Yin Cultivation started with me, Scorn.

In the biggest massacre of history, the army of the Solea Empire slaughtered an entire city. A peaceful city, a city for art, commerce, love, music, and poetry.

All the world knew that the city didn’t have an army. It didn’t even have a ruler, only a council that worked for free to watch over the duties of the city.

The city had a wall solely to protect it from the sand around it and predators of the desert.

A city shining in gold from miles away, its towers shining with the rays of the sun, reflecting off its beautiful glass windows and its unique bell tower.

Its purpose was to be a haven for artists around the world.

A hometown for traders, some of whom never even left the city to get richer from visiting other places.

A place where love knew no boundaries, rich and poor frowned upon marriages.

The couples started over in the city with only their love as an incentive to survive and make it together.

Prosecuted same-sex marriages or relationships that were hunted in most cities around the world weren’t in Amoria, the city of love. They were completely safe, and they thrived, while accepted and loved by the community.

The City’s Art Museum was the talk of the world, an attraction for kings and queens from around the world.

Its Opera house was the stuff of legend, music that will forever haunt our dreams, possible only because of Amoria.

The School of Philosophy, where all thinkers gather.

Teaching and being taught, arguing matters of creation, origin, time, reality, purpose of Life, Life After Death, Beauty, Love, Religion, God, Forgiveness, Ethics, and Politics. No matter how important the topic was or how trivial. It was being discussed seriously and not taken at face value, no matter who wrote the thesis.

The University of Alchemists, where all alchemists and other experimentalists gather. The constant givers of practical knowledge, like-minded people sharing their knowledge in the same place. They've divided the work to study as many fields as possible.

And the best thing about Amoria was that there was no monopoly on what they had achieved. The world always gained from the work being done in that peaceful city, with all its peaceful productions.

And finally, The Hole, where all things ended, where I began.

It was the sports center of the city, a vast hole in the middle of the city. With large walls and tiers of seats surrounding the central playing field. It extended to the top, reaching the land level on which the rest of the city was built.

The city was older than the Solea Empire, as were most things.

But once the empire had risen, there was no way to stop that beast. After many big kingdoms had lost to the empire. The rest of the world banded together to stop them.

That’s how the Alliance was born, and they've beaten the Empire in a huge war, much to the dismay of The City of Amoria.

For the Solea empire to secure war funds and press its attack on the alliance, they've turned to the richest, most peaceful city. It was the easiest target, as well as the only target.

It was like everyone except the Solea Empire forgot that this city could turn the war in either party’s favor. The Alliance didn’t think of protecting the city, and the Solea Empire wasn't above razing and pillaging peaceful cities.

Lost was Amoria because of this war, and humanity lost its most advanced arts, music, literature, and, most importantly, it's last haven for peace and love.

Lost it in a way that discouraged any similar gathering from ever happening again. Just because you want peace doesn’t mean that the world will give it to you.

The Massacre of Amoria, they called it, most thinking it’s a tale. How can such a city exist and live for that long?

It has become a myth, a city detached from history. The Solea Empire rewrote the history of the world after winning the great war.

But Amoria existed, the massacre had happened, and the Solea armies invaded the city, killing, pillaging, setting everything on fire, raping, and kidnapping.

And after everything was said and done, they rounded up all the bodies around the hole; where they were all searched for their valuables, then they dumped them into the hole.

My mother was among the victims. She was pregnant with me, the love child of a couple most loving. Became the hate child of Amoria personified, the hate child of the world incarnate. Isn’t that what they call poetic justice?

I was still in her womb, an unborn child sentenced to death before being alive.

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Minutes away from losing my motherly source of sustenance.

Thrown were her body into the hole as if it was nothing, on top of multitudes of other bodies.

From the weight of the corpses on top of her, the pressure pushed me out of her womb.

A terrified baby, alone and crying, death reeked everywhere around me.

Blood cascading over the mountain of bodies, a most macabre scene, with a background of a city set on fire, a peal of laughter is heard far away, the laughter of the soldiers who've answered the orders gladly and committed all these atrocities.

Once out of my mother’s womb, I fell, my first and last fall in life, and I got stuck in a gap between the bodies that got blocked seconds after I fell into it.

A newborn in need of nourishment, love, and care, that can’t even breathe anymore.

The only air around is the filthy stench of dead bodies, among a trickling waterfall of blood.

*****

image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]

This time, Seph didn’t hear Scorn’s voice. He saw what the baby saw; he saw what the mother of the baby saw!

He saw the beauty of Amoria, the terrifying armies of the Solea Empire, and the mayhem in the downfall of Amoria.

Most of all, he saw the baby. He tried to reach out to save him, to keep him from harm, to dig him out from where he'd gotten trapped.

But he was just a witness to a most depressing scene, after witnessing a most exhilarating greatness, peace, and love.

After the scenes ended, he was dropping into a natural cave. Light was coming in from somewhere, and all rocky brown walls surrounded him.

“Okay, Sun, a new challenge. Be careful and let’s do this.”

Sun was on Seph’s shoulder, so he patted Seph on the head and pointed forward.

Seph moved forward and right around the corner, they found themselves face to face with a feral wolf.

The wolf, startled by them at first, started growling, drool dripping down from its open mouth, showing scary, sharp fangs. It went in for the attack. Seph met the wolf with his palm strike. The wolf dodged the first one, but it couldn’t dodge the second in time, and got its face smashed in by the power overbearing.

Seph looked around carefully for any threats, then got an idea to experiment with the Gourd of Phantom Death, Stores Death to Unleash Mayhem.

So what if he put the wolf inside? Even if he'd have to cut it.

Seph started messing around with the Gourd and found that its pointy top was removable. He went to the wolf’s body, dragged it to the Gourd, and lifted it to the mouth of the Gourd, when a most uncanny thing happened!

The gourd siphoned all the flesh and fur of the wolf inside it. It was like a vortex of flesh being sucked into the gourd. The top of the gourd flew and closed it tight right after it inhaled that wolf’s body.

Sun Wukong was freaking out again, screaming and holding his head, and pointing his little index finger at the gourd, his eyes wide open.

Seph was in as much amazement, but not fear. He had a resolve in his heart that The Gourd was his weapon, and Sun was his friend. Neither of them was going to harm him.

Touching the gourd, his hand infused with his energy again. It flew to his back.

Looking at the bones the gourd left behind, he found a bone that was glowing with a faint ghostly blue light. Seph used the eye on it.

Appraising... Name: Phantom Bone (Wolf) Type: Enchanted Bone. Quality: Rare. Magical Ability: Summons a Phantom wolf when thrown at an enemy.

“Amazing! With this, we could attack from range, or chase a running enemy instead of running after them!”

Seph mused, Sun nodding to him as usual, but Seph was also wondering how to use his Gourd of Phantom Death. He infused the gourd with his energy again. Thinking of taking something out of the gourd to throw at his enemies, a lump of black goo flew out to his open hand, which he clutched and threw at the bones.

They started getting black dots on them in a short time, and then started decomposing at an alarming rate in front of his eyes.

Wow, this is an amazing attack. The only issue is that the process takes a tad too long.

I can only use this as an opening attack at the start of fights and hope that my opponents don’t have an answer to it.

Having checked out his new weapon. He figured out a little more about this new wondrous world he was now part of. Seph continued moving forward through the cave until he came to another turn. After crossing it, he saw three wolves. The wolves noticed him immediately and started circling him.

Seph threw a lump from the gourd at the wolf in front of him, while moving back to create some distance.

The right wolf lunged for his leg, but Seph met it with a palm strike that killed it. The wolf on the left side, though, got to him fast while he was busy, and bit his left leg. Seph screamed in pain, before focusing and landing a palm strike to the back of this wolf, too, crushing its spine.

With an injury once again, Seph dug out the heart of the wolf. He made a mess to reach where its heart was, as he didn’t know wolf anatomy, and ate it and healed immediately.

He stored these wolves as well after extracting their hearts in The Gourd of Phantom Death, which he will always do from now on, and got only two new Phantom Bones, as the wolf that decomposed didn’t get siphoned into the gourd.

Seph started trying to be smarter and was sneaking around the cave now to at least be able to attack the wolves before they got to him.

Deeper into the cave, Seph found two different paths, one leading to an area that looked to be the source of light, which he thought might be the way out.

The other led to the largest room in the cave.

After pondering a little, Seph headed to the big room instead, after all, he had finished the last challenge early, so he wouldn't have to fight any of the remaining four competitors, especially after getting the grand prize, but now he had all the time in the world to explore this cave and find out if there is a treasure he can use in this place.

Sneaking into the big room, they found one enormous wolf inside, and five normal wolves, all lying down, totally relaxed. It was a good thing that the distances in this cave were vast, or they would have heard the fighting with the previous four wolves.

Seph summoned two lumps of whatever ungodly substance was in his gourd and threw both of them at two of the relaxing wolves.

They whined in pain, and all the wolves became alert to his presence. The big wolf howled, followed by the other wolves; it felt that his howl gave them a boost somehow, because they all became angrier and came running at him faster than the wolves he killed.

For the first time since entering this cave, Sun jumped off Seph’s shoulder, so that he could take on a wolf by himself.