The sky over the Dusk Barrens boiled with ash and fire.
A red moon hung low in the sky like a bloodstained eye, watching silently as a great noble estate burned to the ground. Once, the Draxel Clan held power here—guardians of the borderlands, lords of forgotten provinces. Now, only embers remained. Screams faded into silence. Cracked stones wept smoke.
Aeron Draxel, thirteen years old, crawled through a pile of corpses.
Blood covered his face, sticky and half-dried. His breathing was shallow, a faint rasp through bruised lungs. His eyes—once full of mischief and dreams—were now hollow. Around him lay the butchered bodies of guards, servants, even children. His father's sword lay beside him, broken at the hilt.
He pressed a hand against his side. Broken ribs. Burned flesh. Torn muscle. Still, he moved.
They had come in the night.
Armoured men with no banners. No warnings. Just cold steel and deadly silence. The clan's defenses crumbled within minutes. The inner courtyard, once filled with training cultivators and blooming spirit orchids, was reduced to blackened soil.
Aeron remembered it clearly—the firelight dancing in the eyes of the attackers, the way they called his father "traitor" before striking him down.
But worst of all was the voice of the empire's herald.
> "By order of the Silverblood Throne, House Draxel is dissolved. All titles, lands, and names are to be purged from record."
That moment seared itself into Aeron's memory, more painful than any wound.
He had no time to mourn. Only to escape.
Dragging his limbs, Aeron reached the collapsed remains of the central shrine. A statue of the clan's founder had crumbled into rubble, its head lying sideways like a decapitated king. Beneath it was the hidden passage—an ancient tunnel sealed long ago by his grandfather. He had once shown Aeron the entrance as a secret between them.
"Use this only if the family falls," the old man had said.
Aeron coughed blood onto the stone and crawled inside.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
The tunnel sloped downward, the air growing colder. The deeper he went, the more the sounds of death faded. His vision blurred. Pain throbbed in every bone. But something… called to him. A warmth beneath the stone. A pressure in his skull, as though some ancient presence stirred at his approach.
The tunnel ended in a dead wall.
Aeron fell against it, unable to go further. His hands trembled. He whispered with what little breath he had, "I don't want to die. Not here. Not like this."
A faint glow emerged from the cracks in the stone.
Symbols lit up—runes older than any language Aeron had seen. They pulsed with golden light, reacting to the blood on his hands. The wall dissolved into mist, revealing a chamber hidden beyond.
He staggered in.
The air was thick with spirit energy—old, heavy, and deep. This was no mere hiding place. It was a tomb. Or a vault. Or both.
In the center stood a stone pedestal with an obsidian sphere hovering above it, surrounded by faint rings of glowing script. Surrounding the sphere were eight stone pillars, each etched with a cultivation stage. Body Foundation. Transition. Spiritual Beginner. Spiritual Warrior… all the way to God.
Aeron collapsed before the sphere.
The moment his head touched the stone floor, a whisper slithered into his mind.
> "You have bled. You have lost. You have been betrayed. But your path does not end here..."
His eyes widened. "Who's there?"
> "This vault was never meant to be found. But you bear the blood of the old line. You carry the spark."
The sphere brightened, floating toward him.
> "My name has long been forgotten. My body turned to dust. But I was once called the Storm Prophet. And you, child… shall inherit my legacy."
Before Aeron could reply, the orb flew into his chest.
Pain lanced through his body, not like a wound, but like a rebirth.
Every nerve caught fire. His meridians surged. His core—unformed and shallow—snapped open as if split by thunder. He screamed until his throat tore, until his soul trembled.
Then the pain stopped.
And everything changed.
---
When Aeron awoke, he lay upon a floating disc of stone, drifting in an endless sky of stars. Around him, fragments of knowledge drifted—scrolls, diagrams, memories not his own.
> "What… is this place?"
> "The Inner Domain of my Spatial Kingdom," the voice answered. "A piece of space forged by will and sealed by my death. Here, time flows slower. Energy flows faster. And here, you shall become more than what they tried to erase."
Aeron stood, no longer in agony, though his body felt… raw. New.
He looked at his hands. They trembled with power, faint threads of spiritual energy dancing along his skin.
> "The Storm Physique," the voice said. "A rare and evolving body. Mutated by pain. Forged in fire. You are no longer of the common flesh."
> "What do I do now?"
> "Survive. Grow. Rebuild. The cultivation path lies before you—eleven stages, each higher than the last. Each requires understanding, strength, and spirit."
The stars shifted. A series of figures appeared before him—silhouettes of cultivators at different stages.
> "You are now at the Body Foundation, Stage 1. The path is long. But you have what most do not—a kingdom of your own. Use it."
Aeron's eyes narrowed.
He remembered the screams. The flames. The man in silver who had given the order. He remembered how his mother's body was hung on the gates, how his brothers were gutted in front of the courtyard.
He clenched his fists.
> "They will pay."
> "Not yet," the voice warned. "A storm does not start with thunder. It begins with silence. Watch. Wait. Build. And when the sky breaks, strike."
---
Back in the real world, Aeron opened his eyes.
The hidden chamber was still glowing. The runes had dimmed, but the Spatial Kingdom now pulsed faintly through the ring that had formed on his finger—a black band etched with lightning.
He was weak. Hungry. But alive.
And no longer helpless.
He stood, gripping the jagged half of his father's sword.
The clan was gone.
But he remained.
And that… was enough to begin.
Aeron dragged himself out of the chamber, body aching but soul alight with a new kind of energy. He had not just survived—he had awakened. His skin tingled with power, a current buzzing beneath his veins. He was now a cultivator, the first step taken on a path that stretched into the heavens.
But first… he needed to escape.
The hidden tunnel twisted deeper underground, leading toward an old forest on the edge of the estate. His grandfather had spoken of it—a forgotten exit, buried for centuries, used once during an ancient clan war.
It was there, near the moss-covered gate hidden beneath a tangle of roots, that Aeron collapsed again. The toll of his injuries and awakening dragged him into unconsciousness, but not before he whispered:
"Draxel may have fallen… but I haven't."
—
The wind howled through the Pineshade Wilds.
A shadow moved between the trees—graceful, cautious, deadly. It was a beast, lean and muscular, with dark fur and silver eyes that shimmered with intelligence. A Steelclaw Wolf. Mid-tier spirit beast. Level 19. Known for their tracking instinct and lethal strikes.
This one paused as it reached the boy's unconscious body.
Sniffing cautiously, it circled once, twice. Then it sat.
Not a growl. Not a bite.
Just a stare. Curious. Watchful.
Hours passed.
When Aeron awoke, the first thing he saw were those eyes—clear, focused, aware. He instinctively reached for his father's broken sword, ready to fight, but the wolf did not move.
Instead, it stood, turned, and walked away slowly, as if inviting him to follow.
He hesitated… then did.
Step by painful step, Aeron followed the creature deeper into the forest, until they reached the edge of a stream where fresh berries and clean water awaited.
The wolf vanished after that.
But Aeron knew it wasn't by chance.
Some beasts, the old books said, had a sense for bloodlines touched by ancient power. And others… simply knew when fate had turned its gaze.
—
The next few weeks passed in silence and pain.
Aeron built shelter beneath a cluster of stone outcroppings. He hunted small prey using crude traps. He meditated each night, absorbing the spirit energy of the wild—thin as it was—and nurtured the flickering flame within his newly formed core.
He read from the inherited knowledge stored in his mind. The basics of cultivation. Meridian flow. Qi circulation. The stages.
> Stage 1: Body Foundation — Strengthens the body. Enhances muscles, organs, bones.
> Stage 2: Transition — Opens internal channels to prepare for true energy flow.
> Stage 3: Spiritual Beginner — Forms the Spiritual Core. Begins storing true Qi.
> Stage 4: Spiritual Warrior — Can use basic techniques. Gains minor elemental control.
> And beyond…
Each stage was more demanding than the last.
Each level within the stage required understanding, time, and energy.
But with the Spatial Kingdom now at his command—accessible through his ring—Aeron could retreat there to train. Time moved ten times slower inside. A single day outside gave him ten within.
So he trained.
He fought shadows. He practiced footwork. He learned to sense spirit herbs. He hunted beasts to study their Qi patterns.
The boy who had crawled from a grave of corpses was becoming something else.
Not a prince.
Not a noble.
Something more dangerous.
A survivor with a purpose.
—
One night, as he meditated beside the stream, he heard footsteps. Not beast. Not wolf.
Men.
Mercenaries.
Rough laughter reached his ears. He stayed low in the shadows, eyes narrowing.
"…Pretty sure the bounty's still up," one man grunted, kicking at the ground. "Lord Arvon said any Draxel brat found alive gets fifty gold cores."
Aeron's hand clenched.
Another mercenary spoke, "Even if one survived, he's probably starving in the woods. Dead or feral."
They laughed.
Aeron stood, silent as mist.
He stepped from the shadows just as one of the men turned.
The mercenary's eyes widened. "Wait, who the—?"
Aeron moved.
Not with speed—he was only Stage 1—but with precision. His father's broken sword, now sharpened to a deadly edge, plunged into the man's thigh. The mercenary screamed and collapsed.
The others drew weapons.
Aeron ducked low, rolling beneath a swinging axe and driving his elbow into another man's gut. He was still weak—but he had trained relentlessly for three weeks. His body knew pain, and pain no longer slowed him.
He fought like a ghost of vengeance.
The fight was dirty. Brutal. Real.
When it was over, three men lay bleeding.
One tried to crawl away.
Aeron grabbed him by the collar, pulled his face close.
"Who sent you?" he hissed.
The man's mouth trembled. "W-we… we work for Baron Arvon… south province governor… he said wipe all Draxel out... anyone... even servants..."
Aeron's eyes grew cold.
He slit the man's throat without blinking.
—
Later that night, Aeron sat beside the fire, staring into the flames. The world around him had changed. Not because of what he had done—but because of what had been done to him.
"I'm no longer a son of a noble house," he whispered. "I'm the start of something new."
He looked at the broken sword once more.
Then tossed it into the fire.
Tomorrow, he would descend the mountain.
He would begin building something greater than any clan.
A kingdom.
Not for power.
But for retribution.
For justice.
For those whose blood still stained his hands.
A kingdom forged not in glory.
But in betrayal.