Chapter 1: An Ending

Chapter 1: An Ending

~Whoosh~

The wind was blowing hard on a certain day in the Yang Sect, as a young boy around fourteen years old was standing in the middle of a wide, messy courtyard, surrounded by hundreds of dark red and yellow eastern-style buildings.

"Just another day of sweeping..." The boy muttered with a self-deprecating smile plastered on his average face, his hands skillfully moving a broken broom around the courtyard.

-

This boy's name was Azmodeus; he had no last name, and for his entire life, he had been working away in the Yang Sect.

When he was an infant, likely no older than a few days old, he was dropped off at the Yang Sect's gates with nothing but a bamboo basket to keep him in and a note that said, 'His name is Azmodeus...'

It has been fourteen years since that day, and he was admitted as a Trial Disciple of the Yang Sect the day he turned twelve.

Although he wasn't allotted any resources by his sect, and despite his lack of cultivation talent and high-rank Spiritual Roots, he tried to make the most of his life.

He had no friends, he had no family, and he had no companions.

There were no secret lovers, no girl next door; he had no one.

Even his fellow elder sect brothers and sisters, along with the elders of the sect, despised him.

The reason for their disdain? Well, it was because of nothing more than the 'Spiritual Root' and subsequent cultivation talent that he was born with.

In the world of Prometheus, power was everything.

And to acquire that power, one needed the talent to grasp it!

However, in the case of Azmodeus, he was born with the lowest-ranked and most useless Spiritual Root of all time, namely, the 'Crystallized Embryo'.

Even the most basic of Spiritual Roots gave the owner the lowest quality of cultivation talent, along with a matching innate ability.

But for him, he was only given the 'lowest quality cultivation talent' part...

Which was to say that he was more useless than even the worst of the cultivators out there.

And it was because of this inadequate talent that he was essentially abandoned by the Yang Sect in everything but name.

There were no resources allotted to him, people treated him as thin air, and he was despised by everyone for being weak and useless.

This was his life as one who possessed the weakest of Rank 1 Spiritual Roots...

Nevertheless, just like every other day, he walked through the vast courtyards of the Outer Sect, attempting to make everything spotless.

He did this even though he knew for a fact that no one would thank him or even appreciate him for what he was doing...

"I wonder where Elder Chong is..." He spoke with a curious tone as he looked toward the Sect Library.

Elder Chong was the one who gave him his daily menial sect quests, and he was expected to complete at least three of them daily.

If he didn't complete three at the very minimum, then he would be publicly whipped in front of all the Outer Sect Disciples and Entry-Level Disciples.

"It looks like he's not here today." He sighed as he turned his dull gaze away from the empty Sect Library.

"Well, they are having that group Sect Gathering Celebration today, so it's no surprise that the Sect Library, just like the rest of the sect, is deserted."

After realizing this, he remembered that he was the only one not invited to the celebration of the sect's victory against the Beast Wave that attacked one of its affiliate towns.

"Oh well... Just another day in paradise."

His dejected words echoed out as he continued the last of his daily tasks for the day.

...

A few minutes passed as Azmodeus was just about finished with his sweeping of the Sect courtyards, which spanned tens of thousands of meters altogether.

And just as he was about to pack it up and head back to his 'home' outside of the sect, a few drunken figures in gray robes walked into view.

Their robes had little red badges stitched onto the front of them, and on those badges, there were exactly three green bamboos, which indicated that these disciples were Inner Disciples of the Yang Sect.

Furthermore, it also went to say that all of them had reached at least the Early Pulse Condensation Stage of the Body Refinement Realm.

Following this thought, the light from his eyes started to fade, as he was close to slipping away into the afterlife.

But before he passed away for good, he shouted, "...I-I refuse! I'm unwilling! I can't die!"

He was unwilling to die! He didn't care how terrible his life was! He didn't care that there was no one but himself in his life!

Every day since the moment he came to learn about cultivation and acquired the most basic Qi circulation technique there was, Azmodeus arduously cultivated!

He cultivated tens of times harder than all the geniuses in his Sect! He cultivated so hard while juggling his sect duties, all for the sole purpose of becoming stronger!

He didn't know anything about becoming the strongest, but what he did know was that he had to give it his all!

And that's exactly what he did, as he spent 12–14 hours cultivating every single day!

Although after tens of thousands of hours of cultivating, he had only advanced from the first realm of the Body Refinement Realm, the Strength Training Stage, to the second realm, the Flesh Refining Stage, he didn't care!

He wasn't cultivating in hopes of gaining instant success like all the Young Master's of the Yang Sect.

No! He was cultivating to get stronger! To make everyone, including his parents, regret ever looking down on him!

He did everything he was told to do; he was willing to be humiliated by whatever means those stronger than him deemed fitting for him, all because he merely existed.

There was nothing he wasn't willing to do in order to become stronger!

All so he could prove to everyone else, and more importantly, to himself, that he was worth something!

And yet...

"L-Life truly is so unfair..." Azmodeus despondently mumbled, a self-deprecating smile playing on his cracked lips.

He held the hole in his stomach while inflicting more pain on himself in an attempt to keep his eyes open.

I can't die here...

I refuse to die here!

I want power! I want to get stronger! I want to prove them all wrong!

A fire was lit in his black eyes as he attempted to roll the drunken bastard off of him, aiming to find someone who could heal him.

However, no matter what he did, none of his muscles were responding to his commands...

But regardless of the unresponsiveness of his body, he tried to get himself up again.

He failed.

He tried again.

He failed again.

He tried again...

And after more than a dozen attempts at trying to move, nothing was working, so Azmodeus tried something else as he called out to the two wide-eyed people watching his struggle with shocked expressions.

"H... Hel..." He tried to call out to the two idiots, but his voice just didn't have anything left to give.

After a dozen or so attempts to get out his voice, he realized something that he should have understood the very moment Yang Cheng hit him.

I'm going to die...

I'm really going to die...

Before I even made my mark in this world...

Before I proved that I was worth something...

He used the rest of his strength to turn his face up to the star-spackled night sky, and inside his head he mumbled, 'This is the end for me... But for some reason, the night looks a whole lot prettier today...'

He marveled at the sparkling stars as the light from his eyes faded away forever.

And just as he vanished into the world of the unconscious, a particularly distinct star shot through the black blanket that covered the world of Prometheus, a star that held untold meanings for the untimely death of the Yang Sect's only Trial Disciple...