The Man From Murim

It was a pleasant evening in the city of New York.

The roads were buzzing with the ever long traffic, the sun half set, rays of light spread through the running waters, people walking through the streets, students running out of school, criminals planning for their jobs at night, a certain arachnid themed hero on the watchout.

While residents of New York were busy with their work, on the west outskirts of the city, away from all the noises, a man found himself in a humble looking house.

His long hair dangled in the sweet breeze while his sparkling crimson eyes gazed around without a speck of interest.

"Hmm weird." He muttered in a hoarse tone, with his fingers cupped over his chin.

His black robe danced along as he stepped towards a window, the edges of the robe gleamed in shiny red as the rays of sunlight fell upon them while he stood next to the sil.

His fingers gently swiped the wood, he brought his hand closer to his face and looked at the dust settled in them.

"Not an illusion nor an art." He mumbled.

He looked around the room narrowing his eyes, there wasn't much to give him an idea about the place.

The room was fairly small, furnished with wooden floor and walls, a single couch in a corner and a shelf next to it filled with books.

"System." He mumbled again.

Suddenly out of nowhere a rectangular blue box appeared, floating above his head, it moved with him as he walked to the bed.

[An Unforeseen incident has occurred.

The System will reboot.]

"Re. Boot? That's a new word." He fell back on the bed as the screen washed away from existence and came back after a moment.

[System Reboot 97%]

[...98%]

[...99%]

[...100%]

[Reboot complete: Say 'Status' or 'Status window' to activate]

[New universe detected.

Adjusting potential limits.

User's potential has been set to limitless and User's Level and Stats has been lowered to the universal criteria]

"Status."

[ ]

[Status:

Name: Zen

Age: 127

Title: The Heavenly Demon (12 Others)

Innate ability: Corrosion, Corruption, Death, Blood.

Health Bar: 168190/168280

Level: 120

STR: 392

END: 518

DEX: 470

INT: 552

WIS: 706

CHA: 711

LUK: 620

Stat Points: 0

]

He didn't bother to swipe through the page and gave a mental command to the screen.

[ ]

(The Unknown phenomenon have filtered and locked most of your skills)

[System Skills: (Retrieved)

•Demonic Mind (Passive)

•Demonic Eyes (Passive)

•Soul Bound (Passive)

•Inventory (Passive)

(Other skills have been locked)]

"Never bothered me." He muttered and clicked on each skill.

Immediately the page expanded and the information of the skill appeared.

[Demonic Mind:

Your mind is a zone of death and insanity.

Effect: If somebody tries to look into your mind, they will see their worst nightmares until they go insane or their mind breaks.

Limit: Skill doesn't apply if you permit someone into your mind. ]

[Demonic Eyes:

Eyes are the window to souls but in this case, it's the mind.

Effect: You are able to look into the mind of others, find the weak points and 'Observe' their Status.

Limit: Skill doesn't apply if you are unable to see their eyes. ]

[Soul Bound:

Any Bets or Agreements made with you are Soulbound, forcing all participants to follow through with their bets or agreements, unable to try and worm out of it no matter what their personality is like. ]

"Hmm." He trailed off with a hum as he flicked to the next page.

[ ]

[User Skills: 30

•Demonic Soul Art

•Blood Armory

•Corrosive Touch

•Berserk

•Composure

…]

The final page went on and on until it reached the 30th skill but he didn't pay attention to any of them and closed the status.

He closed his eyes as the memories of his life on Murim ran through his mind.

Murim.

A barbaric society run by the law of the jungle.

The strong thrive in glory while the weak die without honor.

Zen was the son of one of the elders of an Orthodox sect, his father was one of the most powerful and righteous cultivators on the high heavens but he wasn't that lucky.

Zen was born a cripple, his inability to cultivate made him a black spot for his parent's pride and honor.

On his 14th birthday he was thrown into the streets of the lower heaven and was left to rot in a dark alley, his inability to cultivate made him a perfect prey for the revenge seekers of High heavens and enemies of his father.

He lived like a parasite for the first few years, clinging to the people of power but his life changed one day, on a near death incident he awakened a system.

It didn't pressure him to do things or paved his future, it gave him rewards if he trained to an extent or made certain achievements.

With the help of it he ascended to the realm of master at an unprecedented rate while earning a name for himself in the process.

'The Heavenly Demon.'

He got that because of my principle of not allying with any of the sects and factions, he would participate in any martial tournaments and crush each of his opponent's will to fight with pure strength.

Because of his indifference, the sects started to send their assassin squads to end him, worrying about the possibility of Zen turning against them and that was their biggest mistake. He never wanted to fight them, all he ever wanted was to bring down his home realm and watch it burn.

The Sects never believed his words and kept their attempts for his life in the dark but he soon grew tired of it.

He made a decision to wipe out every bothersome sect that stood against him and the first step of that was to create a sect of his own.

A sect for people like him, made of misfits and those abandoned and disgusted by society.

Hence The Demonic Sect came into existence.

A sect that worships pure strength and power.

Zen picked up the beggars, gave them food and money if they train as he says, the beggars, who the sects called worthless shit was turned into martial-masters that work, kill, torture for money. The Beggar faction.

He rescued the women from the brothels of Orthodox sects, they were mistreated for their whole life while living it like they never wanted to, he trained them to core and turned them as masters of the death. The Pleasure palace.

He took in children left at the streets and orphanages and forged every ounce of them into a killing machine.

Did Zen regret that he was turning children into bloody monsters?

No, he never was, the world left them, abandoned them, hurt them by taking away their way of life, they got every bit of right to hurt it back, he felt like he was showing the way.

After years of training, he waged war upon the orthodox sect on behalf of all the Murim, it went on for years and years but in the end he won.

He still vividly remembers the look on his father's face moments before his death, it was purely devoid of hope and was filled with anger and despair as he watched his son kill his brothers and sisters in cold blood without an ounce of remorse.

After the war came a peaceful era and the Heavenly Demon was not needed anymore, so even with all the rejection, Zen secluded himself in a mountain manor.

Like every other day he was training in the courtyard, when suddenly he felt his existence vanish from the world.

Next thing he knew he was in a small room, he had never seen before.

"Not that room Ryan." His eyes gently opened as his ears perked up at the feminine voice.

'Hmm… looks like I'm not alone.'

He keenly extended his senses and heard two pairs of footsteps outside the room, it belonged to a young man and a girl.

They moved away from the door and walked towards a room beside him. He didn't bother about it and sat up.

'First, I need to figure out where I am.' He mentally made a note.

"Ahhhh! Ryan! stop it!"

'Hmm, then I need to find a way back to Murim.' He cupped his chin and thought about it more deliberately. 'But do I really have to go back, I don't have any purpose.'

"Please Ryan stop it! Please!"

'Even if I decided to go back, I don't have the ability to do that.'

"Shut up Fel! I know you want this! J-Just stay silent! It will all be over soon!"

'Maybe I should just kill some people, raise my level, have a drink and think this though, it's really fascinating, if my level is lowered does that mean there are stronger beings in this realm than me? Hmm… that would be a wonderful challenge if they are indeed stronger.'

"Stop it Ryan! Please let me go!"

"Young people." Zen muttered and stood up, he turned around with his hand curled into a fist. He pulled back his arm and punched the wooden wall, shattering a huge chunk of it. "Any realm you go to, they never understand manners these days."

Zen walked into the next room as dust began to settle, his eyes roamed through it and landed on two figures, one above the other.

He gazed at the woman below or to be exact a girl, she had long snow white hair spread down the floor with green eyes gleaming at him with a sense of hope and above her, a guy knelt with his pants half down.

Both of them were half naked, the girl had a palm print on her cheeks while the man had claw marks all over his face.

"I understand you are busy but keep your voices down, I'm trying to think." Zen said with a plain face.

"P-Please help me!!" The girl screamed.

"Not interested." He replied nonchalantly. "Slay him yourself."

"I-I.. Stay away man, stay away!" The man suddenly stood up and pulled a knife from his back, the girl shrieked in terror and moved back.

"Really?" He deadpanned looking at the blunt edge of the pocketknife. "You are trying to deflower a woman forcefully and the best weapon you have in your arsenal is a blunt dagger."

Zen immediately looked at the young woman.

"Really? You are letting 'him' force you?"

A moment of silence passed in the room.

"Fools." Zen launched forward leaving an after image in his place.

Ryan's eyes widened in surprise but before he could react, a hand clutched his face and smashed him against a wall, delivering a skull breaking blow.

"Arghhh!" Ryan yelled in agony as blood flowed out from the back of his head.

Zen dropped him on the floor, clutching his head tightly Ryan tried to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood as he paced towards the door.

Zen calmy watched as Ryan struggled to reach for the door handle.

Ryan turned around and slumped against the door, his eyes filled with tears while blood slowly started to drip out of his nose, ears and mouth.

Zen took a step forward with a sigh and slowly walked towards the bloody mess.

"P-P-Please don't kill me." Ryan mouthed softly as he began to lose the feeling of his limbs.

Zen halted right before him and looked down at Ryan.

"Oh poor worm, you beg for life but I have already stepped on you." He slowly knelt down and whispered in his ears. "Now I'm just waiting to hear your spine to crush, it's not necessary, your pain but just-."

Zen pulled back and looked into his eyes. "-Satisfying."

He stood up in a swift, his eyes locked with the cold, dead ones for a second before darting towards the shivering figure of the young woman, slumped against her bedside.

"Hello, I'm Zen."