Cold Mist Village sat like a jagged shard on the desolate frontier where the Heaven Dou and Star Luo Empires locked horns. Shrouded in a perpetual, ghostly haze, it was a place forgotten by the gods and the maps alike.
The village was small—thirty-odd households clinging to a meager existence by hunting mountain beasts and tilling the stubborn earth. Life was hard, yet it possessed a fragile, quiet peace.
Six-year-old Xue Mingyu sat on his threshold, clutching a cloth tiger his mother had stitched for him. His eyes, dark as an abyss, held a depth of calm that was eerie for a child of his years.
"Yu-er, time to eat."
His mother's voice drifted from the hearth—soft, warm, and tinged with the scent of woodsmoke and home.
It was an evening just like any other. Smoke curled lazily toward the stars, the setting sun bled crimson across the path, and the distant laughter of playing children echoed through the mist.
As Mingyu rose, a sharp, metallic stench cut through the air. Blood.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
Suddenly, a chorus of agonized screams shattered the silence.
"Aaaagh!"
"Help! Mercy!"
"My Lord Spirit Masters, spare us! We are innocent!"
He spun around.
The village entrance was an inferno. Five figures, draped in the pristine white-and-gold of the Heaven Dou Imperial Army, stood amidst the flames. Their Martial Souls flared with blinding radiance as they tore through the defenseless villagers.
The lead Spirit Master, a man with a jagged scar and a blood-drenched longsword, laughed as he impaled the Village Chief. "Old fool, why live so close to the border if you didn't want to be spies for Star Luo?"
"My Lord... we are... simple farmers..." the Chief gasped, coughing up a spray of crimson.
"The truth doesn't matter," another Spirit Master sneered, his imperial badge gleaming coldly. "The Empire needs 'military merit.' Reporting a purge of Star Luo spies is an easy promotion. Who's going to tell the difference?"
"Haha! These border rats are worth more dead than alive!"
Mingyu stood frozen, his soul feeling like it had been hollowed out. These were the soldiers of the Heaven Dou Empire—the nation that preached civilization and order. Yet here they were, butchering their own subjects for a few silver coins and a rank.
"Yu-er! Run!"
His father, Xue Feng, lunged from the shadows, shoving him toward the back of the house. His face was a mask of soot and blood, his eyes burning with a terrifying finality.
"Dad..."
"Listen to me, son." His father knelt, his rough, trembling hands gripping Mingyu's shoulders. "In this world, there is no right or wrong—only the Strong and the Weak. They kill us today because they are the hammers, and we are the nails."
"Ling-er, take the boy! Go!"
His mother, Ling-er, ran out, her face deathly pale but her eyes fierce. "Xue Feng, what are you doing?"
"I'll buy you time." He ripped a rusted hunting knife from the wall.
"No!" His mother stood her ground, her resolve hardening into steel.
They shared one last look—a lifetime of love condensed into a single heartbeat. Then, she turned to Mingyu with a final, heartbreakingly gentle smile. "Yu-er, I know you will awaken a powerful Soul. When you do... you must survive. You must become strong."
Her voice broke. "Become so strong that no one can ever hurt you, or the things you love, ever again."
"Found them! More rats in the hole!"
The door exploded inward.
His father roared, charging with the dull knife, but his blow was deflected by a shimmering barrier of Soul Power.
"Die, peasant." The Spirit Master sneered, his sword plunging into the man's gut.
"NO!" His mother shrieked, throwing her body over her husband to shield him from the next strike.
Blood sprayed—hot, thick, and smelling of iron. It drenched Mingyu's face.
It was the blood of his parents.
He watched them collapse, their fingers entwining one last time as the light left their eyes. His mother's lips moved, a final, silent plea: "Live..."
"Tch. A brat?" The Spirit Master stepped over the bodies, raising his blade. "I'll make it quick. Consider it a mercy."
Xue Mingyu slowly lifted his head.
For the first time, his black eyes didn't look calm. They ignited with a fire that seemed to come from the deepest pits of the underworld. It wasn't just grief. It was a raw, primal, and absolute Hate.
I hate these 'heroes' of the Empire.
I hate my own weakness.
I hate this world that eats the small.
"I will... kill you..." his voice was a low, jagged rasp.
"Hah? What did you say, kid?" The Spirit Master chuckled, beginning his swing—
Then, the laughter died.
In Mingyu's pupils, a terrifying scarlet light erupted. A crushing, suffocating aura surged from his small frame, cold as a winter grave.
"Martial Soul... Awakening?!" The Spirit Master recoiled, his instincts screaming of danger.
Mingyu's right hand reached out. Black mist coalesced in his palm, twisting and screaming until it forged itself into a pitch-black sword.
The blade was nearly four feet long, a jagged obsidian edge that seemed to drink the light around it. Pulsing red veins, like the heartbeat of a demon, throbbed along the steel. At the crossguard, a crimson gem sat like a lidless eye, whispering dark secrets into his mind.
[The Hellish Demonic Sword]
It didn't just want to kill. It wanted to consume.
"An Evil Martial Soul! Kill him now!" the Spirit Master shrieked in terror.
Too late.
Mingyu vanished in a blur of black smoke. The Demonic Sword carved a light-swallowing arc through the air. The Spirit Master's defense shattered like glass.
Blood didn't just spill—it was vacuumed into the blade.
As the sword tasted blood, the crimson gem flared. Mingyu's mind was flooded with the soldier's memories: every village he'd burned, every woman he'd shamed, every lie he'd told.
The soldier collapsed, his soul literally ripped from his body.
"Third Brother!" Three more soldiers charged into the room. They froze.
Standing over the corpse was a six-year-old boy, wreathed in dark energy, holding a sword that looked like it had been forged in the deepest circle of hell. His eyes were no longer human; they were the glowing red orbs of a vengeful specter.
"Heaven Dou dogs..." Mingyu's voice echoed with a ghostly resonance. "All of you... perish."
What followed was a symphony of slaughter.
He remembered the feeling of the blade shearing through bone. He remembered the screams of the "Spirit Masters" who begged for their lives.
The last soldier gasped, "You... you devil! The Empire will find you!"
Mingyu looked at him with a chilling serenity. "The Empire? If this is the Empire you protect, then it is better off in ashes."
The water that carries the boat can also capsize it. If Heaven Dou treated its people like vermin, Mingyu would be the plague that brought it down.
The blade pierced the man's throat.
When the red mist in his mind cleared, five bodies lay cold. The imperial badges were soaked in blood. The Demonic Sword hummed with a sated, rhythmic thrumming.
Mingyu knelt by his parents, but he couldn't bring himself to touch them. He was covered in the filth of his enemies.
"Dad... Mom..."
The dam finally broke. He wailed into the night, his tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks. He had his revenge, but the warmth of his home was gone forever.
In his past life, he was an orphan. In this life, fate had given him everything, only to snatch it away in a single night of fire.
What did I do wrong?
That night, Cold Mist Village was erased from the earth.
That night, a demon was born in the heart of a boy.
"I will become strong," he whispered, his grief hardening into a diamond-cold resolve. "Strong enough to rewrite the rules of this world."
He buried his parents behind the house, marking their graves with simple wooden stakes.
"One day, I will return," he vowed, bowing three times. "And I will bring the Heaven Dou Empire to its knees."
A six-year-old child, carrying a small pack and a sword of nightmare, walked out of the smoke. Behind him was his past. Ahead of him was a path paved in blood.
The Hellish Demonic Sword hummed in his hand, a dark promise of the chaos to come.