The skies above the Velzarim Cult rumbled with thunder.
Black clouds coiled like demonic serpents across the heavens, casting ominous shadows over the cult's blood-stained mountains. The sacred lands, silent and grim, quaked faintly as if the world itself were holding its breath. Even the vicious beasts that lurked within the Abyssal Ravines stilled for a moment. Something—no, someone—was coming.
In the secluded sanctum deep within the cult's inner valley, the midwives labored in silence. They were veterans—stoic, detached, familiar with the cursed births of children blessed by martial fate or tainted by forbidden bloodlines. But tonight, even their hands trembled slightly.
A boy was born in a place forbidden to all but the highest-ranking members—a cold, unlit chamber once belonging to the long-destroyed Heaven Destroyer Sect.
The child did not cry.
He opened his crimson eyes to the world and blinked. Silent. Still. Watching.
The elder midwife hesitated, peering at him. His skin bore no scars, no demonic markings, no signs of corruption or heavenly omen. But his presence unnerved them—a force hidden beneath calm breath and frail limbs. The woman dared not speak it aloud, but this infant's martial body was already... unnatural.
"Another one from the ashes," murmured a voice in the shadowed doorway.
An old man stepped into view. Elder Saigon, a quiet but deadly figure from the Fist Sect, once loyal to the Heaven Destroyers. His back hunched slightly, his face wrinkled with age, yet his presence pressed on the air like a great boulder. He studied the child.
"His name shall be Lucius."
The name hung in the air like a blade.
Lucius grew fast—too fast.
By the time he could walk, he had already memorized the seventy-two core footwork patterns of the basic Velzarim scrolls. He never asked questions, but he remembered everything. Every word spoken, every technique demonstrated, every movement etched into his bones.
He was assigned a caretaker, Mira, a minor disciple of the Spear Sect. She spoke little but watched him with a wary curiosity. She was the first to report his strange behavior to the sect elders. "He repeats what he sees," she whispered, "like he was born remembering."
At age three, he sparred with a child twice his size and won—not through strength, but by knowing where the blows would land before they came. His strikes were not wild nor brutal. They were surgical, perfectly placed.
By age four, he had already tempered his bones.
The process should have taken years. The elders grew silent. Rumors brewed. Was this child touched by demon blood? Or was he the last ember of the Heaven Destroyer Sect, refusing to die?
His red eyes earned him a name among the outer disciples:
"The Crimson Ghost."
But the boy never smiled, never basked in his fame. He seemed to possess a mind far older than his years—a child whose silence carried the gravity of loss, remembrance, and wrath yet unspoken. Disciples who once mocked his quiet demeanor found themselves unsettled under his gaze.
Even as a child, Lucius's life was structured around pain and silence. Training halls, bone-quenching pools, cold stone chambers—these were his world. He meditated under waterfalls, fists clenched, body shivering. He ran barefoot across razored gravel until blood mixed with the dust.
"Why doesn't he scream?" asked one instructor, watching Lucius during punishment drills. "Even the adult disciples cry out."
"He doesn't need to," Mira answered. "He remembers the pain, even when it's over."
By the time Lucius turned five, his meridians had begun to awaken. The Meridian of Fury, long believed to open only through extended cultivation, stirred to life like a sleeping dragon. His instructors debated among themselves—some wanted to isolate him for research; others argued to push him into advanced trials.
It was Elder Saigon who overruled them all.
"He will walk his path as a disciple," he said. "No more, no less."
"But he's different."
"All flames burn differently," Saigon replied. "Let him find his own shape."
Lucius didn't speak often. But when he did, his words were sharp, measured, and filled with unsettling clarity. He once corrected an elder during a cultivation lecture—pointing out a flaw in the energy circulation model. Instead of punishment, silence followed. The elder walked away wordless.
In the hidden ruins of the Heaven Destroyer Sect, Lucius often wandered alone. The elders forbade it, but he returned there every night. He stared at the shattered walls, the crumbling statues of warriors whose names had been purged from Velzarim records. He did not know them, but his blood did.
He was drawn to a broken courtyard, its stone tiles cracked and overgrown. Amidst the rubble lay remnants of what was once a hall of legends—burned tapestries, broken weapons, and collapsed pillars. One mural remained, partially intact, showing a man wielding both sword and blade, standing defiant as the heavens fractured behind him.
Lucius stared at it for hours.
Mira found him there one night, holding a rusted piece of metal that once belonged to a legendary weapon.
"You dream of them, don't you?" she asked softly.
Lucius said nothing.
"You don't have to answer. I used to see it too... before they died."
She handed him a single relic—a broken pendant etched with the sigil of the Heaven Destroyers. Its edges were dulled, but the symbol remained.
"You don't belong to the cult," she whispered. "You belong to them."
Lucius gripped the pendant tightly. It was warm.
For the first time, he closed his eyes... and dreamed.
A crimson sky loomed above a battlefield drenched in blood.
Flames danced across broken towers. A man cloaked in black and red armor stood tall amidst fallen demons and shattered saints. His sword carved through light itself. His blade crushed fate beneath his heel. Behind him, the insignia of the Heaven Destroyer Sect burned like a sun.
Lucius awoke breathless.
Something inside him had changed. His blood pulsed differently. His thoughts raced. That day, during footwork practice, he added his own movement to the sequence—an angle no child should've considered, let alone performed. His instructor froze.
"Who taught you that?"
"No one," Lucius replied.
By age six, Lucius's name was spoken with reverence and fear. He was still only an outer disciple, but even inner sect members took notice. Fights were no longer tests—they were lessons. He did not fight to win; he fought to understand.
He began developing a style of his own. Not one strictly based on any single sect's doctrine, but a strange amalgamation—graceful like the Shadow Sect, sharp like the Sword Sect, relentless like the Fist Sect. His movements carried echoes of an older time, a forgotten tradition hidden in blood.
The sect elders began to meet in secret.
"His progress exceeds even our elite initiates."
"He's a danger to the hierarchy."
"He's a child."
"A child of the Heaven Destroyers."
The Cult Leader, Malgath Voruum, heard of him.
He sat on his abyssal throne, a place where few dared to speak without trembling. When the report came, he raised a brow.
"Lucius," he muttered. "That name again."
One of his advisors leaned forward. "He bears no sign of rebellion. Shall we eliminate him as a precaution?"
"No," Malgath said. "Let the boy grow. If he lives, he'll serve. If he dies, he was never worth remembering."
But Malgath remembered.
He had destroyed the Heaven Destroyers himself.
Lucius remained unaware of the Cult Leader's interest. He trained in silence, spoke little, and learned everything. His martial body, labeled a Heavenly Martial Body by whispered speculation, refined itself at speeds previously considered impossible.
He became proficient in multiple sect techniques—fist strikes, spear formations, blade swings, and evasive shadow steps. Though no master in any, his foundation in all was flawless.
He didn't want mastery.
He wanted memory.
One day, Mira approached him during meditation.
"Why do you train so hard?" she asked.
"To remember."
"Remember what?"
"I don't know yet."
His answer frightened her more than silence.
Later that week, Mira watched him practice alone. He performed the sequence of movements from his dream with eerie precision. Each step felt ancient, each strike haunted by legacy. She felt chills down her spine. It was like watching a shadow of the past return.
At age seven, he entered the Trial of Rising Embers, a cruel test meant for disciples aged ten and above. He entered without permission. No one stopped him.
Ten disciples entered.
Only one emerged.
Lucius walked out, robes torn, eyes glowing like burning coals. Blood dripped from his fists, but none of it was his. He bowed to the elders without pride, without demand.
That night, they etched his name into the obsidian slab that listed the sect's rising prodigies.
Under his name, they carved a new title:
Crimson Demonic Sword (Candidate).
He did not ask for it.
But the world had begun to watch.
And the ashes of a forgotten sect began to stir once more.
The storm had begun—not in fury, but in silence.
And Lucius stood at its center, eyes burning like the embers of an ancient war yet to be reignited.
[End of Chapter 1]