Background (jumpable, but preferably not):

On a moonlit night, a firelight swept across the starry sky, falling somewhere on the mainland, a village with hundreds of villagers instantly turned into a huge pit, and a mountain-like boulder lay quietly in the pit, and the originally lively place was quiet from then on, as if those lives here did not exist in the first place.

Soon, rumors spread that the gods had descended to earth, saying that the gods had descended on the land and would bring great changes to the continent.

As if in response to rumors, the Dog and Horse Empire, located in the south of the continent, has set off a bloody change.

Inside the Imperial Palace of the Inuma Empire.

"Fourth Prince, what are you doing here, do you want to rebel?" a middle-aged man with a stubble on his face and armor held a sword in both hands and roared angrily at the young man in front of him.

"Stupid. The young man known as the Four Princes gently spit out these two words, raised his arm, and the air around his palms suddenly began to twist and rotate, and with a wave at the middle-aged man, a wind directly split the middle-aged man in half diagonally, and the Four Princes glanced at the soldiers of Liao Liao behind the dead middle-aged man: "Kill." ”

At the sound of an order, the soldiers behind the four princes rushed up like tigers and wolves, drowning those soldiers, and the warm blood splashed on the stone ground, and the young four princes who saw this scene in their eyes did not have the slightest pity on their faces, and seemed to be accustomed to it.

In the 208th year of the Gregorian calendar of the Inuma Empire, the fourth prince Li Xiao ascended the throne, claiming that the eldest prince and the third prince conspired to rebel, but he failed to save himself, and buried the first queen to the throne in tears.

Li Xiao explained that the "empire" should be greater than the "king", so the "king" was not qualified to add an emperor in front of the name, because the king also served the empire, and took this opportunity to abolish a large number of old systems and implement new ones.

In the same year, Li Xiao's brother, Ma Shi, the wife of the former eldest prince, was exiled to the southern border and demoted to a grass people.

The year 209 of the Gregorian calendar of the Dog and Horse Empire.

A down-and-out beggar-like woman with a big belly walks slowly in a rich town on the southern border of Inuma, and if you look closely, you can see that the woman's dirty clothes are made of the finest materials.

Among the pedestrians passing by, from time to time someone will hand a bun to a pot-bellied woman, or something like a steamed bun, and there is no shortage of people who will stuff some silver taels for the woman, which makes the big-bellied woman very surprised, because she is not begging, just walking on the road, this prosperous place, is it really just a small town on the border of the empire?

"Hello ma'am. A young man in a white plain dress with a sword walked up to the woman: "Sorry, refugees are not allowed to move around here. ”

The pot-bellied woman looked up at the young man, and then looked around, although the street was full of people, but most of them were wearing decent robes or uniform-like clothes, they looked very decent, not a single beggar could not see, this was different from the scene she saw on the road before she came to this town, there were no refugees here, no beggars, the ground was all clean stone floor, and the rows of houses were also very clean and tidy, not even a mouse could be seen, not worse than the imperial capital at all, and even more orderly than the imperial capital.

"However, you can go to the refugee shelter built by our Wu Zong, it will take you in, but it is not free, you need to accept the job arranged for you by the shelter and contribute to the construction of the town. The plain-clothed man looked at the woman's big belly and said thoughtfully.

"Work...... Is it ......" The woman looked at the plain man with bright eyes: "Will there be food?"

"Of course, and it will give you a place to live temporarily. The plain man smiled.

The woman lowered her head, touched her big belly, and smiled: "Great, baby, so that we don't have to starve." ”

......

At the shelter, the pot-bellied woman saw a lot of men and women lined up in the same downbeat, and they should have all wandered here from other places.

The big-bellied woman looked curiously at what a woman was recording with a pen, and at the same time, after each record, she would arrange work for the person who was in the row, among which the able-bodied men were finally assigned to the soldier group, and the women mostly went to the logistics group, and soon it was the turn of the big-bellied woman.

"Hmm......" The woman with the pen lowered her head and finished writing the previous person's message, and turned another page: "What's your name?"

"Ma Liuli. The pot-bellied woman replied.

"Where is your hometown?"

"Imperial City. ”

The woman holding the pen looked up in some surprise, glanced at the big-bellied woman, and then saw the bulging belly of the big-bellied woman: "Are you pregnant?"

"Yes. ”

"Hmm......" The woman holding the pen looked at the belly of the pot-bellied woman thoughtfully: "Then you go to the handicraft workshop, it's easier there." ”

"Come with me. "A man takes a pot-bellied woman to a room with several women.

"I want to ask, are you in dire need of soldiers?" asked the pot-bellied woman.

"Well, because of the frequent wars recently, our Martial Sect needs to expand our forces to maintain the safety of the town. ”

The pot-bellied woman was a little stunned when she heard this, but she didn't say anything.

Time flies, winter is coming.

The big-bellied woman who had been busy all day got off work early, because the person in charge of the handicraft workshop let her leave work early every time for the sake of the big-bellied woman's pregnancy, and also allowed her to take a few days off until she gave birth.

Walking on the road, she was originally happy and suddenly felt some pain in her stomach, she realized something and looked around, this path was originally empty, even more so in winter, her face became pale, the cold wind blew, she found that there was a pile of firewood in the corner of the alley on the side of the street, she touched her body, and touched some coins and a box of firewood.

"Great, baby. She smiled palely, walked to the firewood, touched it, fortunately it was dry, and there was no wind in the alley, lit the firewood, and then took off her clothes, as a cushion, the pain under her body made her sweat a lot, she waited weakly, and muttered a name in her mouth.

The town's martial arts sect master - Ziqiang was patrolling at night in winter, found the dead Ma next to a pile of firewood in the alley on the street, and held a baby crying in his arms, Ziqiang saw pity in his heart, so he took it back to raise, because it was a baby found next to the firewood, so he named it Yan, with his surname Zi, and his full name was Ziyan.

Year after year passed, wars between the Inuma Empire and other countries were frequent, but fortunately, it did not affect the rich town on the southern border, when Ziyan was ten years old, the unexpected quilt Ziqiang found that he was very talented in martial arts, so he invited the hidden master in the town to cultivate Ziyan with himself.

In the Southern Courtyard of Wuzong, the master of Wuzong Sect forcibly led a teenage boy and looked at a young man wielding a sword in front of him, it had only been a few years, and his swordsmanship had reached the pinnacle.

Night, quiet descending.

In the ancestral temple in Wuzong's mansion, Ziqiang knelt in front of many spirit tablets engraved with his name.

"Father, are you helping me? Send Ziyan to me......

"Master, apprentice won't let you down......"

"I'm sorry master, and I forgot your teachings. Ziqiang knelt in front of a pile of spirit cards, wiping his tears, muttering words that people couldn't understand, and time seemed to have returned to decades ago.

When he was a child, Ziqiang's favorite thing was to sit on the giant bear with his father and walk around the streets of the Imperial City of Inuma, enjoying people's support for his father, Ziqiang's father was the general of the empire at that time, and he was a hero who led thousands of troops and horses to fight in all directions.

It's a pity that bad luck also quietly came, my father was given to death by the emperor because of a slander, and the Shadow Brake Sect under my father, a Shadow Brake Sect that has been passed down for hundreds of years, was also separated and disintegrated little by little in the open and secret struggle with other forces until it died, and Zi Qiang was only 17 years old that year.

It's been decades, it's long and it's just a trance, it's short, but it has made the famous sect of an empire disappear, who remembers the name of that sect back then?

Ziqiang trembled his hands, took out a piece of jade pendant from his arms, and gently stroked the word 'shadow' on the jade pendant with his hand full of wrinkles and calluses.

"Father, master, wait, I will definitely revive our Shadow Brake Sect. Ziqiang steadied his trembling voice, and then stood up, outside the door, there was a heavy snowfall, and in the spring of the next year, Ziqiang would personally take his two sons, Ziyan and Zifei, to the imperial city north of the town to test the best royal academy in the empire.

Although Ziqiang also wants to keep his son by his side, there is only a limit to what he can teach, and the retreat master who taught Ziyan with him before has traveled far away and should never return to the town.

Seeing that Ziyan had signs of awakening, if he was not sent to the Royal Academy, he was afraid that he would bury the talents of his two sons, and after thinking about it, Ziqiang still decided to send his two sons away.