It wasn’t until the next day when Sam got up. He was in his bed dressed in pyjamas. The room was dimly lit as he groggily got out of his bed and turned his head to look outside the window of his room. The sky outside was dark and the sound of crickets as well as rustling leaves could be heard. Sam was used to this as he raised his head to look at the stars that filled the sky.

He didn’t know for how long he had been sleeping for but he remembered leaving for the forest early in the morning and getting back home when the sun was still out. He wasn’t too sure, but it should have been a while before the day gave way to dusk. So, he reckoned he should have been unconscious for a long time but his infantile brain never paid the matter much thought.

The main thing on his mind at the moment was events that took place outside the fence. His heart still thumped with excitement just thinking about it!

Yes, excitement.

He remembered his father’s sturdy back as he cut down beast after beast.

Papa is too strong! He thought to himself.

He also reflected on himself. The excitement he felt when he felled the giant deer. The terror of being surrounded. The unusual sweat that streamed down his leg! And the great battle that ensued where he managed to injure a few beasts.

It was exhilarating!

Granted, he also realized that compared to his father, he was too weak. That was fine. He would train.

All these thoughts ran through his mind as he took in the nature around him. He couldn’t see the forest beyond the fence wall but he could make out the tree canopy which he realized he was probably seeing for the first time at home. He raised his head beyond the canopy to look at the dome of heaven and the stars that littered it.

There were so many!

So bright!

He saw one bright light zip across the sky. A shooting star. It was beautiful.

He was snapped out of his reverie when he felt a hand tousle his hair. He turned to see his mother standing behind him. She had a warm smile on her face as she also looked at the stars in the sky.

“What’s wrong, mama?” Sam asked. He felt she was looking at the stars strangely. She felt… sad. He didn’t understand.

Neva turned her gaze downward to look at her son. She made a few signs with her hand that Sam immediately understood.

This was how his mother was. His father told him that she was once injured and lost her voice. He had bombarded Aziel with questions of if she can be healed and what monster can steal people’s voices but his father refused to speak more on the subject.

“One day when you grow strong, you can also fly with the stars,” Sam mouthed.

His eyes glittered as he looked at his mom for confirmation.

She nodded with a gentle smile.

“I can really fly in the stars…” Sam ruminated over the statement.

“Not if you can’t even kill a measly beast.”

A stern voice pulled Sam out of his delusions of grandeur. Sam’s father, Aziel, seemed to have made his room at some point to stand on his other side, opposite his mother.

He also looked into the sky.

Sam felt the same strange feeling he felt when his mother looked at the sky. He didn’t understand but the feeling made him uncomfortable.

Aziel sighed heavily before pointing at something specific in the sea of stars. “You see that big bright orange star in the sky?”

Tossing away the useless thoughts and feelings, Sam looked to where his father pointed.

He didn’t have to look too hard. He immediately made out a conspicuous orange ball about the size of a ping pong ball hanging in the sky. It wasn’t so bright that it dimmed the surrounding stars. It still fell short however, compared to the full moon that shone brightly on this night.

“There are many many strong people there.” Aziel said wistfully.

Sam’s ears perked up at the mention of strong people.

“People here call it Violet Heaven. They watch over and protect all life of our world.”

“Why is it called Violet Heaven?” Sam couldn’t help but ask. The star is definitely not violet.

“One time, long ago, chaos filled the lands. Fiends and devils alike ran amok slaughtering and killing everywhere they went. Peace was a foreign term that many did not understand. There was only strength!

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“If you were strong you survived, and if you were weak, you died. People died every day. Families were separated. Children were ripped from their mothers’ arms. Those were the dark ages. It was hell on earth. People slept not knowing if there would wake up tomorrow.”

“How terrible,” Sam spat through gritted teeth.

Maybe before he may not have understood the concept of death. Maybe he still didn’t understand it now. But he remembered the feeling of when the dire wolf beast opened its maw to chomp down on his head. He remembered the feeling of staring into the abyss and how he’d never be able to go back home.

Suddenly, the excitement he felt from the hunt with his father squashed out of existence. There was only dread in his heart.

“One nation was obliterated so completely that the blood of its people formed a sea.”

At this point, Aziel retracted his gaze from the star known as Violet Heaven to look at his son. It was the same stern gaze he always gave him when they were training.

Sam on the other hand, had his eyes wide. He could not even begin to comprehend what a sea of blood would look like. At the same time, he felt anger bubble up from the pit of his stomach.

Devils! Fiends! He committed the terms to memory.

“At the peak of turmoil and instability, one man rose above the masses. They say he hated the endless wars and bloodshed that plagued the people. In response to his call to arms, a massive Demon Suppression Army was assembled to march on the demons in a righteous crusade.

“The demons and fiends were exiled to the Tarnished Lands which brought an end to the endless wars that plagued the lands. That period was called the Hadean era. The man who ended it hailed as the Emperor of Dawn.”

Aziel paused, hesitating for a moment.

Sam was enthralled. In his mind he saw an indomitable hero standing up against the evil of the world. Holding up the sky with one hand and supressing the earth with the other.

“It is said that the Dawn Emperor now rests on Violet Heaven watching over the world… ready to punish any evil that harms the masses.”

Sam wasn’t sure, but Neva could clearly hear the sneer and derision in his tone.

“One day,” Sam said with clenched fists as he looked at the orange ball in the sky. It now seemed brighter than before. “I’ll also fight evil and become strong enough to go to Violet Heaven!”

Neva and Aziel both looked at the young boy briefly before turning to look at the star that hung in the sky.

They didn’t say anything, but parents naturally hoped that their children become strong. As for going to Violet Heaven, they didn’t comment on that matter.

***

Time passed as fall gave way to winter which gave way to spring. Seasons passed as Sam’s training became more and more intense. He would train the sword in the morning with his father then tend the garden with his mother after.

His mother would teach him about the different plants in the garden and how to nurture and take care of them. He never really liked this part of the day but no matter how much he hid, his mother always found him. When he threw a tantrum, his father would smack him with a wooden sword. Over time he gave up fighting. He knew it was either he tended the garden willingly or painfully. Either way, the garden would be tended.

In the afternoons, his mother would make him read. He read about everything but enjoyed history the most. His favourite book was called Record of Paragons. It talked about mighty nations that existed in the ancient past mighty figures who rose to prominence and defined eras. Some died, while some their futures were not mentioned in the books.

Sam enjoyed this part of the day most.

It was in this book that he learned that the world was divided into three major continents and seven minor continents. All the major continents were united under the rule of a single entity. The minor continents on the other hand were home to many smaller nations and organizations that warred with each other for land and resources.

The book did not go into details about the strength of each continent but that was readily available in a different book. He did not care too much about those things, he only wanted to read about strong people. He read about mad kings who brought their nations to ruin but also benevolent kings who were schemed to death by their subjects or other nations. All of this fascinated him. The more he read, the more enamoured he was but also the more peculiar the look in his eyes became.

Didn’t the Dawn Emperor stop all war? He would think to himself.

“There’s no such thing as eternal peace,” his mother would tell him in sign language. “As long as people exist in one place for long enough, disagreements will arise.”

This made him think of his family at that time. They were just three people but his father would beat him all the time and his mom would scold him.

“People are weird,” Sam would tell himself.

In the evenings, his mom would summon him and they would perform the Transformations of the Lotus movements.

“Mama, I don’t like dancing,” Sam whined one day. “I want to become a Paragon!”

To this his mother tossed him a book and told him to add it to his daily study. It was in this book that he learned the term ‘Transformations of the Lotus’.

The book talked about how the lotus has four transformations: white lotus of purity and enlightenment, red lotus of love and compassion, yellow lotus of wisdom, and the blue lotus of serenity. Training the technique would purify the body’s energies as well as strengthen and balance the soul.

Sam didn’t understand much, but at the very least, he knew that these were traits often used to describe the Dawn Emperor so he ‘danced’ every evening with renewed gusto. If dancing brought his strength that much closer to the Dawn Emperor, then he would dance.

And indeed, as the days passed and he felt himself getting stronger and stronger. His father beat him to a pulp every morning so he didn’t really feel any stronger, but he did feel that the dancing had helped. Or at least he thought it was the dancing.

Often times over the past months, he would be practicing the Lotus technique with his mother and foul-smelling black substance would come out of his skin. At first, he thought he had farted and it wasn’t until he was slapped upside the head when he accused his mother of letting one go that she explained that he was excreting bodily impurities.

The next day, he would be faster, and his strikes stronger. His practice sessions with his father went from one hour to two hours thanks to his new found endurance. He also seemed to think clearer and remember things more easily.

By this time, Sam had opened up twelve of his meridians. He didn’t know how many acupoints he had opened but it seemed a lot when he felt his body’s condition with the Lotus technique. He didn’t know how strong he was but he felt confident he could, at the very least, be able to run away from a pack of dire wolves so long as he wasn’t surrounded by them.

Just like that, two years passed.