Su Vaen sat by himself on a cold stone bench in the fading light of dusk, the visions of his hidden discoveries and gall-like revelations buzzing around him.
The activities of the past day—sight of the secret lab, witnessing the inhuman experiments, and hearing the mournful screams of those who had suffered—had erased all illusions he could have had of the glory of his clan.
And now, a weighty question tormented him: Why must he, a duty and honor guard, be forced to slaughter his own clansmen for the benefit of strangers whose lives he had never touched?
It wasn't for the innocent people who were the offerings to the altar of power.
It was for something—a legacy.
The legacy of his own lineage, his family's, a legacy distorted through greed, ambition, and unrestrained pursuit of self-interest.
As he remained in the quiet, Su Vaen's inner sphere churned with conflicting emotions. His heart was hardened by harsh realities.
He thought of his mother—a gentle, kind soul with compassion that could not be accessed.
She had battled not for clan honor or for individual gain, but for the common folk, for the dignity of all lives on their soil.
Her quiet bravery had formed the basis of a noble tradition, a legacy conceived to lift, not to destroy. But after her death, the clan had deviated greatly from that path.
Instead of growing the ideals she held dear, they fostered a destructive ambition—a selfish passion for power that led them to perform abhorrent acts in secluded laboratories and forgotten halls.
His mother, a pinnacle Qi Condensation, perished during the beast wave that came years ago. And, he know that she didn't die because of the beast wave but for something else.
But, now those don't matter.
Su Vaen's mind replayed the horrific images he had seen:
the slaughtered bodies, the meticulous, cold scratches of experimental brutality—permanent scars made by those who had sacrificed the lives of innocent spirits in pursuit of forbidden knowledge.
He bore the weight of these lost lives not as numbers, but as personal tragedies that soiled the very essence of what the Su Clan had stood for.
Why should I pay for their sin, he fumed.
What business is it of him, who never concerned themselves with the people?
He knew, on a deep and tortured level, that it was not about any one victim.
These were lives lost, indeed, but also the bodily representation of a tainted system—a system which had given up on higher values of mercy and selflessness for the chilly sheen of ambition.
That moment, Su Vaen looked upon his clan as a rotting entirety and not as aliens.
Their mutual selfishness and greed had tainted the land upon which they had sown the seeds of honor.
His mind began to unwind the strands of his own emotions.
He was driven by no mindless desire for vengeance upon men without names; rather, he was inspired by a compelling feeling of responsibility to cleanse his stock.
The Su Clan, with their wealth and their ancient customs, had lost their soul.
Every cruelty was one drop of poison in the well of their heritage.
And until that poison remained, the name Su would never be anything but a curse—a reminder of treachery against those same principles that his mother once held close and dear.
Su Vaen's determination grew stronger as he considered what the future held for him.
He had spent months in solitude, honing his skills and building his power along the Tenebris Energy Path.
With each breath, his power grew, but so did his awareness of the thin line that existed between power and compassion.
He knew that true power wasn't measured by the ability to control or dominate, but by the courage to stand against the impossible and sometimes idiotic—even if it meant burning down everything one ever loved.
The prospect of standing against his own clan was one that he did not take lightly. It was a decision full of heartache and pain.
But deep within his heart, he knew that their corruption would eventually lead to a desolation not merely for themselves, but for everyone who stood on their shoulders.
In a world where everything was defined by power, their frailty was not in their ability to wield power, but in their inability to wield it for the greater good.
They were vampires on the reputation of his mother's great sacrifice, and greed turned against them everything that had ever earned them status.
I will not let this inheritance endure, he whispered to the flickering light. I must purify the karma of the Su Clan, even if it makes me the very executioner of my own clan.
It was during that still moment of reflection that Su Vaen's troubled heart found purpose.
He clashed head-on with his visionary father, the candidate for clan head who sought to be the next in command, and forced him to face the corruption which had fermented for years.
He would expose the rotten core of their lusts and, if necessary, annihilate it utterly.
The epiphany did not make him mad with rage; rather, it made him cold and calculating.
He knew his deeds, though tragic, were not matters of personal vengeance against faceless individuals.
They were to bring balance, to pay homage to the memory of a mother who had sacrificed everything for others. It was to redefine being a Su—something he grew to hate for its connotation of decay and selfishness.
And so, as the initial stars began to slice the twilight sky, Su Vaen rose from his stone bench and heavy heart to unwavering resolve.
He would go up to his father's quarters, face the individual who embodied the sullied ambitions of his clan, and demand an account.
In his heart, he decided that the future of he and the others whom his mother had loved hung on the ridding of those shadows that sullied their heritage.
He stepped slowly, each step a mirror of his inner turmoil and his unyielding resolve to a path of torturous truth.
The burden of his clan's past was oppressive, but it was a burden he would bear if it would lead to the forging of a new, fairer future.
With the memory of his mother's reassuring words still echoing in his heart and visions of the lost ever present in his mind, Su Vaen embraced the cold certainty of his mission.
In that moment, standing at the threshold of a choice that would alter the course of his life, he exhaled into the blackness,
"I will not make our legacy one of cruelty and greed. I will cleanse this foul fate, no matter the cost to me and at the risk of breaking every tie that binds me to it."
And so Su Vaen embarked on his journey into the unknown, to challenge corruption at the core of his clan, and to reclaim finally the honor taken from his mother through ambition and treachery.