In a very quaint village, located near the high mountains of Si Xiu, Tang Peng was having the best time of his life now. Everyone was in a joyous mood like him. His parents had exclusively prepared a feast to celebrate the coming of his great grandfather.
Their whole Quan family village was also at the feast, as they were also descendants of his great grandfather. Many years before, his great grandfather was selected by a mighty cultivator to join his sect.
Not only did he join the sect, but he even became a cultivator who extended their life. That was why he lived so long, and was going back to their village after 100 years to visit his descendants.
This time, he was extremely excited. His great grandfather had said that he would take one of his descendants back to test for their aptitude. There was a chance he could become a cultivator!
He had heard of stories passed down from his parents about cultivators levitating on their sword, levelling mountains with one hand, and various great deeds that was done for the betterment of the human race.
"Tang Peng! Come out! Let's go into the forest together!" Tang Peng could hear one of his cousins, Liu Shu, call out to him.
"Are you sure we should do this? Our parents would be worried if we go to the forest." Tang Peng's walked out of his house, and saw Liu Shu, with another cousin, Jie Ke, talking with his sister Tang Mei.
"Don't be so scared! You're almost at marriageable age, and you still act like a timid person! You need to have more courage, kiddo!" Liu Shu teased Tang Peng, which made him defensive.
"Let's go into the forest now then!" Tang Peng, provoked into agreeing with Liu Shu, then started to stomp off towards the forest on his own. The group laughed for a while, before running to catch up with Tang Peng.
"Stop! Wait for us, Tang Peng!" When the group finally caught up to Tang Peng, they were already panting. They dropped to the ground, exhausted. Tang Peng, who was also tired, sat on the ground with them.
"Since one of us will be going to be brought away by great grandfather today, let's share our hopes right here, as a sacred promise among us! I want to be a medicine master!" Liu Shu suddenly shouted out loud to the rest of the group.
"Sure! I want to be a merchant!" Tang Mei also declared her passion to the rest of the group. Tang Peng could not help but agree she was most suited to be a merchant. She had always been a stingy person since young.
Upon hearing two people of the group speak out, the remaining two of the people could not help but also say their hopes for the future. "I wish to become a martial guard that catches bad people!" Jie Ke slammed his hand on his chest to show his seriousness.
"As for me, I want to become a cultivator. Cultivators can fly and do all sorts of fancy stuff, just what I like." Tang Peng sheepishly told his hopes, which made the rest of the group laugh.
"Don't worry, Tang Peng! I'm sure you will become a cultivator!" Tang Mei patted Tang Peng's shoulder, trying to give him more confidence.
"We should go back to the feast now. I heard your parents prepared a lot of goodies this time for us!" Liu Shu, reinvigorated by his thought of food, started to hurry back to the village. Jie Ke and Tang Mei followed after him. As Tang Peng looked at their backs, a quiet smile could be seen on his face.
"Oh, whatever great being there may be, please bless me and let me become a cultivator!" Tang Peng did a quick prayer in the forested area, before walking back to the village to see the feast and rejoin the group.
He smelled the feast before he actually saw it. The smell of braised beef made him salivate heavily, not to mention how the roasted chicken releasing out an irresistible aroma. He wanted to devour all this delicious food!
"Tang Peng! Come here quickly! Otherwise, all your cousins will finish the food and be chosen first!" His mother chided him from a distance. "Alright, alright!" Tang Peng laughed it off.
Since she had already offered the food, Tang Peng did not resist this fate of his. He maintained his composure, brisk walking towards the feast. This was what a cultured cultivator was supposed to look like! It was unbecoming of him to rush over like a maniac like before to eat food.
As he walked ever closer to the feast, he felt a sudden pain in his chest area. This pain brought him to his knees, kneeling onto the ground. A sound got choked in his throat as he struggled to understand what was happening to him.
Tang Peng, with much difficulty, turned his head to see the other villagers. He only saw their bodies slumped over, with blood leaking from their eyes, trembling rapidly. Their foreheads also throbbed intensely, as if they were about to burst. Tang Mei's petite face had been twisted into a horrifying visage from the relentless pain.
Tang Peng then could feel a warm liquid trickling down his face. He tried to raise his hand to swab at the liquid, but he couldn't. He could only look downwards and see blood dripping down on the floor too.
Then finally, the full force of the Soul Shattering shockwave was released. The villagers received the full brunt of the force, which instantly destroyed their souls, turning them into pieces of Yin Qi.
Tang Peng looked at the villagers with fear as all of them concurrently shuddered, while their foreheads exploded into a blood rain. This blood rain showered Tang Peng, whose clothes was entirely stained red. Tang Peng started to shiver upon feeling the warmth of blood.
Jie Ke, Liu Shu, Tang Mei, Father, Mother, everyone of the villagers... were dead. Except for him. The shockwave also brought their dead bodies towards him. Soon, he would be dead too, just like everyone else.
"...Why? Why did everyone die?" The look on Tang Peng's face was filled with despair. This was it. There was no magical cultivators coming down to save him. No great beings he prayed to too. He was just going to die.
As Tang Peng fully embraced his fate, his soul shattered into a million pieces. His yellow soul flame was extinguished, while blood leaked out like a stream from his body.
However, what was shocking that his soul shards did not immediately turn into Yin Qi. Instead, it blackened, turning into dark soul shards. These soul shards also started to absorb the surrounding Yin Qi!
The unresolved gluttony and despair inside of Tang Peng had formed an uneasy balance, creating such a scene. Only a person who had their psyches completely broken down would have this happen to them.
Not only that, a solo white soul shard was also trying to absorb the Yin Qi in the area, competing with the dark soul shards. It had more than 100 times the suction power of each of Tang Peng's soul shards.
It even tried to absorb some of the dark soul shards, trying to break them into Yin Qi. However, it only kept drawing more and more of the dark soul shards. Eventually, it cracked into even more shards, which was absorbed by the dark soul shards.
This process of absorbing Yin Qi kept going on and on, until the dark soul shards started to turn on themselves. Most of them broke apart and was absorbed by the largest shard, which was slowly becoming rounder. When there was only it left, it turned completely round, before merging back into Tang Peng.
Once there, the bleeding started to stem, slowing to a complete stop. The blood in his body started to circulate again, letting Tang Peng breathe once more. However, he was still heavily injured, so he still laid down on the ground in a coma.
From far away, a cultivator floated on a flying sword. This was Tang Peng's great grand-father, Peng Xiu. He observed using his superior vision, and was horrified at what he saw.
"What happened here? Their souls were dissipated? This is bad, I need to tell Sect Leader about— Eh? One of the children in my family village? He's still alive? How weird. I better take him back to the sect to see if there's something wrong with him." It was already too late to save the dead people.
Their souls had already been dissipated, which was almost impossible to recover. Only an Emperor of Multitudes could do so. Hopefully, this great-grandson of his could tell him what happened, so he could resolve this incident.
Peng Xiu slung Tang Peng on his back, piggybacking him. As Peng Xiu flew back to his sect, Tang Peng dreamt of his soul flying higher and higher, reuniting with his fellow friends and parents...