1 Ch1. Prologue

Darkness enveloped the foggy blood-stained arena as a person stood motionless in the midst of it. The faint glow of moonlight illuminated where he was standing, and a lean silhouette was revealed. As his eyes swept across the arena, not a single sound was heard, and there was only silence.

The man, knowing it was finally the end, turned and left, leaving the corpses of the members of the Oreca Clan in his wake.

~~~~~

An intense pain coursed through her body as she shrieked at the top of her lungs, resulting in a stabbing pain that ceaselessly pounded on the back of her head, causing her to immediately quieten her screams to whimpers. She opened her eyes a little and saw the blood-red moon hanging in the sky.

The air smelt putrid, wisps of smoke from gunpowder clouded the air, creating an atmosphere not unlike a graveyard. The last thing she remembered was the loud clang of the emergency gong, and everything after was a blur. People screaming about a madman, a murderer in their midst. Steps echoed all around her as her friends, relatives and family scrambled to flee amongst the chaos.

Clang! Clang!

The sounds of battle rang out near the East Wing of the clan, where the clan's battle arena was, and she took off towards it. The rest of the battle was a cacophony of killing intent, blows exchanged with blows, glimpses of the mysterious but deadly attacker, and last but definitely not the least, the pain of being sliced apart again and again.

She sat up slowly, flinching as the pain from her previous fight assaulted her nerves, and struggled to not lose consciousness. Blurry-eyed, she took in her surroundings. Her eyes widened in shock, and a deep pain flashed within her eyes. Everyone she had ever known, from the kind grandmother who treated her like her own granddaughter, taking care of her since young and giving her a good education even though they could hardly afford it, to the young twins who were about the same age as her, and had basically grown up together with her, every single one of them was lying on the ground.

Still.

Doll-like.

Frozen.

Never to awaken again.

She took a step towards the East Wing, to her family's grave. The Oreca Clan wasn't that large, with only around a hundred members. She was part of the main family, but ever since her parents had passed, she started living with the branch family, and it was also when she met Grandmother Xin Wen, who took her in and treated her like her own granddaughter. Grandmother Xin Wen didn't have any children, not to mention grandchildren, so when Grandmother Xin Wen saw a young, lost girl wandering amongst the busy market in the early morning, she had approached the little girl and asked in a gentle, grandmotherly voice, "Little girl, are you lost? Do you need some help?"

At that moment, the young girl who had lost her family, her home, and the love she thought some had had for her, burst into tears, and ran into the kind stranger's arms. Grandmother Xin Wen looked into the poor girl's eyes and saw despair. Grandmother Xin Wen then decided to take care of her, to help the young girl live a normal life. She spared no effort nurturing the frail, sickly child, into a young lady, as beautiful as a newly-bloomed rose, startling and vibrant.

The twins, Shen Xiu and Shen Xia, had been by her side ever since she could remember. They were a year younger than her, and looked at her as they would an older sister. They spent countless hours training together, talking about everything under the sun and she considered them her family. She had promised to protect them.

However, fate had other plans. The amount of blood shed that night could amount to the amount of water pouring during a rainstorm. She would remember it as the Midnight Rain that took everything from her.

Looking back at the scarlet moon disappearing over the horizon, she swore, at that moment : "No matter where you are, who you are, I will find you. Be it the tallest mountain, the deepest trench, or another world, I swear, on the name of the Oreca Clan, that I will cut you down and tear you apart bit by bit, drain your blood until you run dry, until my clan members have had their fill of your suffering, and are able to rest in peace."

As she made this vow, a warm orange glow embraced the land from the horizon as the night ended and day came.

The first light of the new day had come.