The Eastern Region.
A young man stood atop a cliff, his eyes closed.
More than a dozen corpses lay strewn at his feet, their blood not yet dry.
He took a white handkerchief from his sleeve and leisurely wiped the blood from his sword.
When he finished, he casually tossed the handkerchief aside.
It fluttered in the night wind before settling over a face whose eyes were still open.
He raised his head and looked toward the distant horizon.
"Next."
"Number one on the Azure Profound Ranking..."
His name was Si Ming.
He was the Si Household's most outstanding descendant in the past twenty years.
Twenty years old, nascent soul late stage, ninth on the Azure Profound Ranking.
Everyone called him a genius, a prodigy, a rising star of the Eastern Region.
He did not see it that way.
Because ever since he could remember, one name had weighed over his head.
Si Chen.
His older cousin.
The year he was born, his cousin had ascended.
Throughout his childhood, everyone in the entire Lineage talked about his cousin.
"Your older brother could master a spell after seeing it just once."
"Your older brother slew golden core cultivators while still at foundation establishment."
"Your older brother single-handedly subdued the four regions of Great Yin."
In this household, his cousin was a legend.
And he... was merely "Si Chen's younger brother."
Si Ming disliked that label.
He had said so since childhood, and had heard it until his ears grew calluses.
As a child receiving training from the Lineage, he quickly grasped the essentials whenever the elders explained a cultivation method.
The elders nodded. "Not bad. You should strive to match your older brother."
He cultivated diligently and reached foundation establishment at ten.
His clansmen praised him. "He has the same