had buried.
He stared at that contrast, stunned. Slowly, the demonic hand began turning human, skin smoothing, lines softening… yet the fingers clutching the brush remained demon-clawed, refusing to let go of that forbidden instrument. Her face shifted too, half demon, half the aunt he once knew. When she spoke again, her voice carried her old warmth.
"You little brat," she said, and for the first time in years he heard her laugh like a mortal, "you still remember that thing." He laughed back, exhausted. "Only one thing from that memory." Aunt sighed a long, deep sigh, half regret, half relief. "Do you want to cultivate? Do you actually want to become a martial artist?"
His eyes were half closed, sleep pulling him away like a tide, but his voice was clear. "If I can get even one more chance… and if I can walk the path of martial arts… why would I waste such a thing?" A faint wind passed between them, mixed with centuries of unspoken guilt. She said quietly, "For a long time, I felt guilty for stealing your fate. But now… now I feel, " He muttered in his drifting sleep, "When even demons begin to feel guilt for humans… it only means they're bored of tormenting others and want to enjoy humans' misery like gods."
She paused mid-sentence… and laughed. Loud, sharp, and real. "Well said. Well said, little brat." With a flick of her wrist, she drew symbol swastika with taichi in the air from his fate ink. She shaped it into a seal and threw it onto his forehead. It sank inside like a drop of fire sliding into still water.
"You annoying child," she said in a heated voice, "even on your deathbed you can't shut up. Listen. I'm sending you to a place, walk the path you see first. The river will appear first. Follow its bank. There's a village after that. Once you reach it… fate will take care of the rest. Time will drag you where you need to be."
He grinned faintly. "Aunt… why talk so much when you're just trying to help me? You're still beautiful, but your brain is still stuck in dung."
Her face twitched. She walked over and punched him squarely in the stomach. "Little bastard! You already know why I came, don't you? You are just faking" He curled slightly from the punch, but he smiled wider. "Even after becoming a demon… you still saved me. So why would I fear you doing anything bad to me?" She looked at him for a long time. For a heartbeat, her demonic aura flickered, like a lantern running low on oil and he saw the silhouette of the aunt he once clung to in childhood.
"I should've taken you with me," she murmured. "What a waste of a good brain…" She stepped away, her form beginning to blur at the edges, dissolving like air. "I'm going now. Walk that path. Survive. Pass through everything. I don't like dead people." He chuckled. "A demon complaining about dead people… I'll come to your place one day, just to see if demons have changed or not."
She turned, cloak of shadows swirling into a whirlpool of scarlet and black. "You better," she said. "If you die before that… I'll drag your soul back just to hit you again."
She vanished.
And as she disappeared, the memory shattered like fragile glass—only to be replaced by another. And another. Good memories and cruel ones collided, mixing like oil and smoke inside his fading consciousness. Some warm, some cutting, some hopeless, some holy—everything that shaped his will flowed before him like a river of shattered reflections…
...
He laughed—softly at first, then with a broken edge—yet tears slid down the cracks of his expressionless face. "Indeed… they are such memories," he whispered. "Good, bad, precious, darkest… pure. But all this time, I cried for a name that never stayed with me. When I came into this world, I had none. They gave one to me… so I held it like a treasure. But it was nothing but borrowed dust. I cried for those useless memories that kept chaining me for years. Enough. Let me tear them apart… and be reborn."
As he spoke, his eyes slowly opened.
His entire body had become white, pure, translucent, as if carved from mist. White energy bled from his eyes and mouth, pouring down his form like melting moonlight. Deep beneath him, the innumerable black hands—formed from his suppressed fears, traumas, desires, grief—clawed harder, sensing his will becoming sharper, stronger, unbendable.
The hands writhed, becoming more frantic. They twisted together into a pitch-black sphere of grasping limbs, a writhing cage meant to trap him forever. But in front of his will—unbound and calm—they trembled like shadows before dawn.
Then,
BOOM—!
They shattered into nothingness, dissolving into mist that the abyss swallowed without mercy.
He turned away from their fading screams and began walking upward through the white void. As he moved, the abyss reacted, the black mass solidified into steps beneath his feet, each stair filled with a memory. Faces of people he once loved. Places he once feared. Moments that once broke him.
But he didn't stop. He didn't kneel. He didn't reach toward the memories, not even when they glimmered with warmth or whispered with sorrow.
He climbed.
At the highest point of the dark realm, the black figure—his inner shadow, his past self, his chained ego—felt the tremor of his approach. The ground beneath it quivered like water around a sinking stone.
It roared, voice filled with disbelief and fear, "How can you forget your beloved memories? How can you let go of the weights that shaped you? How did you come up—how dare you come up?!"
It stomped its foot, generating a massive black tsunami meant to drown him again.
But from below, white surged upward—not violently, but with the silence of a fish gliding beneath calm waters. His white aura rose, split the wave, and swallowed it whole.
He stepped onto the next stair and murmured, "I understand now… thank you for helping me, old shadow. I see it clearly—you had no name. I had no name. Names belong to those who earn them. If I need one in the future, I'll carve one myself."
He lifted his gaze and looked directly at the black figure. "And above all… remember this—I am just a traveller."
The black entity recoiled as if struck.
Before it recovered, countless black silhouettes rushed toward him—each one shaped like a cherished person from his life: aunt, mother, father, sister, village children… all twisted into grotesque forms holding knives of memory and chains of guilt.
The black entity shouted, "You cannot destroy them! They are your heart! Your past! Your story!"
He sighed softly, almost pitying. "So you're still using this trick…"
He turned around, facing the white barrier behind him.
One step.
WHOOOM—A ripple of white surged outward.
Two steps.
The ripple grew, expanding into a tidal force.
Three steps.
A wave, enormous and unstoppable.
The figures rushed at him but disintegrated on contact, bursting apart like tofu crushed under the weight of oceans. Even the black figure, terrifying and ancient, was swept up, its screams dissolving as it merged into the rising water.
The realm shook violently.
He reached the barrier, lifted his white fist, and punched.
CRRRRACK—!
This time, the realm didn't tear or fracture.
It shattered.
Fragments of darkness exploded outward like shards of glass breaking under sunlight. They evaporated before touching him. The abyss beneath him collapsed into thin air, leaving only a white road stretching endlessly ahead.
He looked back once, expression calm, almost serene.
"Useless desires…"
His voice echoed through the collapsing realm, neither anger nor sorrow—just acceptance.
He turned forward, stepping onto the path of pure white, and walked toward whatever waited beyond, the quiet rhythm of his footsteps mixing with the echoes of disappearing memories…
............
Outside, where his unmoving body still sat upon the blooming red lotus, the sigil carved by his aunt began to pulse slowly. The assembled beings, god idol, devil, demoness, and several lesser shadows, watched in a rare, shared unease. One of them finally spoke, voice roughened by old fear, "What is this sign? How can a mortal carry a mark that competes with all of us?"
The demoness leaned closer, her long black hair floating as though underwater. "Someone interfered with his fate… not by totally rewriting it, but by removing it from the world's ledger entirely. But I have never seen this pattern. It should not exist." Devil said "It exist; Someone gave him a sign that seals desire and emotion… for a moment, only a moment."
The devil frowned, his horns cracking with sparks. "A sealing sign of desire, emotions? That means his mind is unreachable, uncontrollable. We lost our hold the instant it activated. Then tell me, what are you planning to do now, god?"
The godly idol, shaped like weathered stone yet radiating pale authority, said quietly, "What about that fruit?"
The devil's eye flicked sharply toward the mortal's chest, then widened in shock. "That fruit… it's being consumed. No, worse. It's being used. He's redrawing his fate line, not overwritten by any outsider but… writing it himself. He is walking straight toward that forbidden zone we sealed inside every being since the first cycle. If he touches it… even we will tremble on our own deathbed. His strength could equal ours, at least for this short span."
The god whispered, "Then throw him into the water. His mortal shell will dissolve there, and once his body breaks, we can brand a soul-control seal over him. His will is powerful now, but without a vessel… it will crumble. Do it quickly."
The god raised her hand. "Pingi, gather the materials."
The young demon girl nodded and vanished through a rift of violet mist. While she was gone, the idols and devils lifted the red lotus with chains of light and shadow and hurled it into the abyssal water below. The lake accepted his body without a single ripple. They released much of their divine pressure to crush the lotus… but instead of breaking, its glow simply dimmed. Petal by petal, the red drained away and left behind a lotus blooming with shifting black and white, orbiting patterns like the eyes of ancient beasts.
When Pingi returned, breath uneven, she looked down at him and sighed. "I've done everything as ordered. But… I don't think he will die. Look—the emerald sphere clings to him again, protecting him even though he is unconscious. It's reacting to something deeper. Let's just wait. If he wins his trial, he'll return without a body, just soul-power, easy for us to bind. If he fails, he'll remain a fragile human forever. Either way… we win."
All three laughed, their shadows twisting in the water's reflection like split serpents.
But away from their circle, the devil on the debris spoke under his breath, "But if he understands everything… if he truly sees through it all… then—"
The demoness groaned. "You've said this a dozen times. Everyone climbs down from the top of the realm, but everyone dies in the sea. Every single one. Your fears are old and useless."
The god idol shook her head slowly. "Exactly. Didn't we already say victory is ours? Why exhaust yourself with meaningless doubts? Our circle is whole now. And even we, the oldest gods of this forgotten world, cannot comprehend it. How can a mortal could seize it? He cannot. That barrier of the seabed will smother him, or it will be his grave. We will take his body and move on from here."
The demoness lowered her head slightly. "As you wish…"
To be Continued...