Time in the Dark Zone passed in a brutally rigid rhythm.
Following the critical breakthrough of awakening their first auras, the brothers, Shin and Kento, officially entered a frantic training cycle strictly scheduled by old man Akaisin.
On odd days, from the earliest crack of dawn, the brothers hauled heavy burlap sacks, navigating through the massive mounds of trash to scavenge for scrap metal.
This routine served a dual purpose: it earned them the meager Dark Coins needed to feed the household and served as a grueling conditioning tool to forge muscular endurance under the dusty, scorching sun.
On these days, they only allocated a brief window in the late afternoon to meditate and stabilize their Sophion currents.
Conversely, the even days were a literal hell on earth.
These days were exclusively dedicated to maximum physical conditioning, continuous Sophion activation, and refining the hand-to-hand combat techniques passed down by the old man.
Their jet-black hair was constantly saturated with sweat, and though their dark eyes betrayed profound exhaustion, they burned with an unshakeable resolve.
Then, on an even day three days later, old man Akaisin decided to elevate the difficulty of their lessons to a whole new level.
The Unseen Pressure
The afternoon wind howled violently.
Akaisin stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching his two adoptive grandsons panting heavily after a grueling stance-holding drill.
Baring his toothless grin, his voice rang out with absolute authority:
— “You two don’t need to practice basic Sophion perception today.
Stand up straight and watch closely.
Your master is going to demonstrate one of my personal signature techniques!”
Shin and Kento instantly tensed up, their eyes locking onto the old man’s every movement.
Akaisin didn’t shift his feet, nor did he strike any flashy combat stance.
He simply lifted the decaying wooden cane in his hand and lightly struck the butt of it against the ground with a soft thud.
BOOM…
There was no blinding flash of light, but an invisible shockwave of Sophion energy suddenly rippled outward from the point of impact in a perfect circle.
Instantly, within a ten-meter radius enveloping both Shin and Kento, the atmospheric pressure and spatial density condensed with a terrifying vengeance.
The moment the technique manifested, the black-haired brothers’ eyes widened in sheer horror as a wave of pure panic struck them.
They felt as though their entire bodies had been abruptly encased in a massive block of invisible reinforced concrete, instantly freezing them solid.
Their muscles stiffened completely, the Sophion flow within their meridians clogged up entirely, and most terrifyingly, their chests couldn’t even expand to draw breath.
The two stood rooted to the spot like stone statues, their faces turning a flushed crimson and the veins on their foreheads bulging from the sudden lack of oxygen.
Observing the miserable struggle of his grandsons, Akaisin casually strolled over and snapped his fingers to dispel the technique.
PHEW…
The suffocating pressure vanished into thin air.
Shin and Kento instantly collapsed to the ground, gasping frantically for oxygen, their chests heaving violently as cold sweat poured down their skin like rain.
Akaisin smugly stroked his beard, cackling hoarsely:
— “Well?
How about that?
Don’t you think the containment capability of this technique is absolutely broken?
This move is called the Ten Directions Flesh Lock.”
Coughing violently, Shin forced himself to sit up.
Despite his bitterness, he couldn’t help but feel profound awe:
— “Cough…
cough…
Seriously, old man, you’re going to kill us one of these days!
What a bizarre name though, sounds like something you’d order at a butcher’s shop.
But…
I have to admit, this technique is absolutely top-tier.
Good job, old man!”
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Kento’s eyes ignited with intense admiration:
— “Big brother Shin took the words right out of my mouth!
Master, please teach us, I can’t wait!”
Strings of the Puppet Master
Akaisin gestured with his hand, signaling them to stand back up, and continued:
— “Caught your breath?
I have another technique that is just as badass.
Watch closely!
It’s called the Myriad Threads Soul Bind.”
With that, Akaisin raised his withered hand toward the brothers, his fingers dancing subtly through the air as he added his own sound effects:
— “Pew…
pew…
pew…
See anything, you two?”
Shin stared blankly at the old man’s empty palm, then glanced at the empty air, clicking his tongue:
— “Huh?
See what, old man?
What the heck are you ‘pewing’ at?
Empty air?”
Kento also scratched his head in total bewilderment:
— “I don’t see anything either, Master.
Are you pulling our legs?”
THWACK!
A crisp sound echoed out.
Space itself seemed to freeze for a split second.
Shin suddenly spun around and delivered a painfully hard smack right to the middle of Kento’s head.
The sudden strike shocked even Shin himself.
He stared at his own right hand, screaming in panic:
— “Whoa!
What the heck?!
Why…
why did my limbs move on their own?
I’ve completely lost control of my body!”
Clutching his head where the blow had landed, tears nearly welled up in Kento’s eyes from the sheer pain.
The young boy whined in grievance:
— “Ouch!
Big brother Shin!
Why did you suddenly hit me so hard?!
— “I’m sorry!
I swear I didn’t mean to!
But my hand just lifted itself up and slammed down onto your head, I couldn’t stop it!” Shin explained frantically, his face twisting in sheer horror as he realized he had been turned into a literal puppet.
Witnessing the scene, Akaisin cackled with wicked delight.
With a subtle flick of his finger, Shin’s arm instantly dropped and went limp.
The old man tilted his chin up, explaining:
— “Haha, how about that?
This is how your master’s technique operates!
Microscopic Sophion threads can be discharged from my fingertips.
At full power, it can scale up to ten thousand threads, but to handle you two rascals, I only needed a few.
They are so slender and transparent that your mortal eyes have no way of perceiving them.”
Clasping his hands behind his back, Akaisin continued proudly:
— “These threads don’t cut into flesh; instead, they pierce straight through your protective aura, embedding themselves deep into the Sophion branches within your nervous system.
Your master only needs to move his fingers at will to control Shin like a puppet.
How’s that?
Pretty slick, huh?”
Shin froze for a few seconds before his dark eyes ignited with unbridled fanaticism.
He rushed over to the old man, his attitude doing a complete 180 as he flattered him shamelessly:
— “Wowwww!
Oh my god, you can actually control another person’s body?!
That’s insane, Master!
Absolute top-tier!”
Forgetting his swollen head, Kento ran over excitedly to chime in:
— “Master, teach us!
This looks so badass and cool, Master!”
Seeing that the fish had bitten the bait, old man Akaisin bared his toothless grin and set his terms:
— “Hoho, want to learn, do you?
But…
the tuition fee is one to two jars of fine wine!
Don’t even dream of your master teaching this for free.
This is copyrighted material!”
Shin’s face immediately fell, and he curled his lips in disdain:
— “Typical old geezer, give him an inch and he takes a mile!
And you’re demanding two whole miles this time!”
Kento clicked his tongue in agreement:
— “Master is such a cheapskate, we’re family and you’re still demanding copyright fees.”
— “No complaints!
Copyright fees must be paid to me, no arguments!” Akaisin struck his cane against the ground, finalizing the verdict definitively.
Two Weeks of Blood and Sweat
Following that afternoon, a grueling two-week stretch officially commenced.
For fourteen consecutive days and nights, the unstable corrugated iron shack never saw a moment of quiet from their training.
Shin and Kento took their first faltering steps in learning how to operate Ten Directions Flesh Lock and Myriad Threads Soul Bind at their most rudimentary stages.
They had to learn how to project energy outward as a surrounding shockwave and how to condense Sophion into slender threads—though currently, their threads were still quite thick and easily snapped.
In tandem with mastering Sophion techniques, the brothers endured devastating physical workouts and sharpened two completely distinct martial arts styles guided by Akaisin.
The exclusive sect style passed down to Shin prioritized Speed and Precision as its core.
Under the faint moonlight or the scorching sun of the junkyard, Shin continuously practiced flash-like movement footwork, his silhouette gliding and vanishing fitfully through the gaps of the scrap mountains.
He didn’t learn front-facing, chest-to-chest punches; instead, he learned to slip behind his opponent, closing in on their blind spots.
Every strike from Shin, from a finger thrust to a leg sweep, aimed directly at vital weaknesses: joints, the throat, the nape of the neck, and neural pressure points.
Combined with the crackling violet-blue electricity wrapping his fingers, Shin’s strikes carried the distinct hallmarks of a true assassin—swift, venomous, and highly lethal.
Completely opposite to his older brother, Kento immersed himself in the world of Kyokushin Karate—the martial art of brutal impact and stone-like rigidity.
Daily, Kento stood rooted firmly in a Zenkutsu-dachi (front stance) or Kiba-dachi (horse stance) for hours on end beneath the crushing weight of iron blocks loaded on his shoulders.
The fourteen-year-old’s stance was now so immaculate that even if Shin dashed in with a low sweep, he couldn’t budge Kento half an inch.
Every straight Seiken Chudan Tsuki punch Kento delivered tore through the air with powerful whistling sounds, channeling his entire center of gravity and his small orange-red Sophion flame into the surface of his knuckles, smashing straight into iron drums and denting them savagely.
He also mastered the Gedan Mawashi Geri low roundhouse kick, aiming to shatter an opponent’s leg support.
Kento fought without evading; he absorbed hits with his own body and retaliated with bone-crushing punches.
While the brothers trained frantically until they were bruised all over and dripping with sweat, little Loona cheerfully rolled around on her completed tank-tread robot, occasionally supplying water and towels to her brothers.
Old man Akaisin sat there, sipping his wine while nodding in satisfaction at the daily transformation of his grandsons.
Two weeks of arduous training passed, and the two black-haired boys of yesteryear now possessed far sturdier physiques.
Their martial arts and basic Sophion techniques had begun to root deeply into their combat instincts.
A solid foundation had been laid, ready for the massive storms about to breach the Dark Zone.
A Heavy Inheritance Under the Moon
After a long day of exhausting training that drained both body and soul, the quiet late night gradually descended, enveloping the dilapidated iron shack.
The surroundings were eerily quiet, broken only by the rhythmic chirping of insects beneath the damp scrap heaps.
Inside the shack, Kento and Loona had long since fallen into a deep sleep after a hard day’s work.
Yet, out in the yard, old man Akaisin wasn’t asleep.
He sat silently on his old bamboo chair, his deep, brooding eyes fixed on the sky, watching the faint rays of a waning moon struggling to pierce the thick smog of the junkyard.
The corrugated iron door creaked slightly as Shin stepped outside.
Tonight, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep, a restless tightness in his chest prompting him to catch some fresh air to soothe his mind.
Stepping into the yard, he immediately encountered the lonely silhouette of the old man.
Shin approached, sitting down on a nearby boulder, breaking the silence:
— “What are you doing out here so late, old man?
Can’t sleep, so you came out to watch the moon?”
Akaisin didn’t turn his head, his raspy voice rising calmly:
— “You state the obvious.”
Shin didn’t reply, sitting in silence beside him, his deep dark eyes gazing into the infinite void ahead.
A prolonged silence settled between them.
Suddenly, Akaisin shifted his gaze from the moon, asking in a low, somber tone:
— “Tell me…
do you miss your parents, kid?”
Shin’s body stiffened slightly as the question struck the darkest, deepest recess of his heart.
He clenched his fists, his dark eyes fluctuating violently as horrific memories flooded back.
His voice dropped, carrying a choked blend of hatred and helplessness:
— “Of course I do…
That haunting image of them being brutally slaughtered right before my eyes, how could I ever forget?” The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
Shin took a deep breath to suppress his emotions, glancing toward the tightly shut shack door where his younger brother slept, and sighed:
— “Now, I only have Kento left.
He and I…
I really don’t know what will become of us in the future.
This world is too cruel.”
Akaisin looked at his adoptive grandson’s expression, a flicker of empathetic sorrow crossing his eyes.
He lightly patted Shin’s shoulder, speaking slowly:
— “Just let things flow, you little rascal.
The future…
let it march forward on its own, because every person’s destiny depends entirely on themselves—on what they do in the present, not on some predetermined future.
You and your brother will write your own path.”
Saying that, the old man suddenly stood up, walking briskly into the dilapidated shack.
A moment later, he stepped back out, holding a rusted, crude, and utterly mundane piece of iron—the very object he had been using all this time to prop up the wobbly leg of their dinner table.
Akaisin walked straight up to Shin, and without a word of explanation, forcefully shoved the rusted iron piece into his palm.
— “Take it!” The old man’s voice suddenly turned terrifyingly serious.
“Guard it closely and never lose it!
When you encounter critical events in the future, this thing will help a brat like you immensely.
Selling it won’t do you any damn good anyway.
It is something of immense importance to me…
But now I must pass it to you early.
I’m old, and I don’t know how much time I have left to live in this world.”
Shin stared blankly at the blackened, dust-covered block of rusted iron in his hand, then at the old man’s grave expression, clicking his tongue in complaint:
— “Huh?
What on earth?
This scrap iron piece used as a table-leg wedge is supposed to be something important?
You’re just overdramatizing things, old man.
Anyone could say that!”
THWACK!
A painfully sharp thud landed on Shin’s forehead without a shred of mercy.
Shin clutched his head, grimacing and shouting:
— “That hurts like hell!
All you ever do is hit my head, don’t you feel any pity for your grandson?!”
— “Shut up!” Akaisin glared, growling.
“Listen to me closely.
This is an important matter I must emphasize three times: Guard it closely and never lose it!
Guard it closely and never lose it!
Do you understand me, you little rascal?”
Seeing the unyielding and rarely solemn gaze of the old man, Shin knew he wasn’t joking.
He dropped his playful demeanor, carefully tucking the rusted iron piece deep into his coat pocket, and nodded:
— “Alright, alright!
I’ll keep it safe, okay?
But what exactly is this thing that makes you look so terrifyingly serious?”
Akaisin clasped his hands behind his back, letting out a heavy sigh, his gaze fixed on the rusted iron with absolute helplessness:
— “What is in your hand is no ordinary, dry piece of rusted iron.
Its name is The Ten-Faceted Heavenly Canon.
I spent half my life searching for it and trying to comprehend it…
But ironically, I am utterly unable to activate or understand it.
I only know its name; as for what it truly contains inside…
I am completely in the dark.”
— “The Ten-Faceted Heavenly Canon?” Shin muttered the name under his breath, feeling an invisible weight press down upon his mind.
“It sounds incredibly serious when you put it that way…
Well, whatever, I’ve sat out here long enough.
The wind is freezing.
When are you finally going to head inside and sleep, old man?”
— “Go on ahead, I’m not sleepy yet.
I want to sit out here a bit longer.” Akaisin waved his hand, his eyes returning to the moon.
Shin said nothing more.
He turned, quietly stepping into the shack and closing the door, drifting off to sleep with the rusted iron piece held tightly in his pocket.
Outside, old man Akaisin remained motionless, his long shadow stretching beneath the waning moon, like an old guardian watching over the final moments of peace for the children.
The Approaching Storm
The next morning.
The sky over the Dark Zone no longer held the harsh rays of yesterday sun.
Instead, ominous, heavy charcoal-grey clouds rolled in from nowhere, completely blotting out the sun, signaling an immensely violent downpour about to crash onto the junkyard.
The air became sweltering, suffocatingly stagnant.
On the ground, groups of refugees and impoverished souls were still hunched over, working frantically through the scrap heaps to search for food and scrap metal, completely oblivious to the impending doom.
BOOM!
From the air, an invisible, tyrannical wave of pressure suddenly struck down.
A foot wearing a tattered boot but radiating pure, concentrated bloodlust slammed heavily onto the ground, sending surrounding dust exploding outward.
It was a tall silhouette dressed in bizarrely tattered garments, his body wrapped in strips of bandages stained with dried blood.
The man stood atop the cliff edge, using his cold, ruthless eyes to peer down at the impoverished refugees crawling below as if looking at a swarm of ants.
The energy around him fluctuated slightly, a violent and blood-scented aura—the distinct power of someone extraordinary—hissed softly in the air.
He bared a maniacal, ruthless smile, his raspy voice ringing out:
— “To think this filthy, wretched place actually contains living organisms.
And…
oh?
This godforsaken middle-of-nowhere actually bears the residual energy fluctuations of a Sophion user?
Now this is getting interesting…”
PATTER…
PATTER…
The first drops of rain began to fall, striking the rusted corrugated iron sheets with lonely thuds.
The man slowly raised a hand to cover half his face, his low, savage laughter echoing through the encroaching darkness of the early morning:
— “I must admit…
with every single massacre, a massive downpour always tags along, doesn’t it?”
END OF CHAPTER 6