The campfire crackled, stretching the seven companions' shadows long. After five days of rest, they had long since recovered from the exhaustion of joining forces to kill seven Man Snakes. Sitting around the fire, their hearts, usually taut with vigilance amid flashing blades, finally relaxed a little. Before they knew it, the conversation drifted toward the pasts each had kept buried within.
Kelan Kai was the first to speak.
"It used to be just my mother and me." He gazed at the dancing flames, his voice low but carrying a trace of warmth. "We were dirt poor. Once, when we went to market, she clutched her last copper coin and bought me a hot flatbread. For that one bite alone, I swore then and there that I'd make something of myself."
He paused, tightening his grip on the sword hilt at his waist.
"So I trained like mad. Even when I reached discharge age, I didn't leave. I stayed in the army, kept slogging away, kept training. I don't have any grand ambitions. I just want to become a seventh-level warrior and a city lord. As long as I can give my mother a secure life, that'll be enough."
Xifaman patted his shoulder, his tone assured. "You'll get there. You're barely past thirty, and you're already a fifth-level warrior. There aren't many in the whole camp who can match you. Becoming a seventh-level warrior isn't beyond your reach."
When it came to his own story, Xifaman pulled open his clothes, revealing the scars crisscrossing his body, stark in the firelight.
"My father was a mercenary, a fourth-level warrior. He wasn't strong, but he could keep the family fed and clothed. Unfortunately, bandits from Azure Wolf Mountain intercepted and killed him on an escort mission. Our family lost its livelihood. I hadn't even become a first-level warrior, but I gritted my teeth and joined the army."
He touched the deepest scar on his chest, his gaze turning colder. "All these wounds are marks of the times I crawled out of piles of corpses. To other people, they're scars. To me, they're a man's medals. Once I break through to become a sixth-level warrior, the first thing I'll do is storm Azure Wolf Mountain and avenge my father."
"Count me in when you go," Huohe said in a low voice.
He was the most composed of the seven, with the cool reserve of a fallen noble in his expression.
"I come from a fallen noble family. My father was a seventh-level warrior. He disappeared while carrying out a military mission years ago, and we still haven't heard from him. I'm a fifth-level warrior now, too. If I can advance one more level, to the sixth, I can restore my family's viscount title."
A trace of resentment and obsession flashed in his eyes. "But the Blood Slaughter Battle Blade passed down in our family was sold off long ago. My greatest wish in this life is to reclaim the battle blade that belongs to our family."
Shiheng's past was much simpler, with fewer grudges and more of the texture of everyday life.
Shiheng sat beside the fire, his face bearing the honest simplicity of an ordinary farmer's son. He spoke calmly about his past, without the slightest ripple in his voice. "I'm just a child from an ordinary family. I hunted in the mountains from a young age to help support us, then came to the army when the recruitment began. Staying alive, growing stronger, and keeping my family from going hungry-that was what I wanted at first."
What he said was true, but it was the original fixation of this body.
Only Shiheng himself knew that beneath his calm exterior lay a heart surging with towering ambition.
He had not originally belonged to this world. An accidental rebirth had brought him to this vast realm.
Having witnessed this world's system of power firsthand and learned of the supreme might of Saint experts, the longing in his heart had never faded. Becoming a Saint and entering the realm of eternal life was the goal he kept buried deepest within. In this world, only by becoming a Saint could he break free of the constraints of life and death, possess a long lifespan, no longer suffer the erosion of time, and stand above all living beings.
But that was still far from enough.
Above the Saint realm lay Divine Positions, and beyond them were the legendary Paragons who stood at the pinnacle of the world and controlled everything.
In his previous life, he had lived an ordinary existence and accomplished nothing. Given another life, and in a fantasy world filled with limitless possibilities at that, he would never settle for being an ordinary person who toiled merely to stay fed and clothed. On the surface, he was an ordinary soldier who had enlisted to feed his family. In secret, however, with every training session, every battle, and every trial, he quietly accumulated strength, advancing steadily, step by step, toward the Saint realm, toward godhood, and along the seemingly unreachable path to becoming a Paragon.
He buried this ambition deep within his heart, never revealing so much as a trace to anyone. As the flickering campfire lit his gentle features, the others took him for a dutiful, dependable soldier who wanted only a peaceful life. None of them realized that this seemingly ordinary young man harbored a towering ambition to overturn the entire world order.
A log in the fire cracked, throwing out sparks that vanished into the night in an instant, just like Shiheng's thoughts, hidden without a trace at that moment-silent, yet growing wildly within his heart.
When it was Nalan Jingyu and her sister's turn, the two exchanged a glance, their voices carrying some of the desolation of a declining noble family.
"We were nobles once, too. Otherwise, we couldn't have gathered the resources to study magic. But later, we offended a prince, were stripped of our title, and our family fell into decline. After wandering from place to place, we ended up joining the army."
At last, everyone's gaze settled on Kelin Xiaoman.
She said nothing about her family circumstances, merely gazing into the distant darkness and saying softly:
"I don't have any great ambitions, and I don't want revenge for anything. My only wish is not to have my family arrange my marriage, not to be bound for the rest of my life."
The campfire kept burning. Seven utterly different pasts, seven deeply held fixations, quietly blended into the same night at that moment.
The road ahead remained perilous, but sitting together at that moment, they were more like a true team than ever before.
Before you continue