Chapter 2: The Logic of Spite

  Day 3.

  Most infants spend their first days crying for warmth or milk. I spent mine trying to circulate Qi, failing, and cursing the heavens.

  I stared at the ceiling beam. It was rough wood. Cheap. In my past life, my bathroom was made of jade. This was humiliating.

  But before I could dwell on the poverty, the memory hit me. The real reason I was here. It wasn't an accident. It was the result of the greatest tantrum in history.

  [Memory Record: The Siege of Mount Hua]

  The air smelled of blood and burning pine.

  I stood on the edge of the peak. The wind whipped my torn black robes. My body was covered in forty-two distinct wounds arrows, sword cuts, spear thrusts. I was bleeding out, but I stood straight.

  In front of me, the world had gathered to kill me. Ten thousand of them. The Shaolin monks with their golden staffs. The Wudang Taoists with their flying swords. The Beggars, the Nobles, and even the Blood Cultists I had offended last Tuesday.

  "Heavenly Demon!" the Alliance Leader roared, his voice amplified by internal energy. "Your reign is over! Surrender and we will grant you a quick death!"

  I didn't look at them. I looked past them. I looked at the signal flare I had fired an hour ago. The green smoke was fading in the sky.

  It was the "absolute summons" for my own sect, the Celestial Demon Cult. But the horizon was empty. No reinforcements. No loyal subordinates. My Vice-Lord had locked the gates. They had sold me out to save their own skins.

  "Hah."

  A dry laugh escaped my throat. Betrayal. How cliché. I had expected better from them. I trained them to be ruthless, and they used that ruthlessness on me. I should be proud, really.

  "What is so funny, demon?" The Shaolin Abbot stepped forward. "Do you mock the Buddha even in death?"

  I looked at the ten thousand masters. They were sweating. They were terrified of one dying man.

  "I'm not mocking the Buddha, bald donkey," I spat, blood dripping from my chin. "I'm mocking the math."

  "Math?"

  "There are ten thousand of you," I said, pointing a shaking finger. "And one of me. You think you have won."

  I reached into my Dantian. I didn't pull out a weapon. I reached for the Primordial Chaos Seed the forbidden core I had spent thirty years cultivating. It was supposed to help me ascend to Godhood. Instead, I cracked it.

  "But if I blow this up," I smiled, "the math changes. It becomes zero against zero."

  The Abbot’s face went pale. He sensed the chaotic vibration. "You... you wouldn't! The explosion would wipe out half the province! You will destroy your soul!"

  "Correct," I nodded. "But I prefer that to letting you idiots brag that you killed me."

  "STOP HIM!"

  They charged. A tidal wave of swords and Qi. Too slow.

  I crushed the seed. "I hope you all reincarnate as dung beetles."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  BOOM.

  I didn't just die. I deleted the map.

  [Current Reality]

  I blinked. The memory faded.

  I was back in the crib. A useless, soft, pink blob of flesh.

  "Ugh." I tried to sit up. My neck muscles failed. My head flopped back onto the pillow.

  Pathetic. I had wiped out an army out of sheer spite, and now I couldn't even lift my own head?

  "Oh? Is Cain awake?"

  The door creaked open. Sarah, my mother in this life, walked in. She looked exhausted. She leaned over the crib, her face filling my vision. She smiled a genuine, warm smile that made my skin crawl.

  "Hello, my little angel," she cooed.

  ‘Angel?’ I thought, narrowing my eyes. ‘I am the Heavenly Demon. Watch your tongue, woman.’

  She reached down and picked me up. I tensed. In the Murim, being grabbed like this meant a neck snap was coming. But she just held me close to her chest. She smelled of milk and cheap soap.

  "You're so quiet," she whispered, rocking me. "The doctor said... he said you might not have much energy because of the Mana Void. But don't worry. Mama will protect you."

  I stopped struggling. ‘Protect me?’

  I looked at her arms. Thin. Weak. Zero muscle mass. Her mana flow was stagnant. A single goblin could tear her apart in three seconds. And yet, she was promising to protect me, the man who once fought a dragon for three days because it looked at him wrong.

  It was absurd. It was laughable.

  But... I felt the warmth radiating from her.

  A distant memory flickered in the back of my mind. Not from the blood-soaked Murim, but from the sterile white room of my first life. My mother... Minato's mother. She used to hold my hand like this while I lay attached to the tubes. She cried a lot. I had forgotten that feeling.

  In my second life, I became a demon. I severed all ties. I thought affection was a weakness that dulled the blade. I had changed too much.

  But this... this heat...

  ‘Fine,’ I decided coldly, closing my eyes against her chest. ‘You are weak. You are useless in a fight. But you provide heat and nutrition. And... this sensation isn't bad. I will allow this hugging. For now.’

  *‘*I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. The "Mana Void" was crushing me. The gravity felt immense. Most babies would just cry and sleep.

  But I was not most babies. I began the "Tortoise Breathing Technique."

  Inhale for 5 seconds. Hold for 5. Exhale for 5.

  My tiny lungs burned. My ribs ached. It felt like I was breathing through a straw while an elephant sat on my chest. But I forced it.

  ‘I will not accept this limit,’ I swore internally. ‘I blew myself up to escape a bottleneck. I will not be stopped by a little gravity.’

  My mother noticed my rhythmic breathing. "Oh? Are you sleeping, Cain?"

  No, woman. I am cultivating. Put me down. I need to harden these bones before I can even think about revenge.

  "Sleep well," she kissed my forehead and placed me back in the crib.

  I waited until she left. The room plunged into silence, save for the rhythmic dripping of rain outside.

  I closed my eyes and focused on the so-called "curse" plaguing this body. The Mana Void. The doctors called it a defect. My parents called it a tragedy.

  ‘Fools.’

  A cold smirk touched my lips.

  They didn't understand. This emptiness... this hunger inside my Dantian... it wasn't natural. It was my work.

  In the Murim, I wasn't born a genius. I was a beggar with clogged meridians. To survive, I didn't just train; I tortured myself. I bathed in venom, ate the hearts of toxic beasts, and broke my own bones a thousand times to reconstruct them. I spent forty years carving my flesh into the Primordial Physique a vessel capable of devouring the heavens.

  It seems that when I exploded, I didn't just carry my memories. My soul was so obsessed with power that it dragged the blueprint of my body with it. This "Mana Void" was simply this new, weak infant body trying to reshape itself to match the monster inside it.

  ‘I brought my masterpiece with me.’

  I triggered the cultivation method. It wasn't a gentle flow. It was a violent suction. My pores snapped open, dragging the heavy, chaotic atmospheric energy into my dry meridians to feed the starving beast.

  Thump.

  My heart hammered against my ribs. The pain was immediate like pouring boiling water into a frozen cup. My tiny veins bulged.

  If anyone had looked into the crib at that moment, they would have screamed. My eyes snapped open. They weren't the soft brown of a human infant anymore. Because of the intense pressure of the Physique activating, my irises flooded with blood and energy, glowing a deep, toxic crimson.

  I looked at my hand. A tiny, chubby fist shaking from the strain.

  I squeezed it. It felt like moving a mountain.

  ‘I don't care about this world,’ I thought, gritting my gums as the red glow in my eyes intensified. ‘I don't care about kings or demon lords. Right now, my greatest enemy is gravity.’

  I exhaled, steam rising from my lips in the cold room.

  ‘I will not die in a diaper. That is a bottom line I refuse to cross.’

  I closed my eyes again, the red light fading as I focused inward. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

  Pain is good. Pain means I am still alive to feel it.