"In the hour when fate turns cruel, even the stars dare not shine."

The sky bled.

A river of crimson light poured through the heavens, staining the clouds like ink on torn silk. Thunder groaned in the hollow vastness, as if the world itself grieved. Beneath this shattered firmament, on the cold, unforgiving earth, a woman knelt in a pool of her own blood. Her robes, once a pristine white that whispered of divinity, were now soaked in scarlet ruin.

Before her stood the self-proclaimed righteous, their blades dripping with justice, their gazes cold as winter's breath.

"Jiang Yue," spoke a man in golden robes, his voice carrying the weight of finality. "Your sins have been judged. The heavens demand your life."

She laughed. A broken, weary sound that cut through the night.

"The heavens?" she whispered, her lips curling into something that was neither a smile nor a sneer. "Or men who have long forgotten what righteousness truly means?"

A child clung to her, his small fingers digging into her tattered sleeve. His body trembled, but his eyes—deep, dark pools that held no innocence—were locked onto the faces of the executioners.

"Ren," she murmured, her hand rising to cup his face. "Live."

He did not cry.

She smiled, even as the swords came down.

The wind howled, carrying the scent of blood into the night. The moon turned its face away.

And Xian Ren was alone.

"There is no justice in this world, only the blade that cuts the deepest."

The boy did not die that night.

The righteous had no time to stain their hands further with the blood of a mere child. They left him there, kneeling beside his mother's lifeless body, her warmth fading beneath his touch. They called it mercy.

Mercy.

Xian Ren learned that night—mercy was simply another word for cruelty in disguise.

The days after were a blur of hunger and silence. He wandered, nameless, faceless, nothing but a shadow in the world that had cast him aside. He found shelter where rats scurried and filth festered. He learned to steal, to kneel, to endure.

And then, he was sold.

A nameless sect, one of the thousands that littered the cultivation world like carrion birds, took him in. Not as a disciple. Not even as a servant.

A dog.

Beaten, scorned, kicked into the dirt—Xian Ren learned quickly. He learned that kindness was a lie men told themselves. That power was the only language the world understood.

That the blade was the only truth.

Deep within the sect's forbidden grounds, where even the elders dared not tread, he found it—an ancient scroll, its edges worn, its words etched in blood.

The Forsaken Blade Sutra.

A technique not meant for mortals. A power that did not promise enlightenment, only destruction.

It whispered to him in the dead of night.

"Cut away your weakness. Cut away your humanity. Cut away your fate."

And so he did.

His body withered, his soul burned, but his blade—his blade sang.

The first time he raised it, the moon trembled. The second time, the wind ceased.

The third time…

They bled.

The tormentors. The ones who had beaten him, who had spat on him, who had laughed as he starved—tonight, they were the ones screaming.

And Xian Ren did not smile.

He merely looked down at the corpses at his feet, at the blood that painted the earth, and felt nothing.

The heavens did not weep for them.

No one did.

And in that moment, he understood—

There was no need for heaven. No need for mercy. No need for fate.

There was only the blade.

And he would carve his own path, no matter how deep into the abyss it led.

"If the heavens stand in my way, then I shall cut them down."

Thus began the legend of Xian Ren.