Dawn.

Mist blew over the city in waves, enveloping oriental palaces, high paG.o.das, and strange pyramids in a fine layer of blood. The descending gloom perfectly matched Yin Xuege"s poor mood because, even after pulling his hood over his head, he"d been unable to travel unnoticed.

The clansmen who recognized him as he pa.s.sed them by sent cold glares and sneers his way, puncturing his heart like countless flying daggers. To defend against the derisive attention, he lowered his head hurried his way past a maze of winding streets and dark alleyways, moving further and further away from "Fledgling Palace".

Fledgling Palace, or the Hall of Inheritance as some liked to call it, was the place where the elders of the clan taught the children all kinds of secret skills and strange techniques. It had been stipulated, some centuries ago, that every child under the age of 18, regardless of origin, had to live inside one of the thousands of two-story buildings situated near the grand building.

There were no exceptions.

. . .

Yin Xuege was nearly out of breath when he finally reached the door to his residence fifteen minutes later. His home was a small, dilapidated building located in a remote corner, far from Fledgling Palace.

His clan had seen to it that no one occupied any of the houses near his own. In fact, it was not so long ago that they had razed some of the neighboring buildings to the ground to make sure he remained alone.

Isolated.

Yin Xuege took a deep breath before turning the k.n.o.b and going inside. He went up to his room and cleaned himself up, replacing his partly-torn robe with a tight-fitting leather suit. When he was done, he stood in front of the mirror that hung inside of his bathroom. 

Clapping his hands against his cheeks to rouse himself, he glanced up at his reflection.

He was thin and tall, taller than most kids his age. But his face carried the cold sternness of someone who had already seen the harshness of the world. And though his long, supple hair had been tied back with a blood-red headband, two long strands had fallen across his features. 

As he continued to examine himself, he pushed the loose strands of hair back and narrowed his eyes. The simple act caused his pupils to expand and contract seven or eight times and a bright-red light, the color of blood, to appear in them.

The light lasted three seconds before vanishing as quickly as it had come. Yin Xuege tightly clenched his teeth at its disappearance, saying: "Direct descendant? I don"t need this kind of monster bloodline! I don"t need this kind of clan!"

His face paled as he recalled Yin Xuejiao"s arrogant laughter, and the years of suppression and torment he had suffered at the hands of his other clansmen. 

Head buzzing with the memories, the wisp of blood light reappeared in his eyes, growing stronger and stronger until the faint smell of blood flooded his narrow bathroom. "Monsters! Monsters, all of you!" he finally shouted.

Boom…boom…boom!

At this time, a low, deep drumbeat coming from deep within Fledgling Palace forced Yin Xuege"s attention outward. The drums, which were fabled to have been made from the skin of Fu Xi, the son of the G.o.d of Thunder, directly penetrated the depths of his mind, shaking his entire body.

The day"s lecture was about to begin and any child not in the halls of Fledgling Palace before the end of the third round of drumming would be severely punished according to clan law.

Only an insane person would skip out on lecture. 

Drawn to the throb of drums, Yin Xuege diverged the blood light in his eyes. Then he turned into a pale shadow and rushed in the direction of Fledgling Palace.

The air, torn apart by his haste, made a long, crisp "chī chī" sound, akin to that of someone ripping a piece of paper. 

. . .

The strange, almost unnatural nine-layered pyramid that was Fledgling Palace stood north of the children"s quarters. At 500 meters tall, it towered like an immortal mountain above a giant square ten miles long. The liquid blood light tr.i.m.m.i.n.g its sides made it look like a giant monster bathing in a sea of blood.

At the entrance to Fledgling Palace, a mythical statue of the Great Sage of the Eastern Monster Race, Nüwa, stood holding the handle of a beautifully-shaped long sword in her left hand and a giant, dark-red bat in her right.

Yin Xuege stopped in front of Nüwa and bowed deeply but not to the empress. He was bowing to the rather proud-looking man standing beside the giant bat, the clone image of the primogenitor of the Yin Clan that had been made using a drop of heart blood.

Boom…boom…boom!

Large numbers of children poured in from all directions as the second round of drumming began. Like Yin Xuege, they bowed to the two forms in Nüwa"s right hand, seeming to ignore her figure altogether.

After showing proper respect, they transformed into pale shadows themselves and rushed into Fledgling Palace like strong gusts of wind.

Boom…boom…boom!

Yin Xuege himself strode inside the moment the final round of drumming started.

As he walked to the front of a s.p.a.cious hall, someone purposely stuck their foot out, causing him to stumble. His steps grew disorderly as he tried to catch himself. But before he could, the two people standing behind him slammed into both of his shoulders.

The force of the impact sent him flying a good twenty meters forward, and crashing to the palace floor with a "Pā!".

He lay there for a moment, bright lights swimming across his vision, internal organs shifted.

The dozens of youths standing in the hall looked to his p.r.o.ne form and burst into laughter. Their jeers poured down on him, submerging him like a tide that could blot out the sky and shroud the earth.

Looking pale, he pulled himself to his feet and watched Yin Jiying, the chief deacon of Fledgling Palace, stalk to his front with a dreary facial expression.

"Xuege, your apt.i.tude is the worst out of all of the children. Do you think that you should still come here and waste the family"s time and resources? If I were to allocate the same number of resources that have been wasted on you to a child of one of the branch clans, they would already be twice as powerful as you are now!" he said, gently patting Yin Xuege on the shoulder before shaking his head and heaving a great sigh.

Yin Xuege clenched his hands into fists. Then, he looked up to that solemn and majestic figure known as Yin Jiying and squeezed out a few words: "Third Uncle, I am-!"

Yin Jiying suddenly threw a hand over Yin Xuege"s mouth, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Don"t call me "Third Uncle"! Only the other children are allowed to be so intimate with me — not you. I just can"t afford it."

Yin Jiying"s words caused the group of children to erupt into another round of laughter.

"Yeah! Only we can call Elder Jiying, "Third Uncle"…"

"Yin Xuege, you are not of us. How dare you call Elder Jiying, "Third Uncle"…"

"A wild donkey that doesn"t know its own nature. There"s no way Third Uncle would allow someone like that to be so intimate with him…"

Cold words pierced Yin Xuege"s heart time and time again. But as someone who was already used to being verbally abused, he gritted his teeth and shifted his attention from Yin Jiying to the reliefs that had been carved into the palace"s black-stone walls. The exquisite sculptures depicted many of his ancestors" great achievements such as the origin of the Yin —

The beginning of the DharmEnding Age, or Age of the Final Dharma, saw the collapse of the laws of Heaven and Earth, the disappearance of the universe"s spiritual Qi, and the destruction of the Immortal Way.

Humanity could no longer achieve immortality through the honest ways of cultivation.

With the hope of acquiring the Dao and attaining immortality lost, the primogenitor of Yin, Yin Tianjue, and a group of senior elders from the "Tian" Generation invaded the Blood Monster Saint Palace. Under the guise of Eastern monks, they stole a drop of holy blood that had come from a blood monster in the Upper Realm and used it to change their bodies into the tyrannical, evil-looking blood monster physique.

Once the transformation from human to monster had been completed, the Yin Clan began rearing countless mortals as blood slaves, consuming their blood essence in order to gain an alternate form of longevity.

After several centuries of constant growth and expansion, the Yin Clan became one of the strongest influences in the East and West alike.

. . .

Every child of Yin held Yin Tianjue"s immortal merit in their hearts. Yin Xuege was no exception. In fact, he had memorized even the smallest details of those vivid stone reliefs. Sometimes, when he was criticized, knocked down, or even sneered at by Yin Jiying and the other clansmen, he would find comfort in the stories the palace walls told.

I am not worse than any of those dead old man. I can also become as great as them is what he would often say to encourage himself. It was his way of giving life depth — the promise of an infinite and glorious future — midst a family where no one would care if he died, especially since no one knew the ident.i.ty of his father.

. . .

Boom!

The third round of drumming slowed and the sounds of discussion quieted. Almost instinctively, the hundred young children began arranging themselves into a neat square formation.

Yin Jiying gave Yin Xuege a look of reluctance as the youth was forced into to the last row. 
When had this wild boy become so cunning, he wondered.

There had been a time when Yin Xuege would arrive at Fledgling Palace around the first round of drumming, giving him ample time to have fun taunting him. But now, Yin Xuege would only come near the end of the third round of drumming, which didn"t leave nearly enough time for him to properly enjoy himself.

Annoyed, Yin Jiying gave a bitter-cold snort and impatiently waved to a door in the corner of the hall. A group of fresh-faced female blood slaves, dressed in pale-red gowns, quietly carried trays inside in response to his gesture.

Trembling, they bowed their heads to the Yin children for a silent moment. They knelt down afterward, respectfully raising their trays high.

The uplifted trays carried small, fist-sized bowls of white jade that were filled to the brim with a thick, bright-red liquid.

The young children laughed, took up a bowl, and drank deep. Together, their innately pale faces became flushed, and their skin turned red as fire.

Thin layers of sweat oozed from their bodies.

As the sweet fragrance of rich medicine dyed the main hall, Yin Xuege took up a white jade bowl of his own. The fist-sized bowl was paper-thin. The red liquid inside the bowl looked ordinary, but it weighed more than two jin.

The Yin Clan kept numerous blood slaves in captivity. The bowls of red liquid the children took every morning was blood essence that had been extracted from the hearts of a hundred robust blood slaves, mixed with various types of medicinal plants, and refined using many profound, secret skills.

The blood essence concoction was very expensive as it consumed a lot of different resources. But it was a necessity for the Yin Clan. Only the huge life force found in a blood essence concoction such as this could dispel the Yin Evil Qi from their bodies, allowing them to live, practice, and bear children as normal humans could.

Yin Xuege closed his eyes and downed his bowl of blood essence. The blazing liquid traveled down his throat and flowed into his abdomen, transforming into a ma.s.s of temperate, Dense Qi.

The Qi circulated through all of his limbs and bones, rapidly washing out much of the Yin Evil Qi that had built up in his body.

The waves of energy made him feel warm all over. Each cell in his body cheered as they impatiently absorbed the mysterious life force contained within the blood essence concoction.

The strength of his body grew like a piece of gra.s.s that had just obtained a year"s worth of sunshine, rain, and nutrients.

Over the course of the last two years, this bowl of blood essence had become Yin Xuege"s only external practice resource. Through one or way another, someone had been able to keep him from absorbing the moonlight essence from a full moon, preventing him from increasing his innate moon Qi.

Yin Xuege put down the small, white jade bowl and looked to the front of the formation where Yin Xuejiao was standing with the other first-grade talents. Everyone in Yin was ent.i.tled to a bowl of blood essence, not even Yin Xuejiao with his strong influence had been able to find a way to take that advantage away from him.

Yin Xuejiao, feeling his gaze, put down his own bowl as well. Smiling fiercely, he licked the wisp of blood staining the corners of his mouth. Then, in front of Yin Jiying and the other children, he grabbed the beautiful, blonde, young girl before him, extended his canines, and bit into her neck.

The young girl trembled and dropped her tray. Uttering a drunken moan, she embraced Yin Xuejiao and began rubbing herself against his body.

Yin Xuejiao swallowed the girl"s blood until her flushed face went from red to white.

Yin Jiying coughed softly when she began to convulse.

Although Yin Xuejiao was unwilling, he let go of the girl before she could die, tossing her to the ground as though she were a mere piece of trash.

Immediately afterward, face half-covered in blood, he spread his hands out to Yin Jiying and said: "Third Uncle, even though this little nephew successfully broke through his bottleneck last night, there was too much Yin Qi saved up in my body. Therefore, I lost control of myself! I humbly ask that you forgive my transgression!"

Pretending not to hear Yin Xuejiao"s plea for forgiveness, Yin Jiying began to make a fuss over the fact that he had broken through.

"Xuejiao, you unexpectedly broke through? Good…good, among the other children, you are the first person! It looks like the infinite future of the Yin Clan will be placed on your shoulders!"

Yin Jiying smiled at the indifferent Yin Xuege as he said those words causing Yin Xuege"s lip to twitch a bit and a bad feeling to arise in his heart.

It turns out that he was right to be worried because, in the next moment, Yin Jiying clapped his hands together and began to announce the object of the day"s cla.s.s: "Since Yin Xuejiao has made a breakthrough, I"m sure that a few others have also done the same. In honor of that, we will be carrying out actual combat training today."

Yin Jiying looked at Yin Xuege again—but this time with a calm, graceful smile.

"The future of Yin lies in you. So, I hope that all of you can show me your true strength!"

Translator Suyi