The Dao of fate was ever-changing and unpredictable, its patterns impossible to fathom.
Yuanshi Tianzun believed that what he saw was a scene from the present.
In truth, he had divined an image from five hundred years ago.
Five hundred years ago.
Duan Family Fortress, once poor yet touched by faint traces of warmth, had erupted into raging flames.
Amid the ruins and jet-black charcoal.
A half-grown child, clutching a firewood chopping knife and carrying an even smaller girl on his back, struggled out from the shelter of the ruins and his parents' corpses.
"Yo!"
"There are still survivors?" Unrestrained, flamboyant laughter drifted in from outside the mountain village.
Several bandits who had yet to leave whistled as they approached the siblings with curved sabers in hand.
"Kid, call me Grandfather."
"Crawl through my legs, and I'll spare your life!" said an extremely young burly man. His blue hemp clothes were covered in blood—other people's blood.
The burly man's words drew a burst of wanton laughter from the other three bandits nearby.
One of them noticed the filthy girl on the youth's back, who looked like a ball of mud, and laughed as well. "Heh heh, looks like there's a little girl too. Shall we take her back to the stronghold, or sell her to the madam in Frivolous City?"
The unbridled laughter of the bandits made the youth grip the firewood chopping knife in his hand tightly.
He seemed to see the despair and agony of his parents and fellow villagers before they died.
These were difficult times; the strong were revered.
Perhaps those famous righteous sects could bring fairness and justice to many places.
But sadly, the influence of those orthodox sects would not reach this tiny mountain village, this remote corner.
Gloom and chaos remained the theme