Chapter 1 - The moon, the sky, and the regret

"NOOOO" He screamed

On an executioner platform, someone was being executed before his eyes. That person was his wife. His wife's soul had no time to escape before being grabbed and crushed.

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! WHY?!" He said hysterically while being held down.

The executioner only smiled back at him. After this, two children were brought up to the stage.

He looked at them with wide eyes with tears streaming down. They looked back at him, as if afraid of what was to come. They tried to look strong and unafraid, but he could see the tears welling up in their eyes.

The man pleaded hysterically "Please, I will give you anything you want, PLEASE don't hurt my children."

"Humans don't deserve to live!" Someone said in a hidden patch of space.

"Why?! What did we ever do to you?!" He said in a sobbing voice.

"You're alive!" The person in the hidden patch of space said in a menacing voice.

As that someone said this, the executioner gripped both children by the necks and squeezed. Father and his two children, had one last glance at each other. They could see the fear an anxiousness in each others eye's

"NOOOO" He screamed.

"I WILL KILL YOU, YOU FUCKING DEMONS; I CURSE YOU 1000 TIMES OVER! I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I HAVE MY REVENGE YOU FUCKING DEGENERATES" He said out of anger while crying at the same time.

"As strong as you are, you are like this before our leader, you clearly don't know the difference between the heaven and earth!" One of the demons holding him down said in a menacing voice.

As the demon was talking, small greyish blue spheres of light flew out of his children's dead bodies.

He saw that, and he saw that the executioner was proceeding to grab them. His pupils shrank. He knew he had to do something. But what? He was held down and had his cultivation sealed.

He saw only one option. He had to detonate his Soul Sea to create an explosion from the excess energy. Even though this would kill him, he had to try. Even If it meant distracting the executioner for even a second, he would do it. Doing this would harm his soul, giving him little to no chance to escape at all after he died, but he didn't care.

The demon in the hidden patch of space saw the look in his eyes and he impulsively said, "RUN, HE'S GOING TO KILL HIMSEL" But before he could finish, a big explosion happened, killing everyone close to it. The executioner didn't get hurt, but the people holding him down definitely did.

Everything went blank. It felt like he was stuck in an endless void for hours on end. Finally, his senses were coming back to him. He was rising out of his body. His soul was injured. He knew he wouldn't be able to escape. He saw nothing but smoke around. He just hoped that he distracted the executioner enough to allow his children's souls to make it out. It didn't seem likely, they were only children, but he couldn't help but hope in his heart.

In soul form in the smoke, he heard the space crackle. In the blink of an eye, he suddenly saw a human-shaped figure in the smoke. He couldn't see too clearly because of the smoke, but the figure looked lean, red and had very distinctly pointed horns. Due to not being able to see him too clearly, it made it seem all the more mysterious.

The figure reached out to grab him, he knew this was it and took one last glance at the person who caused the death of him, his family and his clan. Feeling anger and regret in his heart, he just hoped that maybe his children's soul's escaped at the very least if nothing else.

Suddenly, he was sucked away by a mysterious power. The hand that was reaching for him grabbed nothing but air. In the blink of an eye, he entered a mysterious white light.

*****

'Where am I? My family…' He thought to himself while looking around.

"Do not worry." A mysterious lady voice said.

"….."

"….."

"….."

A conversation proceeded to happen for who knows how long and then, everything went blank again.

*****

'Where am I? I got sucked into that mysterious white light, and some lady was talking to me, but I can't remember her face clearly or what she said' He thought to himself.

He was laying down: head to the ground, face to the night sky as he thought this. He immediately stood up and looked around at his surroundings. Looking around, he saw nothing but an open plain with a few trees here and there and a few forests in the far distance around him. He suddenly felt shorter than usual; he immediately examined his body.

Looking at his hands, he realized they were a lot smaller. Not only that, his skin was paler than usual. He looked at his clothes and it looked like he was wearing what was left of a ragged shirt that was a bit too big for him and a ragged pair of trousers although they fit a bit better. He plucked a piece of hair out of his scalp, it was silver in color. Realization dawned on him, he was in a different body. He was dazed for a long while. 'Was this for real?' he thought.

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He had a lot of questions. Whose body was this? Where am I? Who was that lady in the white light? He knew this couldn't have been reincarnation as he wasn't a baby and people who reincarnate usually don't have all their memories immediately. After being dazed for a long while, regardless of how crazy everything seemed, even if he had a lot of questions about what was happening, inside, he was hurting.

Looking at the ground he said "My clan and family before my eyes, I'm sorry I couldn't save you" He said whilst tears streaming down his eyes. "My biggest regret is not being able to save you all" he quietly murmured. He looked up into the night sky and in his mind, he made a vow. 'One day, I will have my revenge, and not just for me, but for my family that suffered because I wasn't powerful enough, because of my weakness, because of me not being strong enough' He said in his mind.

Although hurting, he knew he wouldn't be able to get revenge let alone reach the apex if he continued crying. With his right arm, he wiped his tears away. He tried very hard to bottle his thoughts and put it in the back of his mind. Even when he did that, he still felt a sharp pain in his heart. He had no choice, but to trudge it through though.

He once again surveyed his surroundings. As he slowly scrutinized his surroundings, he happened to see what looked like a field with crops in the distance. His stomach immediately started growling. Being emotional, he didn't realize he was starving and how sickly he looked. 

He started to slowly walk over there. The walk was a bit over three miles. It took him close to two hours to walk that far and his legs were already hurting. He lamented when he thought of how easy it would have been to get over here with his previous body.

When he reached the field of crops he immediately surveyed them. Looking at them, there were only a few ripe items here or there. Most of them were rotting or unripe. It seems the harvest this year wasn't that good he thought inwardly.

He thought to himself inside with thick skin, 'Well, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to take some of your crops. I will pay you back many fold in the future.'

He proceeded to munch on all the ripe fruits and vegetables he could get his hands on. Let alone cultivating, he knew he had to find a constant food source: he couldn't keep living this way. While eating, he saw a red shade of light shine over the field. The sun was rising, he couldn't get caught now and decided that even if he wasn't full, it was enough and so he decided to leave henceforth.

After getting ready to leave, he gave his surroundings one last glance. He saw some huts scattered here or there in the distance, after some thought, he decided to scout it out. He knew that these were probably humans, but he would rather be safe than sorry. After making his way around a few crop fields, he saw the huts a bit more clearly. It looked like a small rural village.

After arriving semi-close to the village, he found a tree and hid behind it. Peaking his little head out around the bottom side of the tree he looked into the distance. Even though there weren't many humans up and about due to it being the morning, he did see some here or there and this brightened his mood somewhat. After a more careful examination, he saw that the humans that were here also had ragged clothing like him, not only that, everyone he saw looked haggard. He saw the huts and it looked like they were all made of mud and had straw for roofs. He saw a lot of crop fields on the way here, but even then, they all still looked haggard. It seemed all the fields yielded poor results this year. He started to regret eating as much as he did.

He started to slowly walk over to the village. He wanted to get the feel of things around here before everyone was up. Walking around, the few people out in the morning looked at him with pity and concern, but none tried talking to him as he looked unapproachable. He just thought it was because people thought he was a homeless child and proceeded on.

While he was walking in the village, someone saw him and was surprised with wide-open eyes. After being dazed for a moment, he proceeded to message someone immediately after.

After walking a little bit through the village, he saw what seemed like a kind old lady sitting down on a chair outside of a hut: this hut had a slight overhang over the chair as if to protect it from the rain or other natural phenomena. The lady seemed to be enjoying the sunrise and pondering on a certain matter. He wanted to see if he knew what language they spoke or not. He walked up to her and tapped her on the knee to get her attention and just did a few common gestures to try and get a response.

"Haxat vidd ug fo peick?" The old lady looked at him with concern, as if she was about to choke when she saw him.

As he thought, he didn't know it. He just wanted to check though. He did his best to produce a "never-mind" gesture to the lady. Turning around to leave, he was about to continue walking when suddenly the old lady stood up out of her chair and hugged him from behind, he could feel tears dropping onto his clothes. But what could he do? Push her off? Hug back? He didn't even know what she said and it's not like she was doing anything dangerous to him.

He already had a feeling that this village might be related to this body, but now, he was sure of it. He just kind of awkwardly waited till the lady was done hugging him. Afterward, he turned to her, bowed and then walked away. He thought this would be the best course of action considering that this bodies past owner might be related to this lady somehow and judging by her actions, not in a bad way.

The lady stopped him a few more times, but he continued trying to leave. After a while, she eventually stopped although with immense concern on her face. Although a bit weirded out, he tried not to think about it too much. He proceeded to move through the village. He glanced back one last time while walking and he saw that there were quite a few people talking to that lady now. Although curious, he didn't know exactly what to think and just proceeded walking.

 If you looked, there wouldn't be much to see. All you could see were a few pathways with huts here or there and farmland.

After sightseeing and walking a bit more, he realized he was being followed, it was the same old lady that he met earlier. He contemplated for a few seconds and decided to just leave it be. He could tell that the lady was already concerned for him and that she probably didn't mean him any harm. He also didn't want to do anything before finding out how exactly this lady was related to him.

Looking around, he noticed that the environment was more lush with greenery in the areas farther away from the farms. 'If there is a lot of greenery here than the lands must be pretty fertile, no? So why are the farms yielding such poor results?' He thought to himself. He thought about it for a while and came to two conclusions. Either they're really bad at farming or someone is intentionally ruining the crops. The ladder seemed likelier but he didn't want to jump to conclusions and continued walking and observing every part of the village.

After walking through the pathways and sightseeing for a little bit, near the end of the village, he saw a rundown hut with a few trees in the area around it. This hut's door was open slightly, but not so open that one couldn't see the front of it. Unlike the other huts, he saw a big carved heart on the wooden door of this hut. Once he saw this, his heart trembled. A flood of memories came back to him.

"Mom? Dad?" He murmured aloud.

He instinctively walked over there. Putting his hand on the door and getting a feel for it. More and more memories came back to him. Afterward, he instinctively walked inside. Inside, it was empty, nothing at all.