Rain lashed against the dilapidated walls of the Ye Family's eastern courtyard. The downpour drowned all other sounds, turning the night into a curtain of cold, relentless water. Inside a modest room lit by a single flickering oil lamp, a woman in her late thirties sat mending a worn robe. Her hands moved with practiced calm, though her eyes occasionally flickered toward the door.
Sixteen-year-old Ye Wuhen knelt beside her, sharpening a basic iron dagger on a whetstone. The rhythmic scrape of metal on stone was the only sound in the room besides the rain. He was thin for his age, with sharp features that hinted at intelligence rather than strength. To the outside world, he was a first-stage Spirit Contract Initiate—the lowest tier of cultivator in the Youxuan Realm. A nobody. A weakling.
A lie he had maintained for three years.
"Mother," he said quietly, not looking up from his work. "The patrols have been increased tonight. The Grand Elder is nervous."
His mother, Lin Yun, paused her needle. "The Grand Elder always finds reasons to be nervous when the harvest taxes are due. Do not trouble yourself, Wuhen. Finish your blade and rest."
But Ye Wuhen's calculations were already running. Increased patrols. Whispered conversations among the clan guards. The Grand Elder's sudden interest in the eastern courtyard's "security." The variables added up to a conclusion with 87% probability: an attack was coming tonight.
He had run the simulation seventeen times in his mind. Each outcome ended with his mother dead and himself captured or killed. The only variable he couldn't quantify was the identity of the attackers—and their exact numbers.
Calculations insufficient. Need more data.
He was about to speak when the door exploded inward.
Splinters flew across the room. Three figures clad in black rushed in, their movements blurred by speed. Cultivators. Third-stage Contract Masters, at least.
Ye Wuhen moved on instinct, throwing himself between the intruders and his mother. The dagger in his hand felt pitifully light. "Who—"
The lead black-clad man didn't speak. A flash of steel, and Ye Wuhen felt cold fire erupt in his chest. He looked down, confused, to see the hilt of a short sword protruding from his sternum. The blade had passed clean through him and into the wall behind.
Pain came a heartbeat later, white-hot and all-consuming. He collapsed to his knees, blood already soaking his cheap linen robe.
"Wuhen!" His mother's scream was cut short as the second attacker backhanded her across the face. She crumpled to the floor, stunned.
The leader yanked his sword free. Ye Wuhen gasped, feeling his life pour out with the blood. He tried to move, but his limbs wouldn't respond. Spinal cord damaged. Lung punctured. Estimated survival time: 2.7 minutes without medical intervention.
The black-clad man stepped over him toward Lin Yun. "You should have kept your mouth shut, woman. The Grand Elder doesn't like loose ends."
Lin Yun struggled to her knees. "I told no one! I swear—"
"Your silence is all the proof we need." The sword flashed again.
This time, the blade took her through the heart.
Ye Wuhen watched, paralyzed, as his mother's eyes widened in shock. She looked at him once—a brief, desperate glance—before the light faded from them. Her body slumped forward, lifeless.
The leader withdrew his sword and wiped the blade on her sleeve. "Clean kill. Now for the brat."
But the third man, shorter and broader, gestured toward Lin Yun's corpse. "Boss, orders said to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. Shouldn't we... you know, rough her up a bit? Give the investigators something to chew on?"
The leader considered this, then shrugged. "Fine. Do it quick."
The shorter man stepped forward and planted his boot on Lin Yun's face, grinding her cheek into the rough wooden floor. A sickening crunch of cartilage sounded. He lifted his foot, revealing a broken nose and a smear of blood and dirt.
Then he turned to Ye Wuhen. "What about him?"
"Make sure he's dead." The leader was already turning toward the door.
The shorter man approached Ye Wuhen, raising his sword for the final thrust. But as he did, he paused. "Hey, boss. He's still breathing. Want me to make it slow?"
"Do whatever. Just finish it."
The man grinned beneath his mask. He lowered his sword and instead placed his boot on Ye Wuhen's head, pressing his face into the cold, wet floorboards. "How's it feel, runt? Watching your whore mother die, then getting your skull crushed?"
Ye Wuhen couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. But his mind—the part that had never been fully human—was churning.
Enemy positions: Leader at door, distance 4.2 meters. Second attacker near window, 3.1 meters. Current attacker directly above, foot on cranial region. Estimated weight: 85 kilograms. Pressure: sufficient to fracture skull in 5–8 seconds.
Available resources: Dagger within reach of right hand. Oil lamp on table. Rainwater pooling near doorway. Mother's corpse: emotional distraction potential.
Spirit Contract options: Void Worm Spirit Contract available. Activation time: 3 seconds. Cost: long-term memory. Estimated memory loss: one significant life event.
Survival probability with Contract: 94%. Without: 0%.
Decision: Activate Contract.
The pain became distant. The boot pressing on his head became just another data point. Ye Wuhen reached within himself, to the place where the rules of the Youxuan Realm could be bent—for a price.
He spoke the words he had never spoken in this lifetime. Ancient syllables that tasted of dust and forgotten stars. "By the void between worlds, I call upon the hungry ones."
Something shifted in the air. The rain seemed to hesitate. The oil lamp's flame guttered.
From the shadows beneath the table, things emerged. They were not quite insects, not quite worms—amorphous shapes of shifting darkness, each the size of a man's fist. Void worms. Beings that existed between dimensions, hungry for the energy of living memories.
The black-clad man lifted his foot, staring. "What the—"
The void worms moved faster than sight. They swarmed up his legs, dissolving through cloth and flesh as if neither existed. The man screamed—a short, wet sound—as they burrowed into his body.
He convulsed once, then collapsed. His eyes were open but empty. All his memories, all his experiences, had been consumed in an instant.
The void worms, now glowing faintly with stolen life, turned toward the remaining attackers.
The leader's eyes widened behind his mask. "Spirit Contract! He's a—"
Ye Wuhen pushed himself up, ignoring the agony in his chest. The wound was still lethal, but adrenaline and something else—something cold and ancient—kept him moving. He looked at the leader, and for the first time, the man saw his eyes.
They were not the eyes of a sixteen-year-old boy. They were the eyes of something that had watched civilizations rise and fall.
"You mentioned the Grand Elder," Ye Wuhen said, his voice steady despite the blood in his throat. "I require confirmation. Is he your employer?"
The leader backed toward the door. "You're dead! That Contract—you're an Outer Realm Demon! The Heavenly Dao will purge you!"
"Answer the question."
The second attacker lunged, sword aimed at Ye Wuhen's heart. He didn't even look. A gesture with his left hand, and the void worms intercepted. The man's sword passed harmlessly through their shifting forms, and then they were upon him.
Another scream, cut short.
The leader turned to flee, but Ye Wuhen was already at the door. He moved with unnatural speed, his body fueled by desperation and awakening power. He grabbed the man's wrist, twisted, and heard bones snap.
"Confirmation. Now."
"You're insane! The Heavenly Dao Monitors (Heavenly Dao Monitor) will—"
Ye Wuhen drove his dagger into the man's thigh. Not a killing blow. A measured application of pain. "I have approximately ninety seconds before blood loss renders me unconscious. You are wasting my time."
The leader gasped, collapsing against the wall. "Yes! The Grand Elder! He paid us to silence your mother! She knew about his embezzlement from the clan treasury!"
Probability: 96% truth. Ye Wuhen nodded. "Thank you."
He released the man's wrist and stepped back. The void worms, sensing his intent, swarmed over the leader. His scream lasted only a moment.
Silence returned to the room, broken only by the rain.
Ye Wuhen staggered to the table, bracing himself against it. Blood dripped from his chest wound, forming a small pool on the floor. He needed medical attention immediately. But first—
He looked at his mother's body. Broken. Defiled. A surge of something—anger? grief?—threatened to overwhelm him. He pushed it down. Emotional responses reduce survival probability. Analyze situation.
Mother: deceased. Cause of death: assassination ordered by Grand Elder. Evidence: attacker's confession. Next steps: secure evidence, treat injuries, plan countermeasures.
But as he thought this, something strange happened.
He tried to remember his mother's face as it had been in life—smiling, perhaps, or scolding him for staying up too late studying cultivation manuals. The memory was... fuzzy. Like a page of text that had been left in the rain.
He could recall facts: she was 38 years old. She preferred tea to wine. She had a small scar on her left hand from a childhood accident. But her smile—the specific curve of her lips, the warmth in her eyes—was gone.
Memory loss: estimated one significant life event. Cost of Void Worm Spirit Contract payment confirmed.
Ye Wuhen closed his eyes. Emotion: regret. Utility: none. Survival priority: immediate medical treatment.
He ripped cloth from his robe and stuffed it into the wound, applying pressure. Then he began searching the bodies for anything useful—coins, weapons, identification.
As he worked, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. Not his own thoughts. Something older. Hungrier.
Well done, little demon. You've remembered how to bite.
Ye Wuhen froze. Source: unknown. Frequency: sub-mental. Content: likely hallucination from blood loss.
No, not hallucination. I am your future, child. Your salvation—and your doom.
The voice faded, leaving only the rain.
Ye Wuhen finished his search, finding a small purse of spirit stones and a token with the Grand Elder's personal seal. Evidence. He pocketed both, then stumbled toward the door.
He paused on the threshold, looking back once. At his mother's body. At the three lifeless attackers. At the blood staining the floorboards.
Survival probability increased from 0% to 94%. Cost: one mother, one memory, and an unknown voice in my mind.
Adequate exchange.
He stepped out into the rain, leaving the light of the oil lamp behind. The night swallowed him, and the first chapter of his journey began—not with a hero's cry, but with a demon's cold calculation.