In the vast wilderness that stretched beyond the ancient capital of the Jiyan Empire, laid a city built beside a majestic snow-capped mountain. Two rivers, the rivers of Irindur, flowed past this city from both of its sides with their crystal-clear icy water snaking across the mighty plains of Urdur. Sounds of trumpets, marching soldiers, and music could be heard coming from the city’s interior. From afar, it was a city of opportunities, a city of hope. Many merchants set their stalls in its avenues flowing its markets with strange wines, strange people, and even stranger goods. Its streets smelled of delicacies, death, feces, flesh, and many other scents unknown to human perception, yet still there all the same.

Looking closely at the city, there were no skyscrapers in it, even the towers surrounding its stone ramparts were of moderate size. No building was allowed to be taller than the Temple of the Will. This temple was carved inside the mountain with its front façade, visible from the outside, adorned with flaming cauldrons. Every year, there would be ceremonies being held for younger folk of the city to awaken their Will at the Temple. Wills would take different shapes according to its wielder’s heart. In this glorious day, the ceremony was held, in this city, the city of Urun, the last of the Great Cities of the North, Bastion of Light.

Urun was divided into 12 sections, some smaller and some bigger than others with blackened stone ramparts separating each section. Although occasional skirmishes and feuds occurred between sections, they were relatively coexisting peacefully with each other, especially on this day. Each of these sections was governed by a clan, the smallest section being ruled by Hua Clan, while the biggest by the Yan Clan. Sections were given out to the clans based on their strength. The fall of a clan was not unheard of, as it would happen every few years, its section would be given to another lesser-known clan of similar strength. The competition for it was intense.

Within the outskirts of the city laid the slum built upon a small colored plateau. The poor and the weak lived here. The slum was a name given to the Chen Clan’s section. Though the Chen Clan was not weak, in term of strength, they were relatively poor as they inherited a section that was not used for commerce, farming or even fishing as it was festered with disease and rodents. At the edge of the Chen Clan’s section, beyond the river of Irindur, was a small valley. This unnoticeable valley was not an ordinary one as it contained, within it, dense spiritual essence. If an individual absorbed this essence, it could nurture their Will, making it stronger. This valley was what allowed the Chen Clan to remain strong in this inhospitable environment.

At the Chen Clan’s base, inside one of its red stone towers, was a well-light room. Its crimson walls were unadorned. There were no paintings nor tapestries on it. Although this room was spacious, it had little to no furniture in it. Only a brown leather couch, a wooden table with four chairs and an old bed were found within this undecorated room. This was the patriarch’s room. In the middle of this room, a tall handsome boy, who looked no younger than 15 years old, stood there waiting for the return of the Clan’s patriarch. He was humbly dressed in a red old robe with a crimson bandana around his head. The young fellow had received a transmission, earlier this day, from the patriarch’s Recall Talisman, which prompted him to come here to await his return.

Even though he was patient, the boy had already stayed in this room for more than 4 hours awaiting the patriarch return. As the hours passed, he grew more and more impatient. Suddenly, a blue revolving spatial rift appeared in front of his eyes. This rift threw out an old man in ragged clothes, who was holding a child.

“Patriarch Chen, my name is Chen Xu. This lowly one was waiting, a long time, for your return..." exclaimed Chen Xu, while carefully eyeing Patriarch Chen, who had many scars of various length all over his body.

"No need for formalities...Just call me by my name, Chen Guo" said the old man, not minding Chen Xu’s impolite remark, while trying to stand up.

"I see that you are in bad shape. Let me help you!" gently said Chen Xu, while stretching his arm towards Chen Guo, who grabbed hold of it.

As he pulled him up from the floor, he asked, while pointing at Chen Guo’s clothes, "May inquire what caused you to become like this?”.

Silence filled the room as tears began pouring out of Chen Guo’s eyes. He started remembering her, again. Reliving the scenes before she cruelly died in front him. He did not want to face her. As he stood still while holding the child, his gaze slowly became as cold as ice, as his expression turned sour.

“Cui’er…If you could see me now what would say? That I was wrong…That I was the one to cause this tragedy…That things would have been played differently if I had not listened to the elders…Cui’er wherever you are right now, just know that if I had second chance to see you again that I would be by your side no matter the odds stacked against us…You were the only family that I had left…I did not protect you…I did nothing when I watched you get kicked out of our clan…I really did nothing for you…I regret it...I do not deserve to be called your father…But do not worry, I will take care child and I will try to find husband…I will protect them both with my life!” murmured Chen Guo as he looked up, tears streaming down his chiseled yet wrinkled face.

As he continued recollecting his decisions that led to the tragedy that befell his daughter, he unnoticeably started pouring out his killing intent, which caused Chen Xu to freeze in terror.

“Chen Guo…Please stop…This is unbearable…I feel like I will die if this continues…” said Chen Xu as he tried to shake him out of it. He attempted to breathe, but it was hard to so. The air around him had become heavy making it hard for him to move or even breathe. After a while, he noticed that Chen Guo was coming out of his trance. He sighed in relief as the killing intent that was suffocating him, just moments ago, vanished into thin air.

“Sorry, Chen Xu…It is just that I do not want to remember the events that happened to me in that forest…Something tragic happened there…Because of it, I will never be the same again...” whispered Chen Guo as he regained some of his colors. He had become deadly pale during his trance.

“Umm…Okay, but if you need to talk about it, I am here for you....Anyways, let us go and meet the elders…By the way, who is that child that you are holding in your arms? Is it yours?” asked absent-mindedly Chen Xu.

“Chen Xu… Enough with the questions! All you need to know is that he is with me and that I consider him as my child even if he wasn’t mine, to begin with!” said Chen Guo, while trying to contain his anger.

“Sorry, Chen Guo…Would you mind following me to meet the elders? We need to tell them something about your sudden disappearance and also about the child you are carrying…They really did not believe my lies that I told them, which is why I need to bring you to them... ” gently said Chen Xu, as he pointed towards the door of the room.

“…Okay…At least you tried, Chen Xu...Thank you for that....But no more questions for the rest of the way…Understood?” impatiently said Chen Guo, as he tightly carried his sleeping granchild, in his arm.

“No more questions. Now, please let us go before the awakening ceremony starts! We could even assist the ceremony if we have enough time! You know that they have amazing candidates, this time around, for this ceremony. Maybe one of them will even awaken a Will that contains a Heaven's Law! I remember, the day I did my awakening ceremony...Oh what a day it was for me! I was really stressed out, but...” excitedly said Chen Xu, his voice full of enthusiasm, as he recalled his childhood memories.

“Chen Xu, you talk too much! Let us go to meet the elders…As for the ceremony, you can go with me, so as to show me the candiates that you talked about…” said Chen Guo, while walking towards the door. This Chen Xu was indeed a talkative individual, but he did not mind it as he knew Chen Xu was a good person. Although good people were hard to find these days, it was not impossible if one looked in the right places. However, finding trustworthy people that you could count on if your life was in peril was a totally different story. Trust was something that Chen Guo was looking for in people. Luckily, he found it in Chen Xu.

“Okay let us go, now! But we must do something about your choice of clothing and your wounds...You cannot go and meet the elders in this state. You are our patriarch after all!” cheerfully yelled Chen Xu, his words trailed off as he tried to catch-up to Chen Guo, who was already at the door…