The night stretched endless, a void of ink spilt across the heavens. Above, the Blood Moon hung like an omen, painting the world in shades of crimson—a silent witness to fate's cruel bargain.
Amidst the shattered ruins of his past, Heu Ma lay broken. His robes, once pristine, were now tattered banners of his disgrace. Blood seeped from wounds too deep to count, merging with the dirt beneath him, as if the earth itself sought to claim him. Betrayal had found him here, abandoned in the wilderness, left for the vultures that circled above.
Yet the cold embrace of death never came.
A whisper, neither voice nor wind, curled through the void of his mind.
「Do you wish to trade your past for power?」
Pain dulled. Breath steadied. A presence, vast as the heavens and unfathomable as the abyss, seeped into his being. It was not mercy that saved him—it was an offer. A contract written in fate itself.
「Welcome to the Merchant System.」
A cascade of knowledge flooded his thoughts. The weight of coins, the measure of lives, the art of manipulation woven into his very soul. He was no longer a scholar, no longer a man forgotten in the dust of history.
He was a merchant, and the world itself was his marketplace.
With a slow, deliberate movement, Heu Ma pressed his hands against the bloodied ground and rose. The air shifted around him, a whisper of something unseen, as if even fate hesitated to meet his gaze.
The moon, red as spilled lifeblood, burned in the heavens above.
And below it, a man reborn took his first step toward dominion.