Evening was dead and heavy when Su Vaen finally made his choice.
He returned to the secret entrance that he had discovered, a cold secret in the middle of the forest.
It was the door to a hidden laboratory—one which was protected by Peak Foundation Establishment cultivators.
He walked past them.
Because of his superior ability they just felt a gust of wind. Though, fortunate that they were not royal guards.
The oppressive quiet of the area bore down on him as he moved past the protective ward with his advanced Shadow Veil, blending into the shadows.
Every step was measured.
Su Vaen's Dimensional Perception guided him through the twisted corridors of the outside of the complex, an unwritten cartography of energy transitions and hidden barricades.
He could almost taste the tension in the air, a rot of corruption mingled with the bitter bite of corrupted energy.
He recalled the whispered rumor and knowledge for him of forbidden experiments and the frightening gossip of ritual killings within the clan.
Now, his heart turned bitter by sorrow and betrayal, he was intent on seeing the truth for himself.
Inside the foyer, the building was dimly lit by twirling, leaping torches that cast shifting, macabre shadows against rough stone walls.
The facility's design turned out to be more complicated than expected—an intersection of narrow passages and sealed rooms, each door bracing with secrets.
Su Vaen walked through with soft steps, each step measured, his mind cautious for any hint of threat.
He hesitated in front of a sealed door covered in ancient sigils that he knew were from the highest levels of the Su Clan's secret projects.
There was a low hum of power behind the door. Stealing a deep, stabilizing breath, he laid his hand on the frigid stone and opened the door.
Inside, the room revealed to him a vision that chilled him to his marrow.
Shelves of test rooms lined the walls, each room lit by a sickly green glow. Inside each room, the bodies of innocent individuals—children, workers, and even some familiar faces—were hung in glass-like receptacles.
Their skin was marked with deep, precise incisions and burns, signs that testified to purposeful, merciless tests. The air was heavy with a herb scent, and a low, constant hum of machinery filled the air.
Su Vaen's heart pounded. Everything confirmed his worst suspicions:
The Su Clan, with no limits to their ambition and greed, had been bartering lives for a shot at innovations in illicit cultivation methods.
The experiments were not mere thoughtless notions.
They were despicable exercises in cruelty involving warping nature energies for clan gain at the cost of tortured humans.
He advanced slowly, senses absorbing all they could see. One console along one wall indicated energy conversion percentages, ship strength, and subject status.
Su Vaen's mind reeled as he watched numbers he'd heard about but never actually saw. Each set of numbers was evidence of moral decay seeping into his own home.
Bearing down upon him there, in the clean, cold room, was the weight of the betrayal.
His own family, the very ones who had once been his relatives, had turned down a path of shadow, sacrificing innocents to reinforce their grip.
A mix of fury, sorrow, and shadowy determination consumed his thoughts. At that moment, he was absolutely sure: he needed to cleanse this karma.
the corruption that had infested the Su Clan could not be allowed to pass.
It was a burden he had to bear now, one that demanded a distinct and irreversible action.
If he didn't then he won't be able to face his mother in the afterlife.
Su Vaen's vision, though blinded to the world of matter, was unobscured by his Dimensional Perception.
He took in each of the chambers, committing the horrors to memory.
The screams of the victims, the silent shrieks inscribed on their wounds, lingered in his thoughts. Forgiveness for such acts was not possible; there could be only vengeance and cleansing.
He walked from chamber to chamber, with every step solidifying his resolve.
His inner voice, steady and determined, thought, "This is the moment of change. The karma of our people must be cleansed."
The revelation was bitter. He was now the last hope for purifying the shame that had become his family.
It wasn't heroic, and it wasn't vengeance—it was about balancing a world corrupted by the greed of his own kind.
At an intimate moment of reflection, he called out,
Slash of Nightfall : Phantom Fang Slash
The first pass of his homemade sword style—honing the edge against the cold metal of a nearby bench.
The blade's dark power, a promise of what it would make him, smoldered unhappily in the poor light. It was a reminder that power could cure, even if that power cost him a monstrous price.
Su Vaen was left alone for so long in that laboratory, the quiet witness to his clan's dishonorable acts.
His mind was consumed by how he was going to undo the damage, how he was going to rescue the innocent from further torment, and whether the path of destruction that he was headed down would bring him to salvation or hell.
He knew what to do. With every ounce of willpower that had been tested in the fires of his torturous past, he silently vowed to be the one to end all this corruption.
His own hands would be the instrument of purification, even if it meant dismantling the very pillars of the Su Clan.
The taste of vengeance was sour, but inescapable—the final, stubborn act to break the curse of greed that had consumed his lineage for generations.
When he left the lab, Su Vaen went to great pains to memorize each detail: the layout of the facility, where the guards stood, the details of the tests.
All this data would equate to a road map—a road map to the certain reckoning that was to follow.
Danger lay before him, but he was ready.
One move remained for him to go back with this foreboding intelligence to the individuals who were still clinging to honor.
For them to know the legacy they protected from the past to present. It's very pillars he will be the one to destroy it.
With a heavy heart and a will tested by suffering and purpose, Su Vaen returned, the secret laboratory and its atrocities behind him in the cold night air of the forest.
The weight of what he had witnessed hung on him, but it also lit a burning determination within.
The Su Clan's sins would not remain in the shadows; soon, they would be brought to light, and justice would be done.