The Invincible Young Master

The farmer, stood there, surrounded by the stillness, his gaze fixed on his hands, trembling with the horror of what they had done.

Before him lay his wife and daughter, the only family he had ever known, taken from him by his own fury.

In that awful silence, a piercing clarity came on him. It was as if a fog had lifted from his mind, showing him the truth he could hardly bear: it was his doing.

His hands had ended the lives of those he loved most.

Memories surfaced, small moments that were once so precious. He remembered his wife's gentle smile, the pure, bright laughter of his daughter.

They had never looked at him with hatred or scorn. That bitterness, that darkness, those were shadows in his own mind, seeds planted by the whispers he had allowed to poison his heart.

With that understanding, the farmer's strength left him. He fell to his knees, his spirit broken.

The wealth, the strength, the pride he had once clung to, none of it mattered anymore. What he had gained felt empty, hollow, when he realized what he had truly lost.

He understood now that the voice had granted him everything he thought he wanted, only to take away all that truly mattered.

As he knelt there, surrounded by silence, he knew the true cost of the deal he had made.

The voice had not defeated him, no, it was his own desires, his own blindness, that had led to this ruin. And in the quiet that followed, he was left alone with nothing but a deep, endless regret.

But the story did not end with the farmer.

Generations later, that cube found its way into the hands of another, a young man brimming with talent, a gifted ascendant with a future as bright as the stars.

He was admired by his peers, respected by his teachers, and known throughout his school for his dedication and skill. But that all changed the day he found the cube.

This young man felt the strange allure of the cube from the start. It was as if it spoke to him, whispering in his dreams, filling his mind with promises he could not quite understand.

At first, he ignored it, brushing it off as mere imagination. But as days passed, he felt a troubling change within himself.

His once-sharp skills dulled, his confidence wavered, and his strength faded.

Those who once looked up to him now laughed behind his back. His reputation fell, and soon, he was on the brink of expulsion. His hopes and dreams teetered on the edge… until he received a mission, a task to clear a nearby forest of wild beasts.

Despite his weakened state, he clung to that mission as a lifeline. It was his last chance to prove himself, his final shot at reclaiming everything he'd lost.

So, he entered the forest, his heart filled with desperation. His prey were mere beasts, easy opponents for someone who had once been so skilled.

And with each beast he killed, he felt something strange, his old strength returning in faint sparks. His power was coming back.

As he fought, something inside him began to shift.

The more beasts he killed, the stronger he became.

His body started to feel different, like it was adapting, feeding off the life he had taken.

It was a feeling that blurred the line between desire and need. And by the time he had cleared the entire forest, a new power had awakened in him, a power to grow stronger with each life he claimed.

When he left that forest, he wasn't the same young man who had entered. His gaze had hardened, his eyes held a wildness, a darkness that clung to him.

On his way back to the school, he came across a group of thieves on the road. Without a second thought, he uttered a single word:

'Death.'

And just like that, the thieves fell, life snuffed out as if stolen by an unseen force.

It was then he realized… his strength didn't just grow from killing beasts. Humans, too, could fuel his power. And so he began to hunt, seeking out bandits, criminals, anyone he could justify as fair game.

With every life he claimed, he grew faster, stronger, and more ruthless. It became a craving, something that went beyond his own ambitions.

And as the deaths stacked up, the voice he'd once heard only in his dreams began to echo in his waking hours, a whisper that slithered through his mind, urging him further down a dark path.

Without realizing it, he had awakened something sinister within himself, something that fed on his desires, something that slowly devoured the last remnants of his humanity.

When he returned to his school, his teachers were shocked. They saw that he had regained his strength and accepted him back with relief, yet a hint of hesitation lingered in their eyes.

They could sense something had changed within him.

His peers, once mocking, now avoided his gaze, whispering behind his back. A fear crept over them, though none dared to speak of it openly.

They all sensed that the young man had crossed a threshold, but they couldn't know how far.

The young man noticed their fear but did nothing. He withdrew to his peak, a small, secluded place overlooking the forest he had once cleared, and there he stayed, locking himself away in endless meditation.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. He seemed at peace, sitting in quiet solitude, his eyes closed to the world. But the longer he stayed isolated, the more he began to feel a creeping weakness.

He told himself it was because he hadn't moved, hadn't trained. Yet deep down, he knew it was something else. The voice that had once been a faint whisper had returned, stronger than ever, urging him, clawing at him.

Each day, the hunger grew more intense, gnawing at him from within, like a starving beast that had been denied its prey.

As the months passed, he began to realize that his strength was not as stable as he had thought.

The power he had gained from the beasts in the forest and from those he had… taken… was fading, slipping through his fingers like sand.

He was starving, not for food or water, but for something darker. It was as if his very being craved the thrill, the rush that had come with each life he had taken. And the more he resisted, the more the voice in his head grew louder.

No matter how he tried to purge it, the darkness had already taken root. And each passing day only deepened the hunger, making the cravings stronger, until it was no longer a question of if he would give in, but when.

The path to ascension was one that tested not just the body but also the soul. The young man, with all his potential, knew this.

He trained harder than anyone, pushed himself to limits most would fear, always reaching higher, aiming for greatness.

However, he had not foreseen the shadows that would creep into his heart, so quietly, so subtly.

'You are not strong enough,'

it would say.

'Others are surpassing you, leaving you behind… forgotten.'

These whispers would echo in the quiet hours, finding him in moments of doubt and frustration.

But they didn't stay quiet for long. They grew louder, more insistent.

'

Why struggle when there's an easier path?'

they urged.

'Just take what you want! Kill if you must!'"

At first, the young man resisted. He meditated, focusing his energy to silence the voice. He sealed away his thoughts, and tried to purge his mind of the troubling whispers.

But the darkness found cracks, small openings in his defenses, slipping through in ways he could not predict.

Each failure became a wound, each setback a justification for the voice to grow.

His heart, once filled with ambition, began to twist, fed by his growing insecurities and desires.

And from this turmoil, a demon was born, not a beast of flesh and blood, but a dark presence within himself, a twisted reflection of his own fears.

By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. He could no longer cleanse the darkness within him.

His heart, once a place of calm energy, had become a storm. His aura, once bright, is now tainted and corrupt.

Blinded by his desire for power, he finally crossed a line he could never uncross.

In a moment of rage, he turned on his own kin, his peers, his teachers, the very people who had nurtured his talent and encouraged his dreams.

He became a being of pure destruction. They called him

'The Reaper,

' for wherever he walked, death followed like a shadow.

Powerful ascendants, entire dynasties, they all fell with a single glance or word. He grew unstoppable, feared by everyone, and entire nations crumbled in his greed.