1 Chapter 1

The last sunray of the year fell on this godforsaken city. Standing on a mountain near this place, a young man looking no older than twenty, looked down on this city with an lofty air surrounding him, like the incarnation of an ancient watching the silence on the streets. No feeling can be found in those ocean deep eyes aside from coldness that occasionally flashed through his eyes while he thought of his past in this horrible place.

"7 Year ago"

Fashon, a little city, nothing special in the Liaoning empire, it was just a normal small city without any devices of course, they were extremly valuable becouse they had to be handmade by refining grandmasters and that takes a lot of energy, sometimes one even needs also an array grandmaster, it covers the whole continent and is everywhere the unmatchable overlord, the Emperor is seen as some kind of divine being with his absolut power, before which even the Masters of various powerful sects can only kneel and bow their heads. Truth be told, if anyone else would dare to ask any of these arrogant Masters to do that even nine lives wouldnt help them survive. This is the law, the strong are in the right and the weak are in the wrong for being so weak. Even if someone Kills a whole family, no one will bat an eye when that person has enough might. And even if someone has a problem with that Person doing it, thinking its to cruel or evil, who would care? If you dont have the strength to protect yourself then you can only blame the Gods for being unfair. What else do you want to do? Hope that others will help you? Pathetic, in such a dog eats dog world, which sane man would come to help you and offend someone else without getting something out of it? Such people dont live long enough to help many. Thats not only true for this little backwater place but for the whole continent, even if people like to show themselves being rightous human beings, they will always have ulterior motives, may it be fame or other things they desire.

Of course there are also many people who dont care about their face and just do whatever they want, for some this is to violate others, for others it is seeing people die in a fight and again others may like to see the helplessness in others eyes. In the slums such things happen every day, nobody really cares for these people as they are not much more than livestock in the eyes of others. A mere mortal without wealth is not much different than a pigs waiting to be slaughtered just the very next day. You just have to hope that today will not be the day you die, thats especially so for kids. They are the most likely to be abducted and killed, thats also the reason why most of them die at a young age or one day just never return home and nobody can do anything against it, because what should those without power do against those that have it? Its obvious that many are dissatisfied with this but they dont have the power to change a thing about it.

One day a 12 year old, he never knew anything else than to steal, his whole life his family lived in poverty and wanting to help his parents he one day started stealing. He at least tried in the beginning but every time he was caught and got beaten up. With cuts and bruises all over his body he then went home to his concerned parents asking him what happend, but even while holding back tears because of the pain he still tried to play that everything was alright and after the parents realized after a long time that he doesnt wants to tell they reluctantly gave up persuading him. This happend for many days, the last wounds didnt even heal yet when he already got beaten up again, sometimes so bad one might think he might die any minute. Even tho he had to endure immense pain every day he didnt gave up for the sake of helping his parents and one day after many months actually managed to steal someones money, it was just some crude pouch made of some though animal leather, inside were a handful of bronze and even a silver coin! Grinning he ran home after looking at his win from the guy he ran into. His parents were suspicious about how he got the money, but as they knew that they desperatly needed it, they accepted it reluctantly. The boy was as happy as he never had been, for he helped his family. From that day on he sometimes managed to steal some money but was still often caught but the times he wasnt made him go on. This went on smoothly for two years, if you neglect the times he got beaten up, and he begann turning better and better at stealing, getting caught less often with every day. The day he turned 15 and he was happily eating some meat with his family, which bis parents had saved for, they heared excited people outside and decided to go and take a look. After arriving at one of the bigger streets Lycaon looked with wide eyes at dozens of young men and women carrying huge, fierce looking animal bodies. One looked like a horse, but was 3 meters tall and iceish blue, the people near it could even feel a chill. Another one looked like a snake but its skin was brown and red marks covered its skin, it was more than 10 meters long and had wounds, obviously made by swords all over its body. Only now did the kid look closely at the people carrying it, they were wearing long blue robes with a cloud and a raindrop in the back, most people of course knew that these were disciples of Cloud Drip Sect, one of the three great sects in this city.

„Dad who are they? Why are they carrying these animals through here?" Lycaon couldnt help himself but had to ask while looking puzzled at his father. „These are the young Cultivators of Cloud Drip Sect, they are showing the people their might by carrying the beasts they killed" his father patiently explained while others looked with disdain at the little boy who seemed to live in a well. Even thought he stole already many times to survive he still had some kind of naivity inside him.

While many people watched the disciples walking through the streets with proud expression on their faces, a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, fall in front of one of them on the street and was kicked by him to the side without batting an eye. Lycaon became enraged seeing the little girl he always saw as his sister getting hurt like this in Front of him. He ran to the sobbing little girl and took her in his arm trying to calm her down. He glared at the disciple that kicked her and didnt even try hiding his killing intent, „Apologize! Apologize to her right now!" he shouted at him, staring daggers at his head. The handsome young man turned around with a grin, „And what if I dont? Are you gonna run to Mommy and Daddy calling me mean? Listen here you little brat I'm a Cultivator and you are a mere mortal, you do not even have the right to talk to me, much less make me apolagize. So get out of here before I get your soul out of your body!" until the end he pulled his smile back and just looked at the little child coldly. He was one of the top geniuses of the Cloud Drip Sect and a mere mortal commanded hin to apolagize? That was something never heared of! Even if some kid didnt understand the differnces between heaven and earth they never would have demanded something like this! They at least knew that they couldnt offend them, but this kid actually dared to go this far! If it wouldnt be for all the people watching he would have already cut his head of.

All Lycaon could do was glare at him as his mother pulled him back in the crowd and his father knelt on the ground „Please forgive my Idiot of a son, he doesnt understand what grave mistake he did, I will make sure to discipline him better!" he hit bis forehead multiple times against the ground begging for mercy. Lycaon wanted to stop his father from humiliating himself this much becouse of him but in his mother embrance and with a hand on his mouth he couldnt even voice his thoughts out. Even thought it hurt his mother to do this to him she still did it knowing full well that another wrong word could cost them their lives.

The disciples of Cloud Drip Sect looked at them full of disdain and hatred, they lost quite a lot face because of the words the kid spoke to them but it doesnt matter what they do they cant recover it right now. If they tried to discipline him or even kill him all people would see them instead as cruel, but if they dont do anything they will look like a pushover to others, so what should they do? What would save them the most face? This is what all of them are thinking about. All of them? Well nearly all of them, the handsome youth who kicked the girl, Long Chen, already decided that he would never just let this go! Even if he cant kill him he can still vent a bit of his anger on the kids father and so he walked to the man and helped him get up with a kind smile „Kids make mistakes and parents must take responsability for these mistakes dont you think so?" to the end of the sentence the smile slowly turned to a vicious grin.

The man didnt knew what would come but also didnt dare to refut so he lowered his head and stuttered „Y-yes Lord". „Good….than you will take responsability now!" Long Chen grabbed him by his collar and threw him over the crowd and let him hit the ground hard, he let out a pained cry when his back landed on the hard floor but he didnt dare to refute for fear he might get beaten up even more and left the crowd, hurrying home.

„I want someone to follow him" Long Cheng whispered to one of his fellow disciples who immediately took care of it so that one would follow the man without others noticing. It was one of the inner disciples who followed Long Chen and learned the basics of Cloud Mist Step, a movement technique unique to Cloud Drip Sect that allows one to become untracable to someone weaker than oneself. Of course, it also depends on the weather. If one hasnt practiced it properly or didnt practice it diligently, a weaker person could also see through this disguise, but if it is practiced perfectly, even someone from a higher level could not see through this disguise. But because of the high difficulty later on most people stop paying mind to it and stop training it because they believe its better to put that time in practicing other techniques or to cultivate further instead.

As for the one who went after him, he is no different, but because all people here are only mortals without any cultivation he does not need bother thinking about being seen. After not more than three minutes he arrived at the little house Lycaon lives in,

It's not even a house, as small as it is, but that's normal in the slums, because nobody here has the money to buy a good house, otherwise they wouldn't live here at all. As he arrived he already saw through the window how Lycaons Mother explains to him what he did wrong, not even in a scolding voice but with much patiens. It was evident that they weren't really going to discipline their son which made the student angry, they lost face and even knew they weren't even afraid ?! Without delay he ran back to the others and told Long Chen what he saw. This was unacceptable for Chen, who gave them the guts to behave like this? Do they dont put him and his Cloud Drip Sect in their eyes? Presumptuous!

On the way back he thought about how he should get back at him and decided he would teach this brat a lesson, instead of the useless parents of his, that he would never forget!

When they arrived back at their Sect he hurried to his master, who happend to be the Great Elder of the sect, and explained what happend to him and what he planned to do, which his master helped him with.

"A few weeks later in the slums at night"

Instead of a dark night as normal with just a few candles being lit, the night looked as bright as day and dozens of houses were burning down, in midest a little boy knealt on the ground watching as the house he grew up in burnt down. The sound of his sobbing was only covered by the flames crackling.

This night Long Chen did what he called, giving someone a lesson. He made his friends burn houses in the slums near the one Lycaon was seen in. Another disciple was specifically send to Lycaon, he was forced away by him from his family and had to watch how they were killed, he could hear every pained cry for help and wanted to help when the flames slowly burned her to death until there was only ashes, but no matter what he tried, how loud he screamed, how much he cried, he was too weak to break free from the cultivators' grasp . Only after his parents were already burnt down with his home was he let go, let go alone in this world, not having anyone anymore.