Chapter : Life of Humiliation

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

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