Chapter 1
Year 800, 8th month of the 4th Era.
Royal Palace of the Xia Empire.
The clouds gathering around the country’s capital continued to stir as it continued to rain while lightning continued to descend from the heavens before giving a final “encore” and dispersing.
“Hahaha… My king you are truly gifted and have ascended to the Martial Emperor Realm. This must be a new leaf in the history of our Xia Empire. You even caused the Heavens to rain while you ascended for the last week. With the weakening of the seal and the arrival of the predicted apocalypse in 100 years, you will surely be an important person,” laughed a young-looking man from the side of the room.
Replying to him, the obviously older man opened his eyes, sighing, “The profound qi has continued to slowly rise over the last couple thousands of years, is this really what it means by the birth of heroes in times needed most”. He continued, “Worry not, Leader Han, I will remember your contribution today. You may leave.”
Feeling his presence was not wanted anymore, he quickly bowed and replied, “Thank you, Your Majesty” before leaving.
A hundred miles or so north of the palace in a small village. An hour beforehand.
“Wahh.. wahhh..” cried a newborn baby boy.
“Calm down baby, it’s ok, mother’s here,” said a tired-looking lady.
A man next to her cursed out loud “God damnit, the thunder is scaring the boy”, while tenderly looking at the boy in his wife’s arms.
After the woman rocked the baby a few times, the door was quickly slammed open as an older man appeared and quickly said, “RUN RUN! THE BANDITS ARE HERE!”
Shocked, the husband and wife pair immediately looked at each and other and nodded before rummaging around the house for the valuables and necessities which included a basket and their warmest quilt to cover the baby boy.
Running outside the small house near the edges of the village, they quickly saw flaming houses and dead bodies.
“Find that man! Search and burn every house. He’s injured, he couldn’t have gone far. Kill all the men and keep the women and children alive. Don’t let any escape” said a one-eyed tall and muscular bandit who was assumed to be the leader.
Filled with horror, the man and woman quickly ran away while holding the basket tightly. Of course, escape wasn’t going to be that easy as the bandits had already surrounded the village. While it was easy to escape the encirclement as it wasn’t tight, they would easily be noticed and chased down. Nonetheless, the couple clung onto the little hope they had as they ran from the bandits.
“Hey, some bastards escaped this way, follow me,” said a bandit as he waved his fellow bandits to follow him in the chase.
Even though the couple were able to get a small lead at first, they were unable to escape from the bandits who were plenty more experienced in chasing and hunting their targets.
Deep in the forest, the man pulled out a small knife and prepared to stall for his wife to escape. He knew that even though he was outnumbered, he managed to reach body refinement rank 6 from his arduous village labor throughout his life and it would be enough to stall for a few minutes and hopefully take down one of these bastards with him.
“Hey, you two, go chase down the woman and bring her back,” said the most senior bandit.
The two bandits nodded and quickly ran towards the women, ignoring the husband.
“You, bastard come back -” said the man as he started running towards the two bandits but he was quickly intersected by the 3 other bandits.
Meanwhile, the woman realized that there were two other bandits chasing her. She quickly thought about what to do and remembered that there would be a river nearby as she ran towards it. She took out all the money from one of her linen pockets and put them into the basket as tears streamed down her face.
‘My child… mother and father are sorry we couldn’t be with you… honey, I’ll be seeing you soon,’ tears streamed down her face as she arrived a few feet from the riverbank.
One of the bandits, upon realizing what she was planning to do, took out a few knives and quickly threw them at the running woman as one of them impaled her right shoulder splattering blood onto the basket and quilt.
Realizing death was approaching, she gathered all her remaining strength and willpower to throw the basket a dozen feet into the river. Fortunately, the basket managed to not flip over and proceeded to flow down the river.
As her eyes were slowly enveloped by the darkness, she drew a faint smile and thought, ‘What an oddity, he didn’t cry and is still sleeping. I hope you live. Ah right, we never gave you a name… a name huh?’.
As the two bandits caught up to the woman on the ground, they soon saw the basket floating away from their vision.
“Damn it, don’t tell the squad leader about the baby in the basket, I don’t think he noticed,” said one of the bandits.
“Alright, the last time that happened, that unfortunate guy was killed,” replied the other bandit.
“It’s whatever, one less guy means one less person in line for women anyways. Alright, let’s go back, bring the body back as well. Let’s go,” ordered the bandit.
Like that, one of the many villages throughout the Xia Empire was brutally destroyed.
Meanwhile, a basket was flowing down the river as the skies continued to rain and howl. All of a sudden, the lightning all condensed down towards a singular location before striking the basket. A normal person, much less a recently born baby would no doubt be vaporized into a piece of charcoal but surprisingly, nothing happened to the basket as the lightning entered the baby .
A few seconds later, if a person was nearby, they would hear a small cry belonging to that of a baby.