Chapter One: Heaven Abandons Those Who Walk in the Shadows
The wild beasts weren't supposed to be loose.
But they were. And they were already feeding.
Screams sliced through the night.... thin, desperate, human. Fur and fang, hooves and claws tore through flesh and flame. Houses collapsed in crackling bursts. Blood soaked the packed dirt paths. Moonlight shimmered off broken blades and sharper beast tooths
Wan Juo stood high on the cliff above, his cloak heavy with ash. He didn't move.
Below him lay the ruins of the Sable Fang Clan.
His "family."
They hadn't raised him. They'd bought him.
Not as kin. Not even as servant. Just… property.
He remembered the first cage. he was alone, save for the rusted iron bars, Moldy straw, Cold rice and "water".
He remembered the first bite - a beast cub, newly bred, untrained. His job was to teach it submission. No whips. No tools. Only pain. His own.
They used him for everything: bait, training dummy, poison tester.
He lasted longer than the others. Not because he was strong. But because he was quiet.
He only remembered Mei.
With soft voice, shaky hands. Always glancing over her shoulder like even shadows might lunge at her.
She had nothing - no status, no power - just the same filth-stained rags and tired eyes they all wore. But she had a heart that hadn't turned to stone. Not yet
One morning, while scrubbing out a blood-crusted feeding trough, she slipped a half-steamed bun under the table. Her fingers brushed his like it might burn her.
"Don't eat it now," she whispered, her eyes darting. "They'll see."
Wan Juo blinked at the warm weight in his hand. He hadn't tasted real food in weeks. She looked away before he could say anything.
Later that day, she found him again, near the waste pile, hauling carcasses. She didn't speak this time. Just handed him a dirty cloth with a clumsy stitched rabbit sewn into the corner.
"I used to have a real one," she mumbled. "Before all this."
She smiled - crooked, quick, and fragile - as if afraid the wind might steal it.
It was the only time Wan Juo ever saw her smile.
A week later, they caught her hiding a wounded pup beneath her blanket. Said she was soft. Sentimental. Weak.
They dragged her to the pits.
Laughed as she screamed. Mocked her as the wild mountain beasts closed in.
Wan Juo didn't cry.
He couldn't.
But he remembered the scream that didn't end.
And the silence that followed.
He remembered.....her smile had become the only light left in his heart..he had to get out of here, or else he would be next
he planned. he waited
The beasts were supposed to be monsters. But monsters followed rules. The men didn't.
So he fed them. Scraps, rotten meat, just enough to change their habits. To make them associate him with something good.
Later, he whispered to them. Not commands. Not comfort. Just repetition.
Then he bled. Cut his palm. Let it drip through the bars. Let them taste.
No panic. No flinch. Only the scent.
They didn't lunge. They watched. Again. And again.
Until they knew: His scent meant no pain. His voice meant no strike. His silence… meant patience.
So tonight, when the guards passed cheap wine around a fire… He walked behind the cages.
Hands steady. Heart still.
One pin after another. One latch at a time.
Not a word. Not a command.
Just a nod.
And the wolves remembered.
The wind howled around him. Ash stung his eyes.
Wan Juo didn't blink.
Below, flesh met fang. Screams turned to gurgles. Gurgles to silence. Then the snapping of bones. Then nothing.
He turned from the cliff's edge.
Behind him: the smoking wreckage of his old world. Ahead: the Guiyan Wilds (归元荒原).
Thick forests. Rotten mists. Cursed roots. A place where even elementalists feared to tread.
He walked forward.
No bloodline. No power.
Only some bread, a cloak, a branch to lean on… and a will forged in silence.
-----------
The forest swallowed the path after a dozen steps.
The ground sloped. Roots rose like veins beneath bruised skin. Each step deeper. Each breath colder.
The sky had darkened... when? Clouds pressed low. Yellow-grey. Suffocating. Mist curled like smoke around tree trunks.
He pulled his cloak tighter.
The temperature dropped, slow and cruel. Not enough to notice. Until your fingers stopped obeying.
He leaned on his stick. Not because he was tired. But because the Wilds didn't like visitors.
The silence worried him more.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that waits. That listens.
Birds had stopped. Even the wind sounded far away, like it belonged to a different world.
He crouched. Felt the soil.
Wet. Cold. Not muddy, but sticky. Like it wanted to remember the shape of who walked it.
He wiped his fingers. Moved on.
Then a boot. Half-sunk. No blood. Just clean. Abandoned.
Beside it, claw marks. Four. Each longer than his forearm.
He didn't kneel. Didn't pause....he had seen how wild beasts hunted their prey back at the Sable Fang Training Camp. he just tucked his cloak tighter. And walked softer.
Bones came next. Not old. Fresh. Some still wrapped in cloth. Others… snapped clean through.
His grip on the walking stick tightened. His breath thinned. But he didn't stop.
That night, a split tree offered a hollow just wide enough. He crawled in sideways. Back to the damp earth. Cloak drawn. Hood low.
He didn't sleep.
Then it came.
A crack to his left. Not wind. Not water. Heavy weight. On bark.
He froze. Breath behind teeth.
Scratch. Claws on wood. Slow. Deliberate.
Mist thickened.
Then breathing. Wet. Low. Heavy. Too close.
The cold pressed tighter. Even blinking felt loud.
A sniff. Again. Nearer.
Wan Juo didn't dare twitch.
The air thinned. Time stretched. A presence hovered beyond vision - like a blade waiting to fall.
Then… silence.
Not gone. Just waiting.
Eventually, the mist loosened. The cold faded.
Wan Juo exhaled. Quiet. Shaky. Like surfacing from drowning.
And even then, he didn't sleep.
Twelve days.
No fire. No shelter. No food except what grew wrong.
He learned. Which mushrooms numbed hunger. Which trees wept water. When the night allowed movement.
He walked like prey. Then like predator. Then like nothing.
Not a man. Not a beast. Just a shadow.
His stomach no longer growled. It folded inward. Quiet.
He mimicked animal pace. Stepped where nothing had stepped. Stayed downwind. Changed rhythm.
Frost gnawed his hands. But numb hands didn't flinch.
He passed a pile of bones. Something had nested there. He carved a mark on the bark - don't return.
No prayers. No curses. Just walking.
And through it all, his eyes never stopped watching the west.
Tianxuan waited.
Two Years Later - Edge of the Tianxuan Realm
The wind at the border always carried dust. Not the soft kind that whispered through grass, but the dry, biting kind that stung the eyes and coated your tongue with the taste of iron.
The Jiang Family Caravan moved through it all. a haphazard swarm of wagons, beasts, laughter, and desperation. Oil-lamps swayed from crooked poles. Drunken shouts competed with the clatter of dice. And the smell of sweat, old leather, and stale wine hung thick in the air.
Wan Juo sat at the outskirts, exactly where he preferred, just far enough that no one noticed him unless they had to.
He gnawed on a crust of bread, hard as stone and twice as flavorless. His cloak was faded and patched, boots cracked at the seams. But his eyes—his eyes were sharp. Watchful. Unblinking.
A dog barked in the distance.
Someone shouted about cheating dice.
A woman laughed too loud.
But none of it reached him.
He sat like a shadow beside the fire, face unreadable, yet strangely calm - the kind of calm that didn't come from peace, but from surviving things too brutal to speak of. Like a blade that no longer glinted, but still cut just as deep.
Someone had once asked him why he always sat outside the fire's warmth.
He didn't answer.
Because how do you explain to someone that you've only known warmth when it burned?
His fingers tightened on the bread.
He wasn't here for camaraderie. Or coin. Or even safety.
He was here for the road - the one that led straight into Tianxuan.
The Land of Heavens.
The place where elementalists were made.
Where people didn't just survive fate — they rewrote it.
He'd heard the stories. Everyone had.
But unlike the others, he wasn't chasing fortune or glory.
He just wanted one thing:
Control.
Not of others. Of himself, his destiny that had been playing a cruel joke on him!
Because a man who couldn't shape his own fate… would always be someone else's prey.
And he had already lived as prey far too long.
---
"Today…"
The booming voice shattered his thoughts.
"…I eat like a king!"
Wang Dia stomped across the camp, belly jiggling like a war drum. The caravan boss was part trader, part gambler, and all ego. A man who'd once bet his pants and proudly lost them.
He was also obsessed with his special "Beef noodle soup".
"The Sacred Broth!" he announced, arms raised like a priest before a holy altar. "Five types of bone marrow, two ancestral spices, one divine chili pepper… and the tears of my enemies!"
A cauldron bigger than a water barrel bubbled over a crackling fire. Dia stirred it with the reverence of a monk. Sweat poured down his temples like battle scars.
"I will kill anyone who touches it before me," he growled, then turned to Wan Juo. "You! Bread boy! You've got dead eyes. Perfect for guarding soup."
Wan Juo blinked.
"Guard it. With your life. I will return victorious from the dice table, and if one drop is missing… I'll cook you in the next batch."
He didn't wait for agreement. Just vanished into the chaos.
Wan Juo stood beside the pot, arms folded.
He'd fought off wolves, survived cursed woods, endured starvation.
But nothing could have prepared him…
For this.
---
It began with a whisper.
A merchant passed, sniffed. "Just a taste?"
Wan Juo shook his head.
Then a guard. "Dia won't notice if we take a sip."
He shook his head again.
Soon the whole caravan circled like starving vultures. One tried to slip a ladle in when his back was turned. Wan Juo slapped it aside without flinching.
Then came Old Man Hei — half-senile, fully insane, and wielding a goat like a weapon.
He glared at Wan Juo. "You think you're too good for soup? I bet you poisoned it!"
"No."
"Then feed me."
Wan Juo stared at him. "You can wait."
But the goat didn't.
With an ungodly MRAHHH, it charged the table, knocked over a stool, and plunged its face into the sacred bowl Dia had carved with his bare hands.
It slurped.
Loudly.
Then belched.
"Later That Afternoon…
Footsteps thundered across the camp.
"WAN JUO!!! WHO ATE MY ENTIRE BOWL OF BEEF NOODLE SOUP?!"
The entire camp froze. Birds flew. A dog passed out from shock.
Wang Dia's shirt was stained with soy broth. His face was redder than a demonic pig. He held the empty sacred bowl like a corpse in his arms.
"This is treason! HERESY! That bowl was made with five types of bone marrow!"
Wan Juo leaned against a wagon, arms crossed.
I told them not to touch it. Ten times. I warned them. I even slapped a spoon out of someone's hand…
But he said nothing.
Wang Dia stormed up, veins bulging.
"It was you, wasn't it?! You think I don't know?! Everyone knows you don't even LIKE noodles. You just wanted to spite me!!"
"No," Wan Juo said flatly. "I wanted to live. You told me to guard it. I did."
"But... who doesn't like noodles?! Which horse-faced old fogey doesn't like noodles?!"
"Because…" Wan Juo said dryly, "the soup exploded when Old Man Hei threw a bone at a wild dog and tripped over the pot."
A pause.
"WELL THEN WHO FED THE BOWL TO THE GOAT?!"
"Also Old Man Hei."
"THAT OLD BASTARD! WHERE IS HE?!"
"Sleeping. Said you wouldn't do shit."
Wang Dia twitched.
"I'LL DO MORE THAN SHIT! I'LL KILL HIM! AND THEN I'LL KILL YOU! IN THAT ORDER!"
With a squeal of rage, he charged like a man possessed.
Wan Juo's eyes sharpened.
One step left.
CRASH!
The entire soup wagon exploded as Wang Dia's massive body tore straight through it like a comet of righteous vengeance.
A bowl clattered off his head. A spoon spiraled into the sky like a falling leaf.
Wan Juo looked at the wreckage, then back at the stunned camp.
"If I were a second slower... I'd have become soup."
A man in the crowd coughed.
A woman whispered, "He really charged... over noodles?"
Even Boss Jiang didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Wang Dia groaned from within the wreckage. "My... sacred... broth…"
Wan Juo turned back toward the fire, dusted his hands, and went back to chewing his dry bread.
"Next time, I'll just poison it."
As night settled…
Wan Juo sat by the fire again, crust of bread in hand, the stars sharp and cold above him.
Tomorrow, they would enter Tianxuan.
A land ruled by elementalists.
A land of impossible trials… and endless potential.
And he would walk straight into it.
Not because he believed he was chosen.
But because he refused to let anyone choose for him ever again.
"In a world where it's kill or be killed, only the strenght to take on challenges would matter"