In the rough edges of civilization at the bottom of a waterfall, a young man swears vengeance upon the Tang Clan of Sichuan. At the peak of the mighty tower in the middle of the Murim Alliance in Wuhan, a young man kneels for two elders nine times as initiation of their master/apprentice relationship. North of the Great Wall at the high peak of a mountain, a young man walks out of the Demonic Cave with the legacy of the Founding Heavenly Demon.
The Central Plains may have grown peaceful and lax but that trio of young men is about to bring a storm of blood and turmoil to the entire world. A storm that will usher in the end of the world.
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[Somewhere in Sichuan Province]
A corpse of a young man washed off onto a bank of a nameless narrow river. Say what you want about young men's corpses washing off to banks of nameless narrow rivers but that particular corpse of a young man washing off that bank of that nameless river was still drawing breath, barely so.
It was a fascinating condition despite all the water gathered in his lungs, which he was certainly coughing out the moment he powerlessly rolled his body to the side. However, that was far from enough to save his life. His killer was most certain that if the river didn't kill that young man, he would be killed by the poison eating away his life.
If we look at that poison in particular, it can be said that it has been a part of that young man's body for quite a while now alongside many obvious signs of physical abuse, starting from his face to his limbs and torso. If counted, there would be several broken ribs and fingerbones, multiple fractures, broken teeth, swollen eyes, whiplash wounds, burn marks, a ruptured testicle, a skinned spot on the thigh, and many missing nails on his toe and fingers.
The world was never a kind place but in this particular case, the world was one mean son of a bitch. Let's leave it at that and marvel at the survival of this living corpse. No, let's do better, let's discover its background.
It starts at the prestigious Tang Clan of Sichuan from the city of Chengdu, one of the Five Great Clans of the Central Plains and the family of the Poison King, Tang Ji, a martial master who reigns supreme as one of the greatest of this era. Enjoying such a prestigious position and being a member of the Orthodox Alliance of Murim, the Tang Clan holds an overwhelming authority to do whatever they want with little regard to the Government and its laws, which are mostly distant when it comes to the affairs of the Murim and its vagabonds.
All of that gives the Tang family an easy leeway when it comes to killing someone who is a martial artist, so long they prove that he is one, and what is better than being a member of their own faction at that? All they need to do is to stigmatize with whatever taboo they deem logical and off with his head.
Tang Seong, the corpse that washed off a bank of a nameless narrow river from the intro, was such a character.
Was it bullying? Hating? Cliche Murim rivalry over some jade beauty or jealousy of one's good fortune? Nope, none of that. Actually, Tang Seong was killed by his own father so that's as cheesy as it can get.
To make it more logical, Tang Sungki wasn't exactly Tang Seong's father. He has been for the past 17 years but as of late, Tang Sungki — who occupies the position of an Elder of the Medicine Hall — has discovered a method of Blood and Qi circulation called the Blood Proof along with Jegal Seokjo, the great archivist of the Jegal noble clan, and Moyong Wonsik, a physician of the Moyong noble clan. This method was a part of a medical research done by the three Elders to test out the ability to build inherent resistance to toxins, specifically, the ones used by the Unorthodox Factions and the Demon Cult.
With the Blood Proof method, the research was meant to discover a safe way to perform blood transfusions without causing the host's body to reject the donor's blood. The method itself included mixing drops of blood from the two parties and infusing them with Qi through a certain method of Qi Circulation to awaken the innate natures of the blood. It was to be a groundbreaking technique and so the elders brought one of their children each to assist with the research. It was there when things went wild.
The Blood Proof method — later called by that name following the incident of Tang Seong — was discovered to not only reveal the computability of blood but also dictate the closeness of blood relations.
The mixed droplets of blood on a silver needle would grow brighter the closer ones are as relatives. In the case of Moyong Seokjo and his daughter Moyong Minah as well as Jegal Wonsik and his son Jegal Jongnam, the blooded needle was glowing like a candle but in the case of Tang Sungki and his supposed son Tang Seong, it was barely glimmering.
It was alarming for some reason but no action was taken before the anomaly was investigated thoroughly. Many members of the Tang Clan were secretly invited and asked to donate blood to test the glowing effect of the Blood Proof technique before a conclusion was reached. If the blood relation was strong as of father to child, it would glow bright like a candle. The more this blood relation thins out, like cousins and distant relatives, it would gradually wane until it completely fades.
It was at this point when Elder Tang Sungki tried the Blood Proof on his wife and son and it was as bright as ever. His wife is, without a doubt, the mother of his child but it appears that he is not the father.
That night, the wife confessed under the whip of her husband that she was unfaithful. As for the identity of the man whom she was in an affair with, no one really wanted to know. After all, the needle had a slight glimmer which meant that the elder Tang Sungki and Tang Seong are still distant relatives. It was a member of the Tang Clan who was in bed with Tang Sungki's wife.
This would cause discord in the family, it would even cause bloodshed.
For the sake of the clan's peace, the clan's friends of the Jegal and Moyong clans were told to keep matters a secret. Still, the joint research was already doomed despite the unexpected fruit that is the Blood Proof method, which was banned from by the Tang Family council.
On the other hand, the Wife of Elder Tang Sungki was sentenced to death worthy of an unfaithful wife by the clan elders. It was a swift trial which included consulting with elder Jegal Wonsik on the nature of the execution method which he suggested to be death by drowning in the river.
After the execution, which was done discreetly, the fate of the adultery child, Tang Seong, was to be determined. He was already locked by the clan guards and since he was guiltless, no one wanted to be heartless to him, that was until elder Tang Sungki, the man who fathered him for 18 years, stated that he no longer was a father to a bastard with the name of Seong and stripped him from the Tang surname.
This was an act of vengeance against the real father of Tang Seong, for seeing the child without a surname. The boy was to be stripped of his martial arts with his dantian shattered and be rendered a martial arts cripple. Moreover, he would no longer live the same life he had or use the same status. He would be stripped of everything starting from his own name to his own clothes and be sent to the stables with chains holding his feet together.
He was guiltless but it was Tang Sungki who sought this kind of justice. No one even voiced a single objection for the sake of the family's peace and Tang Seong was to be sacrificed.
A day later, Seong ended up getting beaten by the servants and the slaves of the family. A day after, he was trampled over by a horse. A day after that, he was run over by a youngsters' carriage. By the fourth day, all hope in his life was lost, and was disposed of by the servants in the river to join his mother.
An immodest mother and a bastard child, both worthy of a dog's death in the eyes of the Tang Family. The servants didn't even bother tying him right to the heavy stone before tossing him to the bottom of the river and it was all over for them.
Until the present time.
Tang Seong wasn't as dead as they assumed and his consciousness drifted along the river, twisting with its turns and cursing his luck, his mother, his father, and the entirety of the Tang clan.
A curse that would live on, a curse that would extend the line of hate, a curse that would be driven by fate as he branches off the main river to a smaller one and from it to an even smaller river.
As he was washed off, he spat out all the water in his guts and remained there motionless.
All the pain and hate piled up in his heart were pushing against the death that was about to claim him more times than ever. His heart was completely overtaken by dread and loath to the point where he would dig his teeth and nails in those Tang family bastards and take his revenge if he ever could… but he can't… and he won't.
He is but one cripple against the might of Sichuan's greatest.
Death was now pushing harder at him and he was subconsciously crawling out of the river into the shade of a nearby cliff.
The cliff had a cave and the cave led to something out of this world.
The trace of an evil thing was lying in there and waiting, the moment Tang Seong reached it and his blood mixed with its ancient sorcery, he would be reborn into something that was never seen before in the entirety of the Central Plains.
Dread was born.