The city had been crumbled to the ground. A place that used to be bustling with people, had become a dusty empty land with crumbles of stone and broken wood.
Ling Lan stood in front of the graves of his brothers, telling them that he had taken care of the scums that had killed them.
"Goodbye... brothers." He sighed before he destroyed every tombstone. After he had finished destroying everything that the people build near the domain of the swords, he left in search for a peaceful place that was far from humans, to rest.
'No longer shall sins be committed on the sacred grounds.'
An oath, that he engraved to his soul.
...
A boy named Nie Lie had locked himself inside his room. He was hiding under a table, terrified of the things that were roaming around the town.
It all began when he had woken up from a nightmare in the middle of the night without his mother beside him. Waking up alone was something he was used to, because he knew she would occasionally come home in the morning whenever she had extra "costumers".
Since his mother wasn't home, he decided to go back to sleep, but when he woke up in the morning, he still couldn't find her anywhere in the house.
After waiting until the evening, his mother still didn't make an appearance. With no signs of his mother showing up, he continued where he left off, and searched for her once more in case she was playing hide and seek. In the midst of his search, he caught the scent of something very unpleasant that came from outside.
To make sure that no one hid dead fish near his house to prank him, he followed the stench.
A woman that reeked of rotten fish, was already waiting for him when he opened the door that led out of the house. She had the figure and clothes of his mother, but her skin was pale. Her back was facing him, and before he could question her, she began to walk towards him in intimidation.
What intimidated him though, was not the idea of her walking backwards, but what was behind her hair. It was the face of his mother, staring at him while she did something similar to a moonwalk. Because her actions terrified him and he was unable to handle her smell, he ran back to the bedroom, before locking himself inside and hiding under a small table.
He was only twelve, and couldn't hold the desire to pee for more than five hours. His deceased father had always told him when he was younger, to not pee inside the house but outside near a bush instead.
For this sole reason, he set aside his fear, and ran out of the house as fast as he could without minding the chances of his rotten mother still being in front of the door. His mother wasn't in sight, but in the midst of him peeing on the flowers of his neighbors, the hands and head of his neighbor popped out of the ground to reach for him.
The moment Nie Lie noticed her, he got the shock of his life, as he backed away and tripped over air. His pants got soaked from his pee, which made him feel very uncomfortable. The shocked look he had before vanished, changing into one of utter disgust.
*Blurp* 'First it was the smelly woman that looked like my mother! Now it's my neighbor lookalike who's also smelly and drinks my pee!" *Blurp*
Nie lie had vomited nearly three times. He didn't dare to look in front of him nor take a large breath. That was of course a mistake that he was ignorant of, because he didn't know that his neighbor was trying to eat his lifeforce.
The girl ripped the tunic of the unaware Nie Lie open, and stabbed her long nails through his chest while holding him in place so he couldn't escape. Nie Lie in return, felt the sudden pain, and felt sleepy. His desire of sleep wasn't enough though, because he wasn't be able to fall asleep with the source of the horrid stench below his nose. He tried fighting off the pain and stench, but he couldn't. As he struggled, he kept on shouting "Please leave me alone! Go away!"
The creepy lady didn't listen to a word he said, and kept on absorbing his lifeforce. She was an anomaly of the lower ranks, which was why it took her a lot of time to suck him dry.
A Remnant is what cultivators called anomalies like her and the death mother of Nie Lie in the era of cultivators. Remnants were the creation of a Mother Spirit that gets born from a female's strong negative emotions. They were the only anomalies that gets created by another anomaly. The Mother Spirit would feed on the yang energy from men, but corrupt the yin energy from woman to turn them into remnants.