A Mountain of Corpse

In the middle of the night, the sky was devoid of any stars as pitch black silence dominated the land beneath. Under the dense tall trees, shrouded within the dark shade of colliding shadows, the corpses of children and youngsters no older than 10 years of age were piled up into a small mountain.

The fishy metallic smell of blood and rotting flesh was lingering thick in the air as the atmosphere covering the surrounding area was both stifling and dreadful. Breaking the deadly silence of the night was the shriveling sound of a movement that proceeded with the shifting body of a corpse belonging to a male child around the age of 5.

Thump!

From the very top of the pile, the cold body of the little boy rolled down as a pale hand covered with dried blood shot out of the small mountain.

"Huff…huff…"

With the sound of breathing that turned heavier and more discernible to the open area, a thin dirty boy of short stature, cladded in rags, managed to push his way out. Holding his urge to puke at the strong horrendous smell assaulting his nostrils, his small feeble body trembled as he struggled to climb out of the pile.

His eyes were almost closed, with little light coming out of the black orbs hiding behind the heavy lids covered with dirt and scraped tiny wounds.

Despite his heavy body and power slipping, he forced himself to move, to move as far away as he could from the mountain of corpses.

He needed to be quick, he needed to escape before those people come back to burn him along with the other kids down to ashes.

If that were to happen, he would have to experience, yet again, the pain of being burned alive!

And then, he would have to grit his teeth as his flesh slowly shed out of those leftover ashes, weaving at each other slowly, thread by thread, with unspeakable familiarity to form a new body, revealing the secret of his body, a curse cast upon his soul that he could never die!

He didn't how long he had moved nor how far he had gone from the scene when his legs finally gave out on him, sending him to the ground with his face hitting first.

Thump!

Damn it! This ill fate of his!

He gritted his teeth as his heart soured at the thought of his miserable fate and the awful past he had gone through.

How could someone like him end up in such a dire situation?

He, Zhan Zi Shang, was originally a child of noble birth. As one of the Zhan Kingdom's princes, he was meant to be a dragon amongst many men, his future brighter than the brightest sun. Alas, when he was pointed out as a descendant of the devil by the Holy Shaman, being accused to bring miseries wherever he goes, his mother protected him and therefore had her bones and tendons broken to smithereens bits alongside him, their helpless bodies being thrown outside the borders of the state to fend off the attacks of hungry beasts lurking around.

Their ending was clear, this was the end of their pitiful lives. The mother had her whole body swallowed by a 5 feet tall demonic beast with three horns and the child, whose size was not much bigger than a baby bear at that time, had its 4 limbs thorn by the wandering pack of wolves, his head and torso bitten and shred little by little as if he was a source of entertainment.

Till the end, those cruel beasts abandoned him once he made no more sounds that were once melody to their ears. The boy's eyes slowly closed as he saw them turning their backs against him, their interest lost.

When darkness came to him, and when he thought that the peace that would last forever had finally been granted upon him, he opened his eyes to watch in horror as his body slowly recovered to the point of regaining what was once robbed from him. His eyes widened in disbelief as he moved his 4 intact limbs.

It was as if everything that happened before was nothing but a dream. However, a glance at the spot not far from him where the ground was dyed red, and the fading nauseating smell of blood belonging to his most precious mother, was all it took for him to admit that this was reality.

It was his reality.

They were right. He was truly a descendant of a devil. A cursed being that would only bring misfortune to whoever near him. His healing wounds and recovered body parts were solid proof and his precious mother…

It was him who had killed her. It was not that detestable witch who had spouted devious claims, nor was it his good-for-nothing father who hadn't even dared to say a word when the pair of mother and son was condemned by the masses and driven out of the kingdom, but him, Zhan Zi Shang!

It was at that time that the 8-year-old boy had his pride trampled and his confidence towards life crushed to the ground, only wishing nothing but death to occur to him as soon as possible. Dying may be painful, but the pain of being forced to live a life with his hands stained by the blood of his loved ones was something more than his little soul could bear.

They were right.

He was the biggest mistake the Heavens had ever made, a mistake that was better off dead since the very day he was born. There was no end to the tears pouring out of his bloodshot eyes.

However, at the lowest point of his life, that man showed up. His saviour, his hope, his second figure of a 'father'. That man was called Chang Shan. 'Shan' as the meaning of the mountains.

That man was twice his height and thrice his size. He looked gallant and powerful, a giant amongst many men and yet, he had the softest and the most sincere heart that stays true till the very end.

Chang Shan said that he loved the boy's mother. And to prove that his feelings were true, he vowed to help the boy have his revenge, even if it meant that his life would be at stake, and raised the boy like his own son.

Funny as the man didn't know, the boy was the one who killed that woman. The woman that the man had loved all his life, it was her very own son that had killed her.

Revenge… The idea of revenge. It was a laughable thought as not more than a year, the man and his small little family, including his wife, 2 blood sons, and the boy he picked up, was annihilated for treason when their plan of revenge hadn't even been materialised yet.

The whole family from young to old died, except for the boy. They were all executed on the spot, their dead bodies burned to ashes alongside their humble residence. However, even if his body had become nothing but ashes, fresh flesh grew out of the dots of scattering grey, weaving together to form the body of the little boy, with no trace of harm spotted on his skin.

The boy ran away with guilt and regret. He felt that the dirtiest existence in the world must be him. He was truly the filth of the Heavens, the biggest mistake the Heavens had ever made.

With his head forever hung low, he became a beggar who moved from place to place, distancing himself from the people and other kids his age. Those two months of no place to stay and no food to fill his stomach taught him the bitterness of the world, until a little girl of his age gave him a piece of flatbread.

It was hard and sour and yet, it was the most delicious delicacy he had ever eaten as it was the first decent meal he had after a whole 3 days of starvation. That girl was called Xiao Li, 'Li' as the meaning of 'beautiful.'

She said that he was the prettiest boy she had ever met and thus, she wanted to be friends with him. The boy knew that if he was to stay near the girl, he would one day bring harm to her. So he left, so far away that he thought he would never see her again.

Until that fateful day when he saw her amongst so many other captured kids. His luck was bad and was therefore captured by the human traffickers notorious in his area. He knew that till the last moment when the little girl had her cultivation crushed and her spiritual roots forcefully pulled out of her, being left to bleed to the end of her life, she must have resented him.

It was all because of him that the girl had met such misfortune. But till the second she took her last breath, her arms never left him as they circled around his body, not wanting to part with him. She said that he was the only person she was ever close with, the only person who could give her the warmth she needed the most in the chilling state she was in.

His heart wrenched at her last words. Pain, it was so painful as if someone had grabbed his heart and squeezed it. It was so painful that he had forgotten for a moment that he was also in the same situation like the girl, on the verge of dying, just like her.

It was the third time he hovered between life and death, just a foot away from being plunged to the deepest pit of the underworld and yet, despite him losing consciousness, he could still strangely sense a bit of his surroundings as he felt his body being moved and carried to stack against the other bodies that had long been devoid of any warmth. His body was healing, and at a rapid pace at that.

Despite the sound being sluggish and fuzzy, he could somehow decipher their plan of burning the corpses to get rid of the evidence of their crime. Being burned alive, again. It was too much of a horrible experience that he refused to go through it.

With his determination hard like steel, he forced himself to move all his might, pushing himself to his limits as he climbed his way out of those dead bodies.

'What had I done to be assigned to such a cruel fate?'

The boy asked himself and the Heavens.

To be cancer to all the living beings in this world, wouldn't he be better off dead? Why did the Heavens refuse to give him a quick death and end his sufferings? Just why???

The 10-year-old boy Chang Zi Shang of this moment crumbled to the ground, his body devoid of any power. He could no longer move, not even a finger. The boy closed his eyes in despair. He was helpless.

At this proximity, it wouldn't be hard for those savages to spot his position and drag him back or worse, if they were to notice that he had somehow restored himself back to health, they might torment him more to discover the secrets of his heaven-defying ability.

That ending was something he never wanted to happen!

At that moment when his body shivered in fear at his own thoughts, a blow of wind brushed past him out of nowhere, sending chills down his spine.

"Do you truly wish for death?"

The deep low voice in his ear reeked trickery and impure intentions, akin to the whisper of the devil himself and yet, his words were more like bells to his ears.

'Yes, I do.'

He couldn't open his mouth however, it was as if the devil could hear the swirling thoughts in his head as the boy heard a chuckle from his left, still as menacing as before.

"Even if you could never return back to the wheels of reincarnation ever again?"

Not waiting for the boy's answer, the devil continued.

"Alright, this benevolent God promises you. In exchange for your body and soul, I will make them pay for all the injustices you suffered."

The intense ringing of the devil's voice was the last thing the boy heard before endless darkness consumed his consciousness and his entire being.