The first five-colored rays of dawn slowly began to shine across the skyscrapers in downtown Shanghai.
Warm sunlight streamed through the clouds and fell upon the earth, heralding the start of a new day.
Early in the morning, a cold spring breeze drifted into an inconspicuous residential neighborhood... Whenever it slipped into a resident's home through a door or window left open, a man wrapped in his blanket would poke his head out, reach over to gently shut it, then return to his room and go back to sleep.
The chilly morning breeze darted in and out of one home after another like a mischievous child. Each time someone came out to close the doors and windows, it would sneak into another home.
When it felt that it had visited every house and was about to leave, it suddenly noticed one home tucked away in an inconspicuous corner, its doors and windows still open. Feeling slighted, the breeze gathered its strength and whipped up a gale, rushing straight inside.
Whoooooosh...
The gale blew into the room, sending the purple curtains flapping wildly. Along with them drifted the pungent stench and the metallic tang of blood that filled the room.
Tiny spots of scarlet stained the pristine white floor. Following them, one could see that the drops of blood stretched all the way from the window to the living room.
Looking down, one would find four bodies lying on the floor: two elderly people, a woman, and a child... Four or five flies crawled and buzzed around each of the stinking corpses. The sight was revolting.
We shifted our gaze from the seven bodies and looked to the side, where a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy lay slumped on the floor. He sat there quietly, staring at the four corpses with disgust, as if they were the revolting green-headed flies...
The boy slumped on the floor held a cleaver in his right hand and a short knife in his left. One glance at the bodies, riddled with stab wounds, and then at the bloodstained blades in the boy's hands made it clear who had killed them—and how.
Clack... The blade struck the floor with a sharp metallic sound.
The boy forced himself to his feet and walked over to a landline nearby. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly as he picked up the receiver and turned himself in.
On the third day, the case of the SH City mayor's entire family being murdered caused an uproar across SH. The High People's Court took up the case.
When the court guards brought in the murderer of the mayor's family, all the reporters stared in shock at the boy standing in the dock. From where they stood, he looked under 1.7 meters tall and frail, with a pale face and bruises scattered across it.
No matter how they looked at it, the reporters couldn't imagine that this boy, who seemed on the verge of fainting, had brutally killed five people with a blade—including a child around his own age.
Throughout the trial, the boy admitted to each of his crimes without hesitation. He showed no concern at the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars. Whenever his gaze fell on the plaintiff, SH City Mayor Wu Xiong, the boy's normally indifferent eyes filled with the feverish delight of revenge.
At last... Before the judge announced the verdict, the judge, a man nearing fifty, turned to the boy one final time and asked, "What's your name? Why did you brutally murder Mayor Wu Xiong's entire family?"
The boy looked at the judge, then turned around and said, "My name is Drac D. Xia. As for why I killed that bastard's family? Heh..."
The boy lowered his head with a strange laugh. Then he raised it again, his face twisted with rage, and said, "Of course it's because that bastard was too hard to kill! So I had to make his family pay for his debt!"
"You beast! You monster! What did I ever do to you to make you take revenge on me like this?! Why would you do this to me?! My child was only ten years old! Ten! He was so young, and you still had it in you to kill him?! You beast... you monster!" The mayor, who had been trying to stay calm, finally snapped at Xia's words.
In his agitation, he struggled to move his heavyset body toward Xia, but the court guards hurried over and held him back.
The reporters watching nearby—since the trial was open to the public—raised their cameras and snapped away at the mayor and Xia. Watching the mayor weep and snottily denounce Xia's crimes, people couldn't help feeling sympathy for him. Without thinking, they saw Xia as a murderous fiend—and a juvenile offender, to boot.
After the judge sentenced Xia to life in prison, the court guards began to escort him away. In that instant, Xia suddenly turned back and said, "If you want someone to blame, blame your own greed. You took a bribe of two hundred thousand from the driver who killed my six-year-old sister—the in-law of your family. Because of you, my only mother, who had just begun to recover from her husband's betrayal and had struggled so hard to raise my sister and me, died of grief when she learned how my sister had died!
"In just three days, I lost the two people I treasured most! Now you can experience that hellish pain for yourself!
"Repent! Regret it! Be furious! Hate me! Then take your filthy body and die! This is my lifelong curse... just as I curse the man who betrayed my mother! The scars his betrayal left me with hurt ten thousand times more than what you're suffering now, you bastard!"
By the time Xia finished speaking, the court guards had taken him out of the courtroom. When the reporters finally came to their senses after hearing his words, which sounded almost like a devil's curse, both men involved had already left...
On the third day after Xia was sent to the labor-reform prison...
He was found in his cell, having bitten through his own tongue and killed himself.
"What a sorrowful existence... My poor child, wake up, wake up..."
Somewhere in a warm, azure ocean, I vaguely heard someone speaking. It seemed the words were meant for me.
"Wake up, my poor child... come back to me..." What a warm voice... like a mother's... I thought when I heard it more clearly.
When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, climbing up out of the water, I saw an endless expanse of azure sea.
The seawater lapping at my feet was so warm and soothing. I breathed air as fresh as something from a dream and looked up at the spotless sky, where clouds as white as snow drifted overhead.
When I turned around, I saw a nearby island carpeted in green grass and blooming with flowers. It was home to all sorts of gentle animals that had gone extinct in ancient times.
Even animals that were naturally ferocious carnivores seemed to grow mild and friendly in the island's peaceful atmosphere. Rabbits wrestled with lions, tigers raced with white deer... The whole island was suffused with an air of peace and mutual love...
As I watched this all unfold before my eyes, I froze for a moment, then muttered uncertainly, "Is this... the legendary utopia? Avalon?"
"Hehe, no, my child... This isn't the imaginary utopia that humans dream of. It's the Silent Sea, a gathering place for the benevolent aspects of human consciousness," said that mysterious voice gently.
"...Your voice is very gentle, and it makes me feel safe. But please don't call yourself my mother. I have only one mother, and she's one of a kind!" I said, looking up at the sky.
"Hehe... Then how about I call you Xia, my child?" A soft laugh rang out from the sky, followed by the same gentle voice.
"...Still calling me 'child,' huh... Never mind. You may already know who I am, but allow me to introduce myself anyway. My name is Drac D. Xia! I'm a man who's just completed his revenge! I don't know who you are, but could you please tell me what you want as soon as possible?" I cleared my throat and asked.
"To invite you to become the guardian of my being, the guardian of this ocean of benevolent thoughts," the mysterious voice replied plainly.
"Uh... are you trying to mess with me, Alaya?" I paused for a moment, then called out the voice's true identity to the sky.
"Hehe, you've figured it out..." Alaya, dressed in white, leapt down from the sky and landed right in front of me.
"I realized it when you said this place was a gathering of the benevolent aspects of human consciousness. The only one who could hold the key to a place I'd once only imagined in my mind was Alaya, the collective consciousness of humanity," I said with a smile, looking at the Goddess before me.
"Heh, you're clever enough. So... what's your answer? Also... don't ask why I chose you. That would be a foolish question, and I don't much like crushing people's spirits," Alaya said with a playful wink.
"...I accept, but I have three conditions." I held up three fingers to Alaya.
"Mm... let's hear them," Alaya said.
"First: I want to enter the world of Fate. For you, as the collective consciousness of humanity, finding a parallel world like that shouldn't be difficult. Second: once I enter that parallel world, I want permission to bring one of its Heroic Spirits here with me. Third: I need four hundred years to grow. That's all..." I listed my conditions, then looked at Alaya.
Alaya gave me a strange look, then asked, "You... don't want to bring your two beloved family members back to life?"
"Dead is dead. Bringing the dead back to life would only give me a substitute with someone else's memories crammed into its body. That would be vulgar, self-deceptive, and a refusal to face the truth. How could I make such a ridiculous request? Besides... since Alaya exists, reincarnation must exist too.
"My sister and mother have simply moved on to something they would have experienced sooner or later. Though I'm sad and lonely... I won't let the past blind me! I'll always look ahead, toward the future! And besides..." As I said this, I couldn't help making a lovestruck, blissful face.
"If I really can find that world, then I'll be able to meet the person who matters more to me than my soul! More than my very existence! She's noble, honest, chaste, pure, and would never betray her vows! She's a goddess in my heart! She's the only woman I trust completely and love!" As I spoke, I grabbed Alaya by the shoulders, overcome with excitement.
Watching my excited, blissful expression, Alaya once again found herself puzzled by a certain human emotion called "love." Even as the collective consciousness of humanity, she couldn't understand what this thing humans called "love" actually was.
It could make someone powerful enough to overturn the entire world fall from the heavens to the earth.
It could turn a weakling, so feeble that even a stray dog could bully him, into someone before whom even the heavens had to yield.
It drove people mad.
It enthralled them.
It helped people unlock their potential and evolve faster than war ever could.
It was what everyone longed for.
It was everyone's most precious thing.
It could be more intense than anger.
It could be more sorrowful than grief.
And yet it couldn't be touched, seen, or heard, while still being something people could clearly feel.
"Such a willful emotion... even more willful than a person," Alaya concluded about love. Then she turned to me and said she could grant my three conditions.
But first, I had to tell her which world I planned to visit for my training.
At that, I flashed her a smile brighter than the sun and said, "Do you even have to ask? Of course I'm going to Knight King's Britain!"
Before you continue