Chronicles of the Blood Demon

The air was thick with ashes, dense like a mournful veil that choked even the most basic attempt to breathe. A deathly silence reigned over what had once been a lively village, as if even the wind had died alongside its inhabitants.

The crunch of the charred remains beneath his feet echoed like the remnants of an irreparable tragedy, mixing with the acrid stench of burnt flesh and dried blood. Everything he had loved, everything that had once defined him, lay reduced to ashes under an indifferent sky. The village was an open corpse, slowly bleeding into oblivion.

Bai Xuebing moved through the ruins, dragging a weight that seemed to crush him with each step. His clothes, torn and covered in soot, hung from his body like the rags of a life that no longer existed. But the true cold was not in the air, but inside him, an icy sharpness that had frozen any trace of hope. In his trembling hands, he held a bouquet of withered flowers, a useless offering to those who would never see them again.

The center of the village welcomed him with the makeshift graves he himself had dug. Mounds of damp earth marked the places where what remained of his family rested. His wounded hands still ached from the effort, though that pain was nothing compared to the crack that split his soul.

The flowers slipped from his fingers, falling lifeless to the ground, as if reflecting the emptiness that consumed him. He fell to his knees before the graves, unable to hold himself up. The weight of the past hit him relentlessly, every memory a dagger that pierced him: his father's bloodied face, the heart-wrenching screams of his brothers... Images that burned in his mind like lit embers, consuming him from within.

—Father... Brothers...

He whispered, his voice broken by guilt and pain. His words were barely audible, a lament lost in the air.

—Forgive me... please, forgive me...

His hands sank into the fresh earth, desperately searching for a sign, a glimpse of connection. But the earth responded with indifference, giving him only cold silence. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting tears escape that brought no comfort, only a sharper sense of emptiness.

—I couldn't save them...

He admitted between sobs. His voice was a whisper laced with venom against himself.

—I promised I would protect you... and I failed.

The pain was an endless abyss, a ravenous shadow that seemed to devour everything. He was supposed to be strong, the protector, the older brother. But he had been powerless, a spectator as his world crumbled before his eyes. The weight of that truth crushed him.

However, amid his agony, something began to change. At the depths of his soul, where only desolation had existed, a spark ignited. It was weak at first, but it grew, fed by the fire of suffering. Guilt and pain gave way to something else: fury.

The faces of the killers emerged in his mind, clear as if they were before him. Those monsters disguised as men, who had destroyed everything he loved with cruel delight. He remembered their cold laughter, their eyes full of contempt, and the emblem they wore on their backs: the damned heron. That symbol was not just a reminder; it was a living wound, a cry for vengeance he could not ignore.

The veins in his arms throbbed with intensity, his fists clenched until his knuckles turned white. The air around him seemed to change, becoming heavy, laden with pure hatred.

—I will kill them...

But each word dripped with a venom that burned. His lips twisted into a crooked smile, devoid of humanity.

—I will make them pay... with blood.

His chest rose and fell rapidly, as if his body could barely contain the storm raging within him. Fury wrapped around him like a tangible shadow, suffocating any trace of weakness. In his eyes burned a fierce determination, a promise of destruction that overshadowed everything else.

—I swear...— his voice trembled, heavy with hatred so deep it seemed to challenge the heavens themselves.

—I swear on the graves of my family that they will suffer a thousand times more than they did. I will not stop until I destroy them!

He slowly rose, his body trembling with the weight of his vow. His gaze fixed on the horizon, on a future painted with blood and vengeance. There were no more tears, no more place for pain. Bai Xuebing had buried his humanity along with his family. What remained was a demon, an unstoppable force that would not stop for anything.

With each step he took, the ashes swirled around him, as if the world itself responded to his fury. His voice rang out one last time in the thick air, like a sentence.

—If the heavens are unjust... then I will defy them. If fate is cruel... I will destroy it. No one will escape my vengeance.

And so, with determination written in every fiber of his being, Bai Xuebing left behind the ruins of his home. His figure faded into the dust and ashes, but in the air lingered his promise, heavy and terrifying.

A demon had been born, and his sole purpose was to destroy everything in his path.