The night smelled of blood and smoke.

Flames roared across the small border village of Elden Hollow, turning homes into funeral pyres. Screams tore through the air as black-robed figures moved like demons among the villagers.

Eight-year-old Kael Voss hid behind a broken wooden cart, his small body trembling uncontrollably. His mother, Elara, held him tightly against her chest, her hand pressed over his mouth.

"Shh… don’t make a sound, my love," she whispered, her voice shaking. Tears streamed down her dirt-streaked face.

A group of men in dark robes bearing the symbol of a crimson fiend stepped into the clearing. Their leader, a tall man with cruel eyes, laughed as he kicked aside a dying villager.

"Search every house! The Black Lotus Seed must be here. The Sect Master’s orders are clear — kill everyone if you have to!"

Kael’s mother stiffened. She knew what they were looking for.

She gently pushed Kael deeper into the shadows of the cart. "Run when you get the chance, Kael. Run far away and never look back."

Before he could answer, a black-robed man spotted them.

"There! A woman and child!"

Two cultivators lunged forward. Kael’s mother stood up, pulling out a rusty kitchen knife — the only weapon she had.

"Stay away from my son!" she screamed, slashing wildly.

The first attacker laughed and backhanded her so hard she crashed into the ground. The second grabbed Kael by his hair and lifted him up.

"Pathetic. Is this the so-called cursed bloodline?"

Kael screamed as pain exploded in his scalp. "Mother! MOTHER!"

Elara crawled toward him, blood dripping from her mouth. "Let him go… please… he’s just a child!"

The leader walked forward slowly, his eyes glowing with greed. "The Black Lotus Bloodline is forbidden. If the boy has it, we’ll cut it out of him."

He raised his hand, and a sharp blade of dark energy formed above his palm.

Kael watched in pure terror as the blade descended toward his mother’s neck.

"NOOO!"

A strange heat suddenly erupted inside Kael’s chest. Something ancient and terrifying awakened. A black lotus pattern, glowing with ominous purple-black light, appeared on his chest and spread across his skin.

Time seemed to slow.

The blade stopped inches from his mother’s neck.

"What… what is this power?!" the leader shouted, eyes widening in shock.

Dark tendrils of shadow exploded out of Kael’s small body. They were weak, unstable, but filled with terrifying potential. The shadow energy struck the two men holding him, throwing them backward.

For a brief moment, Kael felt power — real power.

But it wasn’t enough.

The leader snarled and unleashed a devastating palm strike filled with killing intent. The attack slammed into Elara, who had thrown herself in front of her son at the last second.

"KAEL… LIVE…!"

Her body flew through the air and crashed heavily onto the ground, blood pooling beneath her. Her eyes, full of love and pain, looked at her son one final time before the light in them faded forever.

Kael fell to his knees beside her lifeless body.

The world went silent.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t cry.

He just stared at his mother’s face as the black lotus mark on his chest continued to throb painfully, keeping him alive even as his small body was covered in wounds.

The leader looked at the boy with disgust and fear.

"Kill him. Make sure nothing remains of that cursed bloodline."

As the cultivators raised their weapons, the black lotus inside Kael pulsed once more — protecting the last spark of life in his broken body.

The last thing Kael remembered before darkness consumed him was his mother’s final words and the burning hatred that began to take root deep inside his soul.

End of Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Life of Humiliation

Five years had passed since that bloody night.

The once lively village of Elden Hollow was now nothing but ruins and forgotten graves. The survivors had scattered, and young Kael Voss, now thirteen years old, had become a ghost drifting through the slums of Greywind Town.

He was painfully thin. His clothes were nothing more than ragged patches stitched together with dirty thread. His long black hair hung over his face like a curtain, hiding the cold, empty eyes beneath. On his chest, hidden beneath his torn shirt, the black lotus mark remained — a constant reminder of the curse that refused to let him die.

Every day was the same.

Kael woke up before sunrise inside a broken wooden shack behind the town’s garbage dump. The smell of rot and waste was his constant companion. He rubbed his aching stomach and stepped out into the cold morning air.

“Oi, Cursed Rat!”

A group of older street boys spotted him immediately. Their leader, a bulky fourteen-year-old named Garrick, smirked as he picked up a stone.

“You still alive, freak? That black mark on your body still scaring everyone away?”

Kael lowered his head and tried to walk past them. He had learned long ago that talking back only made things worse.

But today they weren’t in the mood to let him go.

Garrick threw the stone hard. It struck Kael’s shoulder, making him stumble. The other boys laughed and joined in, pelting him with rocks and rotten fruit.

“Get lost, you cursed bastard!”

“Your mother probably died because she gave birth to a monster like you!”

“Even dogs don’t want to eat near you!”

Kael clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms. Blood dripped silently. He didn’t cry. He didn’t shout. He simply endured.

After the boys got bored and left, Kael slowly picked himself up. His body was covered in fresh bruises over old scars. He wiped the dirt from his face and continued his daily routine.

He spent the morning doing small jobs — carrying heavy water buckets for merchants, cleaning horse stables, and chopping wood. Most people paid him with leftover scraps of bread or a few copper coins. Some simply chased him away, calling him bad luck.

By afternoon, hunger gnawed at his insides like a wild beast. He hid behind a food stall and waited for the perfect moment. When the owner turned away, Kael’s hand shot out like a snake and grabbed two stale buns.

“Thief!”

The stall owner roared and swung a wooden stick. Kael ran as fast as his weak legs could carry him, dodging through narrow alleys. He finally collapsed in a dark corner, breathing heavily.

Only then did he eat — slowly, painfully, as if even the food hated him.

That night, as he sat alone on the roof of his broken shack, staring at the cold moon, Kael touched the black lotus mark on his chest. It pulsed faintly, like a second heartbeat.

“Why didn’t you let me die with her?” he whispered bitterly. “What’s the point of keeping me alive… if I have to live like this?”

Deep inside his heart, something dark and terrifying was slowly growing.

Hatred.

Pure, ice-cold hatred for this cruel world. For the strong who trampled the weak. For the Shadowfiend Sect that destroyed his life. For every person who had ever looked at him with disgust.

Kael’s eyes glowed with a faint purple-black light for a brief second before disappearing.

He didn’t know it yet, but the Black Lotus inside him was feeding on his pain, his anger, and his unyielding will to survive.

One day… it would bloom completely.

And when that day came, the world would finally understand what it meant to create a monster.

End of Chapter 2

Chapter 3: The Black Lotus Awakens

Three more years of hell had passed.

Kael Voss was now sixteen years old. Tall and lean, but still dangerously underfed. His face had sharpened with hunger and hardship. The coldness in his eyes had grown deeper — like two black abysses that had already seen too much death.

On this particular night, desperation had pushed him too far.

He had tried to steal food from the outer disciples of the Iron Claw Clan, a minor but arrogant cultivation clan that controlled a part of Greywind Town. He was caught.

“Filthy street rat! How dare you steal from us?!”

The beating was merciless.

Four young disciples, all at the early stages of Spirit Realm cultivation, took turns kicking and punching him. Bones cracked. Blood sprayed from his mouth. They laughed as they dragged his broken body into the depths of the nearby Darkmist Forest and threw him into a muddy ditch like garbage.

“Leave him here to rot. The beasts will finish what we started.”

Kael lay in the cold mud, his body screaming in agony. Every breath felt like knives in his lungs. Blood flowed freely from multiple wounds. The black lotus mark on his chest was burning hotter than it ever had before.

‘Is this… how it ends?’ he thought, his vision blurring.

Memories flashed through his mind — his mother’s warm smile, her final scream, the stones thrown at him, the endless humiliation, the cold nights with no food.

Rage. Unimaginable rage surged through him.

“I… refuse… to die… like this!”

As if responding to his will, the Black Lotus Seed inside his body exploded with power.

BOOM!

A massive surge of dark energy erupted from his chest. Purple-black light illuminated the dark forest. Ancient, terrifying runes appeared in the air around him as a deep, majestic voice echoed directly inside his soul:

“The weak are destined to be devoured… But you, child of the Black Lotus, shall devour the heavens themselves.”

Intense pain flooded every part of Kael’s body as the Primordial Black Lotus Cultivation Technique began to forcefully awaken. His broken bones started knitting together at terrifying speed. His torn muscles regenerated. Even his blood, which had been spilling onto the ground, began to flow backward into his body.

Kael screamed — not in fear, but in pure, overwhelming power.

Shadowy tendrils rose from the ground around him, absorbing the dark essence of the night itself. For the first time in his life, he felt strength flowing through his veins.

When the process finally stopped, Kael slowly stood up.

His ragged clothes were still torn and bloody, but his body was healed. His long black hair fluttered even though there was no wind. His eyes, once dull, now glowed with a cold purple-black light.

He raised his hand.

A small ball of pure shadow formed above his palm. He could feel it — the power to manipulate darkness, to hide, to strike from the shadows.

“This power…” Kael whispered, his voice low and hoarse.

A cruel, cold smile slowly formed on his lips — the first real smile in eight long years.

He looked toward the direction of Greywind Town, where the Iron Claw Clan disciples lived.

“They thought they could kill me and throw me away like trash…”

Kael clenched his fist, crushing the shadow orb. Dark energy crackled around him.

“Now… it’s time they learned what happens when you awaken a monster.”

End of Chapter 3