The Great Desolate Forest stretched out like it had no end, a massive kingdom of wilderness uncontrolled.
At its borders, amidst the giant trees and mist-covered rivers, lay a small border town—the home of the Su Clan.
Its narrow streets, full of people, had seen the birth and death of countless dreams, yet one name had long been erased from its murmurs—Su Vaen.
A bright prospect in the earlier days, Su Vaen had withdrawn from the power struggles of the clan. Not an outcast, nor a prodigy—a former topper who had shown promise once upon a time.
But when fate struck him and he lost his eyesight, he abandoned the power struggle and chose solitude. He lost the spirit of competition after his mother died. Now, he is all alone.
Now, he is the sole guard of a remote outpost, at the deepest point of the outer ring of the Great Desolate Forest. The town and clan that had once been his home were miles away, like a distant memory.
The watchtower where Su Vaen stood was nothing more than a simple wooden hut, held up by thick logs and covered with a thatched roof.
It was a lonely spot, silent except for the whispering leaves, the occasional growls of distant beasts, and the rhythmic tapping of Su Vaen's sword on the stone path.
To the uninformed, it would seem absurd, if not ridiculous, to leave a blind man as the only guardian of the outpost.
However, Su Vaen's sharp hearing and instinct had attuned him to the life of the forest more than most. Not to mention, Su Vaen had reached the stage 4 of Qi Condensation Realm in these years.
A soft breeze carried the scent of damp earth and blooming flowers. The forest sighed, and Su Vaen listened.
Each movement, each whisper, each shift in the wind spoke to him. He could hear the heartbeat of the forest more clearly than any other.
His right hand rested on the scabbard of his sword, his fingers brushing against the cold steel.
He could no longer see the world, but his sword arm had not faltered. The clan thought of him as a forgotten relic, a pawn on the chessboard of power that had been cast aside.
But in truth, Su Vaen had merely chosen a different battlefield.
Within the Su Clan's ancestral hall, matters of far greater importance occupied the minds of its leaders. For one and a half years, a secret operation had been underway—one involving their clan's deepest secret.
While the Su Clan was one of the lowest-ranking bloodline clans, there was one thing that they possessed which no other aristocratic household had—the Beast Taming Art.
Unlike ordinary contracts that forced beasts into servitude, the Su Clan's method required a bond of mutual trust and commitment. A beast had to voluntarily submit, something which made the art both rare and difficult to cultivate.
And, because of it the contractor of the beast can use some abilities of the beast.
The Imperial Family, ever hungry for power, had taken an interest in this process
. They sought a way to simplify and alter the process so that they could bypass the need for mutual agreement. This would raise the Su Clan's status in the bloodline nobility, and grant them a higher position in the empire.
Experiments, however, required subjects, and subjects required sacrifices.
What the clan elders did not realize was that, in their own desperate pursuit of greater status, they were playing with forces they could not control.
And far away from all politics and ambition, deep within the forest, a young man with no eyes but keen sight stood at the doorway of a destiny yet unrevealed.