CHAPTER 1: THE FIRST BLOOD
The planet Valtherion had forgotten how to bleed.
For three thousand years, the Dragon Supreme Azkarathor had ruled from his obsidian throne in the Crimson Peaks, and for three thousand years, the hierarchy had remained unbroken. Dragons at the apex. Demons in their shadow. Vampires in the cracks between. And beneath them all, the lesser races—humans, elves, beastkin—existed only to serve, to fear, or to die.Nobody even dares to show their fangs.
No one remembered the last time a dragon general had fallen. Yes , there were times when demon fought a great blood war against dragons but it was long time ago and when their supreme sovereign fell , they lost their all hope and dragons started their merciless massacre. Since that time, No one even dares to show their fangs.
No one, that is, except the boy with no name.
In the festering slums of Krell's End, where the Ashfall Wastes met the edge of civilization, there lived a child who had no home.
He had been born in those slums—or so he assumed. His earliest memory was of hunger, the gnawing emptiness that never truly left. No mother. No father. No orphanage would take him because there was no record of his birth, no proof he even existed. In the eyes of the Empire, he was less than nothing. A ghost. A mistake.
The slums were a maze of collapsed buildings and makeshift shelters, where the desperate and the dying lives. The boy—who had no name because no one had ever cared enough to give him one—learned to survive in the cracks between the cracks.
He ate what others wouldn't touch. Rats, when he could catch them. Insects, when nothing else could be found. And when the hunger became truly unbearable, when his vision blurred and his hands shook, he would venture into the dead zones—the places where bodies were left to rot because no one cared enough to bury them.
The first time he ate human flesh, he was six years old.
He found the corpse in an alley, a man who had frozen to death during the night. The body was stiff, the skin gray, but the boy's hunger overrode his revulsion. He tore at the flesh with his teeth, gagging at first, then swallowing because the alternative was death.
He felt nothing. No guilt. No horror. Just the mechanical satisfaction of a body receiving sustenance.
Other children in the slums traveled in packs, found protection in numbers. The boy remained alone. He learned early that he was different from them. When they cried, he felt nothing. When they laughed, he couldn't understand why. When they formed bonds, friendships, something in him remained fundamentally disconnected.
He was a ghost in a world of ghosts, more dead than alive.
By the time he was ten, he had accepted that this was all there would ever be. Hunger. Cold. The endless search for scraps. And eventually, death in some forgotten corner where his body would feed the rats as others had fed him.
There was no hope. No future. No light.
Until the night he saw it.
It was the coldest night of winter, the kind that killed dozens in the slums. The boy had found shelter in the ruins of what had once been a temple, now just broken walls and a partially intact roof. He huddled in a corner, his body shaking uncontrollably, knowing that he might not survive until morning.
That's when he saw the light.
It appeared in the center of the ruined temple, a soft golden glow that seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat. The boy stared at it, his mind too cold and sluggish to process what he was seeing. Hallucination, perhaps. The final vision before death.
But then he felt it.
A pull. A connection. As if something inside his chest—his heart, his very soul—was reaching toward that light. It wasn't calling to him. It was him. A part of himself he'd never known existed, suddenly awakening after a lifetime of dormancy.
The boy crawled toward the light, his frozen limbs barely responding. As he drew closer, he saw that the light emanated from an object half-buried in the rubble. A book, ancient and weathered, its cover inscribed with characters he couldn't read but somehow understood.
Heavenly Demon Divine Scripture
His hand reached out, trembling. The moment his fingers touched the book, the world exploded into light.
He was no longer in the ruined temple.
He stood in a vast plain beneath a blood-red sky. Before him stretched an army—no, not an army. An ocean of warriors. Half a million of them, perhaps more. Each one radiated power that made the air shimmer. These were not common soldiers. These were masters, elites, cultivators who had spent lifetimes perfecting their arts.
And standing against them, alone, was a single man.
He wore black robes that seemed to drink in the light. His hair was long and white, flowing in a wind that existed only around him. In his hand, he held a single sword, its blade so dark it seemed to be carved from the void itself.
The man's face was serene. Peaceful. As if he stood not before half a million enemies, but in a garden full of flowers.
The army charged.
What followed was not a battle. It was an annihilation.
The man moved, and reality bent around him. His sword traced patterns in the air, and where it passed, warriors fell by the hundreds. Their techniques—brilliant, powerful, perfected over decades—shattered like glass against his casual movements. Their combined might, enough to level mountains, dissipated like morning mist.
He was not fighting them. He was erasing them.
The boy watched, transfixed, as the man cut through the army like a god walking among insects. There was no effort in his movements, no strain. Just absolute, terrifying perfection.
And then the man turned and looked directly at the boy.
His eyes were empty. Not cruel, not kind. Just... empty. Like looking into an infinite void.
"You are the last," the man said, his voice echoing across the field of corpses. "The final inheritor. The Heavenly Demon Divine Sect ends and begins with you."
The man raised his sword, and the world dissolved into light once more.
The boy gasped, finding himself back in the ruined temple, the book clutched in his hands. But everything had changed.
Memories flooded into his mind—not his memories, but the memories of the sect. Thousands of years of history, techniques, philosophy. The Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, the most powerful martial sect to ever exist, destroyed in a war that had consumed entire worlds. Its practitioners had been gods among mortals, beings who had transcended the limits of flesh and spirit.
And now, impossibly, their legacy lived in him.
The boy opened the book with shaking hands. The characters he couldn't read before now made perfect sense. He turned page after page, absorbing knowledge that should have taken lifetimes to comprehend. Basic techniques. Advanced forms. Forbidden arts.
And there, in the final pages, the supreme technique of the sect:
Heavenly Demon Essence Absorption Art
The ability to consume the essence of others—their knowledge, their power, their very being—and make it his own. The technique that had made the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect both feared and hunted. The art that had allowed a single practitioner to stand against armies.
The boy read the folklore again and again, devouring every word. Stories of the sect's masters, their battles, their triumphs. Tales of power beyond imagination, of warriors who had challenged the heavens themselves.
And slowly, something crystallized in his mind. A truth. An identity.
"I am no longer homeless," he whispered to the empty temple. "I am no longer nothing."
He stood, and despite his weak body, despite the cold, he felt strength flowing through him.
"I am a disciple of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect. The strongest sect. The sect of gods."
The memories continued to flood in. Not just techniques, but the mindset of the sect. The absolute conviction. The ruthless pursuit of power. The understanding that strength was the only truth that mattered.
And with those memories came a realization: what he had thought was wrong with him—his inability to feel, to connect, to care—was not a flaw. It was a gift. The perfect foundation for the Heavenly Demon path.
He had been born for this.
The boy who had no name gave himself one: Kael. It was a name from the sect's history, belonging to a master who had conquered an entire realm single-handedly.
Over the following months, Kael practiced the techniques from the scripture. His body, weakened by years of starvation, began to transform. The basic cultivation methods of the sect drew energy from the world itself, nourishing him in ways food never could. He grew stronger, faster, his senses sharpening to supernatural levels.
But the true power lay in the Essence Absorption Art.
The technique required a sacrifice—a life, willingly or unwillingly given. The practitioner would draw out the victim's essence, consuming their knowledge, their skills, their accumulated power. It was the ultimate predatory art, allowing one to grow strong by devouring others.
Kael's first test came when he was eleven.
A gang enforcer had cornered him in an alley, intending to rob him of the few coins he'd managed to collect .The man was a trained fighter, his body hardened by years of street combat. Against the weak Kael, he would have been invincible.
But Kael was no longer that starving ghost-child.
He moved with techniques from the scripture, his body flowing through forms that were thousands of years old. The enforcer's eyes widened in shock as Kael's palm struck his chest, not with physical force, but with something deeper.
The Essence Absorption Art activated.
Kael felt the man's life force flowing into him, drawn through channels of energy that the scripture had taught him to open. The enforcer's knowledge—his fighting techniques, his experience, his strength—all of it poured into Kael like water into a vessel.
The man collapsed, his body withering as if aged a hundred years in seconds. Kael stood over him, feeling power coursing through his veins. The enforcer's martial skills were crude, unrefined, but they were his now.
And he wanted more.
Over the next four years, Kael hunted.
He targeted martial artists, cultivators, anyone who possessed knowledge worth taking. A wandering monk who practiced the Serpent's Breath style. A retired soldier who had mastered the Iron Mountain techniques. A mercenary who knew the Shadow Step. A demon cultist who had learned fragments of infernal magic.
One by one, he found them. Studied them. Killed them. Consumed them.
With each absorption, he grew stronger. But more than that, he began to understand the deeper principles underlying all martial arts. The Heavenly Demon Divine Sect's techniques were supreme, but they were also incomplete—the sect had been destroyed before its final evolution. Kael took what he absorbed and integrated it, refined it, perfected it through the lens of the sect's philosophy.
He was creating something new. Something that had never existed before.
And he felt nothing about the lives he took. No guilt. No hesitation. They were simply resources, fuel for his ascension.
By the time he was fifteen, Kael had killed forty-three people and absorbed their essence. His power had grown beyond anything a human his age should possess. He moved like a shadow, struck like lightning, and his understanding of martial arts surpassed masters who had trained for decades.
But he had also learned something else from the scripture: true power required more than individual strength. The greatest masters of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect had commanded armies, had built empires of devoted followers who would die at their word.
Kael began to gather disciples.
They came to him slowly at first. Outcasts from the slums who saw in him a path out of despair. Criminals seeking power. The desperate and the damned. Kael offered them something no one else would: purpose, training, and the promise of strength.
He taught them fragments of what he knew—never the Essence Absorption Art, never the true secrets of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, but enough to make them formidable. Enough to make them useful.
In return, they offered absolute loyalty.
Kael's following grew. Fifty. A hundred. Three hundred. They operated in the shadows of Valtherion's underworld, taking contracts, eliminating targets, accumulating resources. The authorities dismissed them as another gang of human criminals, beneath notice in a world where dragons ruled.
But Kael was studying the true power structure of Valtherion.
At the bottom were the lesser races—humans, elves, beastkin, and others. Above them, the vampires, immortal and powerful. Higher then, the demons, beings of chaos and malevolence. And at the apex, the dragons.
Thousands of dragons existed across Valtherion, each one a living catastrophe. But even among dragons, there was hierarchy: 150 dragon generals who commanded armies and ruled territories. Above them, 20 dragon kings who held dominion over continents. Higher still, 2 dragon emperors who had existed since before recorded history. And above them all, the Dragon Supreme Azkarathor, the sole sovereign of Valtherion.
For three thousand years, this hierarchy had remained unbroken.
Kael decided it was time for that to change.
The scripture had shown him a vision of a man standing alone against half a million masters. That man had been a god among mortals, a being who had transcended all limits.
Kael would become that man. And to do so, he needed to consume the strongest beings in existence.
He needed to devour dragons.
The dragon general's name was Vorthak the Crimson, and he ruled the Ashfall Wastes where Kael had been born.
Vorthak was young by dragon standards—only four centuries old—but he had earned his position through ruthless efficiency. His scales were like crimson steel, his breath could melt mountains, and his physical strength could shatter fortresses. He was, by all accounts, invincible.
Kael spent two years preparing for this moment.
He studied Vorthak's movements, his habits, his territory. He killed dragon cultists and absorbed their knowledge of draconic magic. He trained his followers, selecting the strongest and most loyal, preparing them for what was to come.
And he told them the truth.
"We are going to kill a dragon general," Kael announced to his assembled followers—now numbering two thousand elite warriors, each one trained personally by him, each one fanatically devoted.
The announcement was met with stunned silence.
"Many of you will die," Kael continued, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "Most of you, in fact. But your deaths will not be meaningless. Your sacrifice will fuel my ascension. Through the Heavenly Divine Absorption Technique, I will consume your essence as you fall, and with that power, I will kill Vorthak."
He expected fear. Rebellion. Instead, his followers knelt as one.
"We are honored to serve," they said in unison.
This was the true power of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect—not just individual strength, but the ability to inspire absolute devotion. Kael had given these people purpose, had lifted them from nothing and made them strong. They would die for him gladly.
And die they would.
Vorthak's fortress was a mountain of black stone, surrounded by rivers of lava and guarded by lesser dragons and demon soldiers. It was considered impregnable.
Kael's army attacked at dawn.
Two thousand elite warriors, each one worth ten normal soldiers, charged the fortress in a coordinated assault. They had no hope of victory—not against a dragon general and his forces. But victory was not the goal.
The goal was sacrifice.
Kael stood at the rear of his army, his hands forming seals from the Heavenly Demon Divine Scripture. As his followers engaged the enemy, as they fought and died, he activated the Heavenly Divine Absorption Technique on a scale never before attempted.
The essence of his dying followers flowed into him.
Not just their life force, but their loyalty, their devotion, their willingness to die for his cause. The technique transformed their sacrifice into pure power, channeling it through Kael's body, expanding his capacity beyond human limits.
The battle was a massacre. Vorthak's forces cut through Kael's army like a scythe through wheat. Dragon fire consumed hundreds in seconds. Demon soldiers tore through ranks with supernatural strength. And when Vorthak himself emerged from his fortress, his mere presence caused the earth to tremble.
The dragon general was a mountain of crimson scales and ancient fury. His roar shattered stone. His claws carved trenches in the earth. His breath turned sand to glass.
Kael's two thousand elite warriors died in minutes.
But their deaths were no in vain , they become kael's power.
Kael felt the power flooding into him, more than he had ever absorbed before. His body transformed, his muscles dense with stolen strength, his meridians overflowing with essence. The combined power of two thousand warriors, refined and concentrated through the supreme technique of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, elevated him beyond the realm of humanity.
When the last of his followers fell, Kael opened his eyes. They glowed with an inner light that had never existed in human eyes before.
Vorthak turned his massive head toward this lone survivor, this insignificant human who had sent an army to die.
"You dare," the dragon rumbled, his voice like grinding mountains.
Kael smiled. It was the first genuine expression he had ever made—not from emotion, but from pure, crystalline certainty.
"I am Kael of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect," he said. "And you are my first sacrifice."
He moved.
The techniques of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, perfected through years of study and absorption, flowed through his transformed body. He was no longer bound by human limitations. The essence of two thousand warriors burned in his veins, granting him strength that should have been impossible.
Vorthak unleashed a torrent of dragon fire that could have melted a city. Kael walked through it, his body protected by layers of absorbed essence and the supreme defensive techniques of the sect. The flames that touched him were absorbed, converted into more power.
The dragon struck with claws that could shatter mountains. Kael met them with techniques that had been old when Valtherion was young, redirecting the force, finding the microscopic gaps in the dragon's scales, striking at pressure points that shouldn't have existed but which Kael's enhanced perception could now see.
The battle raged for six hours.
Vorthak called upon four centuries of accumulated power, upon ancient draconic magic, upon the inherent superiority of his race. He was a dragon general, a being that armies feared, a legend made flesh.
But Kael was something that had never existed before—a human who had transcended humanity through the supreme art of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, empowered by the willing sacrifice of two thousand devoted followers.
In the end, Vorthak fell.
The dragon general's massive body crashed to the earth, his crimson scales cracked and broken, his ancient eyes wide with disbelief. No dragon general had fallen in three thousand years. It should have been impossible.
Kael stood over the dying dragon, his body burned and broken but alive. He placed his hands on Vorthak's massive skull and activated the Essence Absorption Art one final time.
The dragon's essence was vast, ancient, powerful beyond anything Kael had absorbed before. It flooded into him like a tsunami, threatening to tear his body apart, to shatter his mind. Four centuries of accumulated power, draconic magic, the inherent strength of the dragon race—all of it poured into Kael's being.
His body transform ,His bones became denser, infused with draconic strength. His blood began to carry traces of dragon fire. His mind expanded to contain knowledge that had taken centuries to accumulate.
When the absorption was complete, Kael collapsed beside Vorthak's withered corpse. Before his eyes could close, sheer instinct forced his body to move, driving him toward safety. He ran toward the slums, and within minutes reached a dark corner where he finally collapsed. For three days he lay there, unconscious, as his body and mind struggled to integrate the impossible amount of power he had consumed.
When he finally rose, he was no longer entirely human.
He looked back at the battlefield, at the two thousand corpses of his followers who had died to make this possible.
He turned his gaze back toward the battlefield, memories crashing over him like a storm — the final screams, the desperate last stands, the unwavering loyalty of the two thousand followers who had given their lives to make this moment possible. He remembered their faces, their final breaths, the way they fought without hesitation, believing in him until the very end. Pain tightened his chest as he whispered, 'I will not let your sacrifice be meaningless… I will carry your will forward.
It was not a promise born of emotion or loyalty. It was simply a statement of fact. His followers had given him the power to begin this war. He would see it through to its conclusion.
Not for them. Not for revenge. Not for justice.
But because the dragons possessed the ultimate power in this world, and Kael wanted to consume it all.
The news of Vorthak's death spread across Valtherion like wildfire.
At first, no one believed it. Dragon generals didn't die, not like this. Not killed by a human, no matter how many soldiers he commanded. The other dragons investigated, and what they found horrified them.
Vorthak had been killed by someone who understood dragon physiology better than most dragons did. Someone who had struck with techniques that predated Valtherion itself. Someone who had absorbed the dragon general's essence, leaving behind a withered husk.
The dragons assumed it must have been a demon lord, or perhaps a coalition of vampire elders. No other race could possibly harm a dragon general. They began preparing for war, mobilizing their forces, demanding answers from the demon and vampire hierarchies.
But the demons and vampires were just as confused. They denied involvement, and their confusion seemed genuine.
Then came the second death.
Three weeks after Vorthak fell, another dragon general—Sylthara the Wise—was found dead in her fortress, her essence drained, her body withered. And this time, there were witnesses.
They spoke of a human who moved like a demon, who fought with techniques that seemed to come from another world entirely. A human who had walked through dragon fire and struck down a dragon general in single combat.
They spoke of Kael, the Orphan of Ash, disciple of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect.
The dragons finally understood. This wasn't a demon plot or a vampire conspiracy. This was one human, one impossibly powerful human, who had declared war on their entire race.
The dragon generals convened for the first time in a century. They debated, argued, and finally reached a consensus: Kael had to be destroyed, immediately and absolutely. They would send ten generals to hunt him down, an overwhelming force that no single being could possibly survive.
But Kael was already hunting his third target.
And in the ruins of Vorthak's fortress, a new army was gathering. Humans, demons, vampires, even some lesser dragons—all drawn by the impossible truth that a dragon general had fallen. All seeking to join the one who had achieved the impossible.
Kael's message to them was simple: "We will avenge our fallen. We will kill the dragons who have ruled us for three thousand years. Join me, and share in the power I claim. Oppose me, and become fuel for my ascension."
Thousands joined. They knew most of them would die. But they also knew that their deaths would not be meaningless. Their deaths would fuel the war that would tear down the hierarchy of Valtherion.
In the obsidian throne room of the Crimson Peaks, the Dragon Supreme Azkarathor listened to the reports with ancient, unreadable eyes.
"A human," he said finally, his voice like grinding continents. "A single human has killed two of my generals."
"Yes, Supreme One," his advisor confirmed, bowing low. "He calls himself Kael, disciple of something called the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect. He appears to possess the ability to absorb the essence of those who die near him, growing stronger with each sacrifice. He has already gathered a new army of followers willing to die for him."
Azkarathor was silent for a long moment. He had ruled Valtherion for three thousand years. He had seen empires rise and fall. He had witnessed the birth and death of gods. Nothing surprised him anymore.
But this... this was interesting.
"The Heavenly Demon Divine Sect," he mused. "I Remember that name," he said slowly, his voice heavy with disbelief. "There was once a man who called himself an Elder of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect. Legends say he slew two Demon Emperors before finally falling in battle. That sect… it does not exist in this world. Not in any recorded history so where did this boy come from ?!
"Unknown, Supreme One."
Azkarathor smiled, revealing teeth like mountains. "Let the generals handle it. If they fail, the kings will intervene. And if they fail..." His eyes gleamed with something that might have been anticipation. "Then perhaps this Kael will prove entertaining enough to face personally. It has been so long since I had a worthy opponent."
The advisor bowed and retreated, leaving Azkarathor alone with his thoughts.
The Dragon Supreme stared out at his domain, at the world he had ruled unchallenged for millennia, and felt something he hadn't experienced in centuries.
Interest.
Far below, in a cave system that wound through the roots of the world, Kael sat in meditation. The power of two dragon generals flowed through him, reshaping his body, expanding his mind. He could feel himself changing, evolving into something that had never existed before—neither human nor dragon, but something new.
Around him, his new followers trained with desperate intensity. Five thousand now, drawn from every race and nation. They knew what was coming. The dragons would send their full might against them. Most would die.
But their deaths would fuel Kael's ascension. And with each dragon general that fell, Kael would grow stronger.
He opened his eyes, and they glowed with stolen draconic power mixed with the ancient might of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect.
The war had begun.