Inside a grand hall that stretched endlessly, cold and unforgiving.
Marble floors polished bright enough to reflect faces.
Ye Mo, sprawled on the floor, slowly opened his eye and looked around the dark surroundings in confusion.
’Hmm? Where am I?’
He clearly rembered that he had been fighting sothing...
’Ackk...! My head hurts.’
He clutched his head, trying to rember, but he couldn’t recall what he had been facing.
’...What just happened?’ Ye Mo murmured.
But when nothing ca to mind, he simply shook his head and smiled.
’Well, if I don’t rember it, then it must’ve been sothing unimportant.’
He scoffed it off with a bright grin as he looked around.
’And this place looks familiar...’ he murmured.
Then he finally noticed soone kneeling behind him and glanced back casually.
’Eh?’ Ye Mo’s eyes widened as he saw... himself.
Or rather, himself as a kid.
A much smaller Ye Mo knelt in the center, wrists bound by heavy black chains.
Even as a child, he had been tall, broad-shouldered....but this ti, he wasn’t powerful.
He was powerless.
Suddenly, the entire area brightened as the scene unfolded.
A circle of elders surrounded him, their robes shimring with spiritual light and power.
At the front, seated on the largest chair, was the clan head.
....His father.
A man with silver eyes and a voice like winter.
"Ye Mo," he said, tone devoid of warmth.
"You stand accused of losing control of your cursed qi and attempting to harm your own kin."
The younger Ye Mo flinched.
"That’s not true... Father, I didn’t—!"
"Silence."
His father’s hand struck the armrest, the sound echoing like thunder.
"You are unstable and dangerous."
His gaze lowered....cold, judging, and final.
"You were born wrong."
A soft gasp ca from the side.
A young girl, Ye Mo’s little sister clutched her robe, eyes trembling.
"Father... Brother would never hurt us!"
But the elders shook their heads and they spoke out.
"He bears sothing vile and cursed."
"His qi and mind have clearly been corroded. He doesn’t even seem to rember what happened."
"He is unfit to inherit the Ye bloodline."
The youngboy trembled.
"I can control it...! I just need more ti—"
"Ti?"
One elder scoffed.
"How many accidents must we tolerate? How many children injured? How many of our Ye na tarnished?"
Ye Mo opened his mouth... but no sound ca out.
He couldn’t rember any of those "accidents" at all.
But his cousins and the other children had pushed him, frad him....and suddenly start to feared him.
And yet he didn’t know what had actually happened.
And his father... believed them every ti.
The clan head raised his palm.
The chains on Ye Mo’s body flared, tightening like venomous snakes.
"From this mont forth, you are stripped of your right to the clan."
Ye Mo jerked in shock.
His little sister scread.
"FATHER—NO!"
But no one listened.
A spiritual seal glowed beneath Ye Mo’s knees, and the chains contracted with a cruel cracking sound.
His father spoke like he was passing judgnt on a criminal.
"You will leave the Ye clan by sunset. And you will never return."
The boy felt his heart crack as he looked pitifully at the man who stared back at him with such coldness.
"Father... I’m your son."
The clan head closed his eyes.
"No. You are the clan’s mistake."
The words fell like a death sentence.
As the guards dragged the young Ye Mo away, his sister rushed forward, clawing at their robes, crying, begging.
"Let him go! Let him go!! BROTHER—!!"
But her voice faded as the hall doors slamd shut.
And from beyond those doors...
Ye Mo heard only chains.
Clinking.
Mocking.
And...cold.
’....’
Ye Mo watched the scene in silence as he finally understood what was happening.
This was what had happened when he was a child—continually frad by other kids and even adults for things his younger self didn’t even understand.
Only much later did he realize that it wasn’t because he was cursed or anything.
It was just...one of the abilities from his Special Physique that hadn’t awakened yet and was still unstable.
But then he smiled and laughed.
’Aha~ I looked so pathetic.’
To him, this was simply the past.
The present him was powerful and enjoying life, so he didn’t think too much about it.
Heck, he had even already eliminated his own family and killed those elders and his father by his own hand, with the help of his master.
’Co to think of it, I couldn’t find my sister.’
Just as he was wondering about that, he shook his head.
What mattered more was why or how he had even co here.
Then, suddenly, the scene began to shift, showing the daily life of his younger self living on the streets like a beggar after being kicked out and abandoned by his family.
It showed how he had stolen a piece of bread from a nearby vendor and been beaten for it.
Then ca the scene of him fighting other beggars for scraps of rotten fruit.
And also how he... killed for the first ti, a man who had stumbled drunkenly into the alley, simply so Ye Mo could steal so cash.
Scenes of his younger self flashed before his eyes.
Finally the scene shifted to the mont where he was injured and beaten until he was nearly dead.
Ye Mo looked at his younger self lying half-dead in the snow inside a small alleyway.
’Ah, this should be the ti when Senior Brother ca, saw potential in , and took into the sect. Ahh~ how nostalgic.’
Ye Mo smiled without pity for his younger self as he rembered that this is the mont when a disciple of the Fire Yang Sect accidentally rescued him.
But then he looked around at the falling snow and smiled, gazing up at the night sky.
’Hey, show yourself already. Why are you showing all of this?’
At his words, the world froze.
The breathing of his half-dead younger self froze.
The falling snow froze.
...And the world turned grey.
Slowly, sothing... approached.
[Hmm...I an...no harm.]
At those words, Ye Mo turned toward the voice, which sounded ancient yet broken, and saw...
...a shadowy, smoky figure with no definite form.
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