Prologue

In a corner of the Ten Thousand Mountains, a heavily injured man knelt on the ground, surrounded by eleven others. His black robe with golden embroidery was soaked in blood, both his own and that of others. His beautiful crimson eyes seemed to dissolve into his red sclera, a result of burst blood vessels. His fair skin had turned pale from blood loss, his once silky black hair was now matted with clotted blood, and his once majestic face looked hideous due to missing flesh.

Yet, despite the multiple weapons piercing his body, he was not the one most severely injured. The eleven who surrounded him were in even worse condition. Each had at least one missing limb, or their origin core had been destroyed, leaving them crippled.

"This damn man... what KIND OF MONSTER IS HE!?" one of them cried out, using his spear for support to barely stand.

"We are the Four Suns and Seven Stars... and we were badly injured fighting an already half-dead man. Ha... we are truly pathetic. After this, I hope we all commit suicide to honor him," another said, tears of blood falling from his cheeks to the ground. He was deeply ashamed of what he had done, but that did not make him any better than the rest.

A silence fell over the battlefield. They looked at each other and sighed, then fell to their knees and made a fist-and-palm gesture towards the injured man.

"We, the Four Suns and Seven Stars, pay respect to the Heavenly Demon of Destruction. Please do not forgive us... even in your next life, we wish to meet again, but not as enemies, as brothers and sisters who could trust each other," they said in unison. This made the heavily injured man, the heavenly demon, burst into sarcastic laughter.

"You... damn... hypocrites..." he rasped with his blue-colored dry lips. "If we meet again... I would... give you all... a painful— *coughs up blood* —death..."

And those were the last words of the strongest man in the history of Murim: Tian Li, the Heavenly Demon, who once wreaked havoc throughout the Han Dynasty, killed the legendary Vermilion Bird alone, and even in an already injured state, fought the Four Suns and Seven Stars for five days and six nights.

However... was that truly the end of such a terrifying being? Should a man like that truly be killed in such a pathetic way? It did not seem fair... at all.

(1 chapter/day)