The first thing I became aware of when I regained consciousness was the sound of running water. It was gentle and soothing, to the point that I almost wanted to fall back asleep again. However, I resisted the urge this time. Sleep was only an escape from my problems, not a solution. I couldn’t run forever.

The second thing I became aware of was the lack of pain. The last thing I remembered, just before I fell unconscious, was Zayne beating me. I knew from experience that I should have been in immense agony. It took days for the pain from a bruise to fade away, and even longer for the bruise itself to disappear. So either I had been unconscious for a long time, or someone had healed me using pills.

The former sounded more likely than the latter. As long as I didn’t suffer a serious injury, no one in Clan Wind Dance cared about what happened to me. No one, not even any of the servants, would have spared mortal medicine for my sake, let alone something as precious as a healing pill.

If that was the case, then perhaps Zayne had hurt me more than I realized. Maybe he had beaten me into a coma. Would that be enough for the rest of my kin to realize just how bad his abuse really was? Would that be enough for them to do something about it?

No, I doubted it. They weren’t blind. They knew what he did to me, what he kept doing to me. It was just that none of them cared.

As I laid there, keeping my eyes closed, I berated myself for talking back to Zayne. I knew what he was like, I knew he had an ego, yet I still opened my mouth and goaded him. Stupid. There were always consequences for grabbing a tiger by the tail. If I hadn’t said anything, then he wouldn’t have beaten me as badly as he had.

At least Zayne would leave me alone for the next few days. Beating me to the point that I fell unconscious for several days neared one of the lines he couldn’t cross. As long as he didn’t go too far, no one would do anything about his actions. He would avoid me for a little while, if only to lower everyone’s guard. However, after that, he would come back with a vengeance. My spirits sank when I realized that the next few weeks were going to be even more hellish than usual.

At least someone was kind enough to drag my unconscious body back home. I frowned. No, not quite. My bed consisted of little more than a cot with a thin mattress stuffed with leaves. It had lumps that always poked me in the back, and smelled musty. I was laying on something soft and comfortable. I took a sniff. The air felt cool and smelled somewhat earthy. Was I somewhere underground? Had someone brought me to the Medical Pavilion? That made the most sense.

The Medical Pavilion was where Clan Wind Dance’s spirit doctors plied their trade, making medicines and healing the clan’s disciples. I had been there once before, when I suffered an injury while practicing the Dancing Wind Blade fighting style. The spirit doctors there bandaged up my wounds and stuck me in the basement so I could heal and recuperate out of sight.

Wait a moment. If I was in the Medical Pavilion, why did I hear running water?

I opened my eyes and sat up. To my surprise, I wasn’t in the Medical Pavilion, nor was I in a building at all. Instead, I was in a cave of some sort. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made from gray stone. Based on how rough and uneven it looked, I guessed that it was a naturally formed cave rather than one made by human hands. Embedded in the ceiling were crystals that emitted a gentle yellow light. They illuminated the entire cave.

Light crystals. They were a rather common natural treasure. As their name suggested, they absorbed qi from the environment and emitted light. They were often used by cultivators and wealthy mortals. The lamps back on Mt. Wind Dance also contained light crystals.

The cave was kidney shaped and about three times the size of my house back on Mt. Wind Dance. I sat on a bed that occupied one end of the cave. A small wooden table stood beside the bed. A wooden dresser sat not too far away, leaning against the cave wall. While simple, the furniture wouldn’t look out of place in the home of a wealthy noble. The bed was soft and fluffy, as if I were sitting on a cloud. A blanket made from the finest silk covered me. Both the small table and the dresser were decorated with ornate carvings of dragons and phoenixes.

At the far end of the cave, opposite the bed, was a small spring. Water fell from an opening in the wall, filling a small basin. The basin must have had another opening to let the water flow out, otherwise it would have overflowed already. Stacks of wooden crates sat next to the basin.

The cave was otherwise bare and barren. I didn’t see anything else, including an entrance or exit. Where was I? And who brought me here? I assumed it was a cultivator, one belonging to Clan Wind Dance. No one else was allowed on Mt. Wind Dance, and the mountain was protected by powerful arrays that prevented intrusion. The cave’s walls were solid stone, but that wasn’t an obstacle to a cultivator with sufficient strength or skill.

While I was grateful to whoever helped me, I couldn’t help but feel wary. What if they had ill intentions towards me, and their aid was a prelude to something nefarious? Other than Lucius, none of my kin nor any of Clan Wind Dance’s disciples treated me with anything resembling kindness. The best I received from them was begrudging tolerance.

My heart froze as I thought of something horrifying. What if this was to become my new home? What if my uncle realized that I was too much of a hassle to deal with and decided to get rid of me once and for all? Rather than kill me, and stain his hands with my blood, what if he chose to imprison me instead? In that case, this cave wasn’t a refuge but a prison.

I frowned. No, that didn’t make sense. If my uncle had imprisoned me in this cave, then why would he bother giving me such luxurious furniture? That level of kindness was out of character for him, at least when it came to me.

Rather than speculate further, and wind myself up, I decided to get up and explore the cave further. If nothing else, I could take a look at the crates. However, as I removed the blanket and turned to get off the bed, I realized that I wasn’t wearing my own clothing. Instead of my usual brown robes, I wore a red vest trimmed with gold and a pair of loose red trousers. Both were made from fine silk.

My cheeks flushed as my mysterious savior, or captor as the case may be, had not only dressed me while I was unconscious, they had done so in clothing that showed a lot of skin. The vest revealed a lot of my chest and abdomen. Still, at least it covered my body somewhat.

Shaking off my embarrassment, I stood up from the bed and explored the cave. I found a pair of black silk slippers, so I didn’t have to walk on the cold stone floor with bare feet. A quick inspection revealed that the cave didn’t have an entrance or an exit, meaning that unless a cultivator helped me leave this place, I was trapped here. At least I had enough food and water to last me for a while.

When I opened the crates, I found that they were filled with food pellets, the kind that weaker cultivators consumed when they went into seclusion. Each could sustain a full grown adult for a day. Those at the Golden Core realm and above had no need for them, since they no longer needed to eat, drink, or sleep to sustain themselves. Instead, they relied wholly on qi.

I also found a bathroom, which I couldn’t see from the bed, so I didn’t have to worry about waste. That had been a concern of mine.

As I looked around, the idea that my uncle had decided to imprison me looked more and more likely. Despair filled me, and my legs wobbled. I leaned against a nearby wall for support and slid to the ground. After everything I had been through, after everything I had endured, this was what it had come to. I tried so hard, only for it to mean nothing in the end. My clan had tossed me away like unwanted trash.

Tears pricked my eyes and I let them stream down my cheeks. There wasn’t any point in holding them back anymore.

I had just wanted to be accepted, to be loved. Was that too much to ask for? That was all I wanted, all I needed. Wealth, prestige, status. None of that mattered to me. I just wanted acceptance and love, and yet they denied me even that much. Why? What had I done to deserve this? Being born? It wasn’t like I chose to be the son of a demon. So why was I the one suffering? Why was I the one being punished?

“Well now,” a woman’s voice said. “This won’t do.”

My head snapped up towards the source of the voice. It sounded familiar for some reason. The moment I saw her, my eyes widened and my jaw dropped. Fear gripped my throat, until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

A woman sat on one of the wooden crates, smiling at me. She had a thin but toned build. Based on her size, I guessed that she was a head shorter than me, though I couldn’t tell for sure since we were both sitting down. She had long and curly black hair, which she wore tied back in a rough ponytail.

She wore clothing similar to what I now wore: loose red trousers and a pair of black silk slippers. However, instead of a vest, she had white bandages wrapped around her chest to preserve her modesty and nothing else. The rest of her upper body remained bare. She also wore a ring made from some kind of black metal on her right ring finger. All of that alone would have caused me to stop and stare at her. However, it was the rest of the woman’s appearance that filled me with fear.

Her skin was pitch black and covered in red markings that looked like some kind of demonic script. Her eyes were a solid gold, and burned with an inner fire. Wicked looking claws emerged from the tips of her fingers. Her teeth looked sharp and predatory. A pair of hairs, each the size of my index finger, emerged from her forehead. A long feline tail covered in black fur swayed in the air behind her.

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“De-…dem-…demon!” I stuttered.

The woman, or the demon in the form of a woman, raised an eyebrow at that.

“Yes,” she said in a languid tone. “I am a demon. What about it?”

I scrambled away from the demon, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. Unfortunately, there was only so much I could do. In the end, I resorted to upending the bed and using it as makeshift cover. It wouldn’t protect me by much, especially against a demon, but it was better than nothing.

“Now that’s just rude,” the demon said in a sardonic voice “I don’t even get a chance to say hello before you run and hide from me? It’s enough to break this poor girl’s heart.”

“Stay away from me, demon!” I shouted from my makeshift hiding spot. I tried to sound brave, but the trembling in my voice betrayed my fear. “I’m warning you!”

“Oh?” the demon said, her voice in my ear. “And what will you do if I don’t? Hmm?”

I froze for a brief moment, before I turned to find the demon sitting right next to me with her legs crossed beneath her. She wore a wide grin on her face.

I yelped and scrambled to get away from her. In the process, I ended up knocking the bed over. As I ran away from the demon, I looked around for an exit. However, to my dismay, one hadn’t magically appeared since the last time I checked. Since the demon had appeared out of nowhere I had hoped she had come in through a hidden entrance, but I found no such thing.

“Will you stop that?” the demon asked, a trace of annoyance in her voice. “We won’t be able to have a productive conversation if all you do is run and hide from me.”

Since I couldn’t flee, my only option was to fight back. My chances of surviving, let alone winning, were close to zero against a demon but it was better than meekly submitting. I grabbed the lid from a nearby crate and pointed it at the demon.

“Stay back!” I yelled, brandishing my makeshift weapon.

The demon just gave me a flat look.

“Really?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “This is getting ridiculous.”

The demon walked over to a nearby wall and flicked it with her finger. The wall exploded, throwing up a cloud of dust into the air. When the cloud cleared up, the stone wall bore a hole several feet deep and about half the length of my body. I stared at the hole, my mouth hanging open.

“And that’s me holding back,” the demon said, looking smug. “If I wanted to, I could destroy this entire wall. Hell, I could destroy this entire mountain.” She paused. “Though that would take a bit of effort on my part.”

The wooden lid fell from my limp fingers and clattered to the ground.

“Do you understand now?” the demon asked. “If I wanted to hurt you, there wouldn’t be anything you could do about it.”

She was right. I was completely at her mercy. The mere thought of resisting her was laughable. Even Zayne never made me feel this powerless.

“What…?” I started to ask but stopped. I swallowed some saliva before continuing. “What do you want with me?”

If she didn’t want to kill me, then that meant she had something else in mind, something just as horrible if not more so.

“It’s simple,” the demon said. “I want you.”

“Me?” I asked, staring at her in confusion. “What do you me-…?”

Wait a moment.

I glanced down at my clothing and felt the blood drain from my face.

“I will not let myself become a toy to satisfy your perverse desires, demon!” I told her.

The demon just gave me a baffled look, before her face twisted with disgust.

“No!” she said with a shudder. “What is wrong with you?”

“Isn’t that what you demons do? You toy with people, play with their lives, and when you grow bored of them, you kill and eat them. Why else would you make me wear such revealing clothing?”

A look of concern replaced the demon’s disgusted expression.

“I see,” she muttered, as if speaking to herself. “This is worse than I thought.” She shook her head before speaking in a louder voice. “No, I don’t plan on doing anything like…that with you, Darian. I’m not a degenerate.” She made a disgusted sound before continuing. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Astra. I’m a disciple of the Dawn and Dusk Sect.”

I stared at her in disbelief. The Dawn and Dusk Sect was one of the premier sects of the Northern Continent. So much so that someone like me had heard of them, even though I was cut off from cultivator society at large. Granted, I didn’t know much about them, but I had heard of them and how famous they were.

I once overheard several of my kin express interest in joining the Dawn and Dusk Sect, but the rest mocked them for aiming too high. The Dawn and Dusk Sect had strict standards, and didn’t just let anyone join them; a no-name cultivator from a small clan like ours had little to no chance.

“I don’t believe you,” I told the demon, narrowing my eyes at her. “Why would the Dawn and Dusk Sect allow a demon like you into their ranks?”

While I was still afraid of the demon, and what she might have planned for me, I didn’t think she wanted to hurt me just yet. That assurance gave me a modicum of courage. Enough to talk back to her, if nothing else.

“Here,” the demon said, tossing something in my direction. “Maybe this will change your mind.”

Against my better judgment, I caught the object she tossed. It turned out to be a jade medallion of some kind. I looked it over. One side was blank, while the other had a symbol carved into it. The symbol consisted of a small circle sitting within the center of a much larger circle. One half of the larger circle was gold, while the other half was black. The smaller circle was likewise half-gold/half-black. However, the gold half of the smaller circle bordered the black half of the larger circle, and vice versa.

I sucked in a breath as I realized that this was a sect crest. My clan had something similar. In essence, a sect crest was a form of identification. Each sect and clan with the world of cultivation had a crest that represented them, a symbol unique to them. Only disciples of a particular sect or clan could carry a crest representing their sect and/or clan. Cultivators used them to prove their identities, since each crest was keyed to a particular individual. Crests were also used to help locate a disciple if they ever went missing.

From what I understood, they were incredibly difficult to falsify. Not only that, but if a sect or clan found out that an imposter was using their crest, they would hunt said imposter down and make them pay for their treachery. Otherwise it would damage their standing. Cultivators were quite sensitive when it came to matters of status and reputation.

The crest for Clan Wind Dance was a sword standing upright, surrounded by stylized lines meant to represent a dancing wind.

“Do you believe me now?” the demon asked.

Despite my mistrust of the demon, I was starting to. Still, she was a demon. For all I knew, this could all be an elaborate ruse on her part. A trick to get me to lower my guard.

“Not quite,” I said. “I still can’t believe that a sect like the Dawn and Dusk Sect would accept a demon as one of their disciples.”

The demon tilted her head to the side.

“Just what exactly do you think demons are?” she asked.

“Malicious creatures that prey on humans for their own nefarious purposes,” I said. “Murder, rape, theft, and so on.”

The demon wore a bemused expression on her face.

“You say this even though you yourself have demon blood running through your veins?”

It didn’t surprise me that this demon knew about my own demonic nature. While I looked human on the outside, my aura contained traces of my demonic nature. At least, that was how Lucius explained it to me. He said that it looked like a thin black cloud that outlined my entire being. Any cultivator, no matter how weak, could see it.

“It’s because I have demon blood running through my veins that I’m well aware of how evil demons can be,” I said in a bitter voice. “Each and every day, my kin reminded me of how despicable and evil demons are. They would never let me forget, lest I fall prey to the same impulses.”

For some reason, the demon’s expression turned sorrowful. Did she feel sorry on my behalf? No, that couldn’t be it. She was a demon. They knew nothing about kindness and empathy. Maybe she was just sad that I wouldn’t fall prey to her tricks. That seemed more likely.

“I’m sorry you think that way,” she said in a soft voice. “However, you’re wrong, Darian. The term ‘demon’ refers to either the native inhabitants of the Underworld and their descendants, or to demonic cultivators who reach a certain level of power. That’s it.” She paused. “While I will admit that many demons and demonic cultivators are evil, not all of us are. Some of us are good. We’re no different than humans in that regard.”

I scoffed.

“Of course a demon would say something like that,” I said. “Lying comes as naturally to you as breathing. I won’t fall for your tricks.”

The demon seemed amused by my words rather than upset. This worried me even further.

“Believe what you want for now, Darian,” she said. “You’ll change your mind soon enough. I guarantee it.”

“Doubtful,” I said. “And stop calling me by my name. I never gave you permission to use it.” I frowned. “Actually, how do you know my name?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” the demon said. “I overheard it.” She grinned at me. “I’ve had my eye on you for a while now, Darian. I know quite a bit about you.”

A chill ran down my spine as I realized why the demon’s voice sounded familiar to me. It was the voice I heard after Zayne beat me, just before I fell unconscious. That meant that this demon had somehow snuck onto Mt. Wind Dance without getting caught, before sneaking out after kidnapping me.

This just gave her words credence. If she could sneak past the arrays that protected Mt. Wind Dance, then she would have had access to most of the mountain. Spying on someone like me would have been well within her power.

How long had she been watching me? Why had she been watching me?

“What do you want with me?” I asked again.

“Like I said earlier, I want you.” She held up a hand to forestall my protests. “Let me provide some context to prevent any strange misunderstandings on your part.” Her face wrinkled with disgust for a brief moment. “But first, let us get more comfortable. This will take a while.”

I watched in amazement as the demon reached for the black metal ring on her finger and pulled out a pair of comfortable looking cushions, seemingly out of nowhere.

A storage ring.

They were a type of spatial magical treasure that allowed someone to carry a large amount of items on them. I didn’t know all the specifics of how they worked, but I knew that a low-grade storage ring could contain a room’s worth of items inside it. More powerful storage rings could contain even more. There were even legends of storage rings, or other types of spatial magic treasures, containing entire worlds inside them.

This was my first time seeing someone use a storage ring. My uncle, the clan elders, and the favored disciples of Clan Wind Dance had storage rings, but they never used them in front of me.

The demon tossed one of the cushions at me, before placing the remaining one on the floor and sitting down. She gestured for me to do the same. With some reluctance, I followed her example.

“Now that we’re more comfortable,” the demon said as soon as I sat down. “Let us get down to business.”