There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.

-George R. R. Martin

If you saw me as a newborn child, surrounded by dead bodies, you would think that I would, for sure, die.

But that’s not what happened.

I cried for a day. I remained silent for another, but on the third day, I was saved.

This weird energy started seeping out of the bodies of dead Amorians.

Was that Karma’s doing?

Did she perhaps try to help and instead that freak new energy came to being instead?

I am not sure, as I never got my wish to speak with her face to face.

But indeed, this was the first time in history that this kind of energy was recorded, and it sustained me.

There was no food, but that energy nourished me.

After one month, I had the body of a three-year-old boy; I didn’t know how to speak. The only thing I was familiar with was the darkness I had been trapped inside. I knew no smell but the stench of dead bodies.

I knew no touch, but the icy touch of death.

But I knew Yin energy by heart already, and at that age it was my first attempt at manipulating that energy.

I siphoned the entire body that blocked my way out, and that was the first time I properly saw light.

That was the first time I saw another living creature, as there were a few birds of prey feasting each now and then on the cadavers of the Amorians.

My body was powerful. I could have left, I could have probably survived the desert to reach civilization somehow, but I didn’t.

After seeing the sun for the first time, I crawled back into the space I was trapped inside for the last month.

And by instinct, I started meditating.

Two weeks later, I was controlling lumps of black substance that oozed from the bodies. They answered to my will.

Two weeks more and I made the maggots gather in front of me. They, too, answered to my will.

Training that ability for a while more birds of prey also fell under my dominion.

And two weeks from then I made the blood in their veins answer to my will.

And by the last two weeks, I remained in the hole. I had commanded the ghosts of the Amorians, but I let them rest. They deserved to rest.

During those two months, I consumed all the bodies, and all the Yin energy that reeked in the hole.

In just three months, I had the body of a twelve-year-old boy, the most horrifying twelve years old boy ever.

With each body I consumed, I learned their history, their lost hopes and dreams. By the end, I was the walking memory of all these Amorians.

I was their hopes and dreams, but most of all, I was their scorn. That’s how I got my name, and I had a mission to bring the emperor of the Solea empire to heel.

But this was a mission bigger than just one man. I had to recruit help. I had to teach others how to use and harness and cultivate yin energy.

I had to make sure I wasn’t the last one of my kind.

Your presence here, legacy taker, proves that I succeeded. Yin energy didn’t perish with me.

I called to me my birds of prey and made them carry my light body over the vast desert that surrounded the city of Amoria.

The emotion I was most accustomed to was despair, so I followed it, and that’s how I found the first Yin cultivation disciples.

This was the first time that I explored the outside world. I saw nature and the buildings of the different towns and villages of the empire.

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I saw people go about their daily business. They didn’t seem too torn by the Solea empire winning the war. In fact, it didn’t matter to the common folks who ruled. They were going to live in poor conditions either way.

That’s why it was imperative that I follow that feeling of despair, because these common folks would never share my hate for the empire. They gain nothing from wars, rather; they lose every time; the common folks are the ones who pay for the steep cost of war.

Were they wronged by each ruling lord since maybe the dawn of time? Absolutely, but they got used to it. It didn’t matter anymore who ruled and who didn’t, they just wanted to live in peace.

But those who experienced grave injustice to the point of exuding despair from miles away, those will make the perfect soldiers for my war.

After all, nobody feels this despair as much as me.

After a day of flying I found the workshop that was the source of the despair, so I descended, and inside I found a man, with his head inside a gourd, it seemed he was a gourd artist that draws art on gourds and sells them to rich households.

He was pretty much dead, dead by drowning, if I had to guess.

I got his head out of the gourd, and sat down beside his lifeless body, and instead of siphoning the Yin energy I felt trapped inside him, I pushed more of that energy into him.

It took a few days, since it was my first time doing this, but I finally brought him back to life. He woke up disoriented, while I was wondering if that means yin energy can bring any dead person back to life.

I was doing everything on instinct. I didn’t know it would work for sure, but it did.

I waited for him to orient himself after the resurrection before asking, “What is your name, sir?”

The man looked at me wide eyed before he said, “A child! My name is Dante. What happened? Who are you?”

“My name is Scorn, and about what happened, that’s what I would like to learn from you.”

Dante looked around him like he was scared before he said, “I owed the lord of these lands taxes. They put exorbitant taxes on me, because I work with fine arts, but I don’t always sell enough to pay them.” Dante stopped like he was reliving the traumatic experience before continuing, “They came to my shop, and asked me for the coins, which I didn’t have, they started breaking things as they usually do, I begged them to stop, they started beating me up, and when they were sure I really had no coins to pay them, they downed me in my biggest gourd...” Dante stopped speaking like he just realized what happened, “I was murdered! How am I alive right now?” He looked at me wide-eyed.

“I revived you, and I want you to follow me, and I promise power to take your revenge on the local lord.” I made my offer in my calmest, coldest voice.

“Who are you? How can a child your age have such power?” Dante asked me.

“I promise to tell you everything in time, but now what’s important is, will you take the opportunity or not?”

Dante was hesitant for a second before he said, “I will, I am going to follow you, if you deliver on your promise, I am not sure how you come to have such power, but I know you revived me, and that’s enough for now.”

I took the huge gourd that they drowned him inside, as it had gained special energy from the experience, and sat with it on the ground, after a while I gave it my power of manipulating the black lumps, which I hadn’t yet given a better name than “black lumps”.

I gifted him the gourd, and told him, “You now have enough power with this gourd to take revenge upon those who brought this fate on you, test the gourd’s powers before you head to the lord’s villa and finish him, then you are to meet me in Amoria.”

“Yes, my lord, thank you. I’ll join you after I show these unjust monsters what they deserve.”

I continued on my way to find my next disciple.

After another journey through the lands of the Solea Empire, I found a bustling town, which I descended upon to learn what all the crowds are about, and was informed that a high-ranking military general who was from a noble birth, is about to be executed.

Death by a thousand cuts was his sentence. I stood there with the watching masses, as they kept cutting him with small blades at the start, then bigger, much sharper blades later on.

He was bleeding his life away, while I was looking right at him, and he was looking at me. Maybe I accidentally reached out to console him with my mind.

He was very stoic, facing this horrible death.

After the two-day spectacle, he was a shriveled, lifeless body. The people had left; the soldiers left too, leaving him nailed on a wooden post.

I went to his side and did the same process that revived Dante, this time much faster.

The general awoke, still shriveled up from blood loss. He looked weakly at me and said, “Child, I saw you watching from the crowd. Is it over?”

“Yes, it is over. They killed you, but it’s not the of your story general, it won’t end here if you so choose, but first I have a question for you.”

“Ask away, child. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“Why did they kill such a high-ranking general in the army like you?”

The general looked at me for a few seconds, like he was weighing his allegiance for the empire for the last time before he seemed to reach a decision and said, “I refused to take part in the massacre of Amoria, I have been in jail since then, and now they finally got to me, and passed their judgement, death by a thousand cuts. I was always loyal to the empire. I didn’t want the stain of killing civilians to ruin the empire’s image for the rest of our days, but no one else saw the same as me, and that was the hill I died on. Now tell me, who are you, child?”

“I am the Scorn of Amoria, I am the one who will bring the empire to heel, and you will help me in doing so. That’s why I revived you.” I mentioned the fact that I revived him for my words to weigh more, and be believed, especially that my young age wasn’t in my favor.

The general sighed heavily, and closed his eyes before saying, “I accept. I’ll bring justice to the victims of Amoria, and I’ll take my justice despite those who brought forth my downfall.”

“Rise Scarlet General, you now follow a just cause, I grant you the power to manipulate blood, so that you turn the blood of those who deprived you of your own blood on them, so that you drink the blood in their veins and nourish your body from those who depleted it.”

His body started showing signs of life, as the power to manipulate blood also worked to make him regenerate his blood faster, and in a short time, he could free himself from the cross.

“I’ll meet with you in Amoria. We will take revenge on the emperor one day together.”