The flames still burned.
Li Tian stood at the heart of the ruined Azure Serpent Sect, surrounded by ash and silence. The bodies hadn't disappeared. The blood hadn't dried. The world hadn't paused just because he had changed.
It felt wrong.
So wrong.
And yet… it felt real.
The voice returned, smooth as silk, sharp as shattered bone.
> [System Notice]
Kill confirmed: Yuan Huo — Core Soul cultivator.
Soul Value absorbed: 98%.
Reward: Skill – Soul Draining Palm (Level 1) unlocked.
Host performance rating: Brutal. Efficient. Acceptable.
> "Do you feel it, little ghost?" the system whispered like it was smiling.
"The strength? The hate? This… is only the beginning."
Li Tian didn't answer.
He knelt beside Mei Lin's body. Still warm. Her blood soaked into his sleeves. He had killed the man who murdered her — crushed his soul, ended his bloodline.
So why didn't it help?
Why didn't it fix anything?
He wanted to cry. To scream again. But something inside him had already broken, and all that came out was emptiness.
---
Minutes passed. Maybe hours.
When he finally stood, the sky had turned a dull grey. The fires had burned themselves out. Smoke curled into the air like dying spirits.
He turned his gaze east — toward the mountains beyond the sect. The world outside. The cultivation world that had allowed this massacre, this silence.
His voice came low. Steady. Broken.
"I'll kill them all."
> [Path Selected: Divine Hate Cultivation]
Warning: This path is irreversible. Progression will cost morality, memory, and humanity.
> "Say it."
> "Confirm it."
Li Tian clenched his fists.
"I don't need morality."
> [Morality Lock disengaged.]
"I don't need memories."
> [Memory Tax initiated. Random memory will be sacrificed per level gained.]
"I don't need to be human."
> [Humanity Trait overwritten. Host state: Evolvable.]
> "Welcome, devourer."
---
He left the sect with nothing.
No sword. No robe. No token of who he once was. Just Mei Lin's pendant in his hand — a simple jade carving shaped like a coiled serpent. He tied it around his wrist.
Not to remember her.
But to remind himself what had been taken.
---
One Week Later
Outskirts of the Whispering Pines Region
The world hadn't changed.
The outer realm cultivators still bartered souls like food. Bandits still preyed on villages. Sect disciples still looked down on the weak like gods above ants.
He hated all of them.
Li Tian had learned to move silently. To listen. To watch. He didn't cultivate like them. He didn't sit in lotus pose for hours trying to "feel the spiritual qi."
No.
He waited for his first victim.
---
It came on a rainy night.
A merchant caravan broken down along a forest path. Two guards. Outer core disciples from the Iron Wall Sect. Laughing around a fire while the merchant and his family huddled inside a cart, starving.
He watched them for hours.
Listened as they mocked the little girl's cries.
Listened as they threatened to "collect" interest in the night.
He felt no rage. Just cold. Steady. Clear.
> "Hate earns power. But control earns evolution."
> [Mission Generated: Kill both guards. Bonus if souls are claimed intact.]
Reward: Skill Upgrade — Soul Draining Palm (Level 2)
He moved at midnight.
No sword. No qi flare. Just silence.
The first guard never saw him. Li Tian's palm touched the man's neck — a whisper of black mist followed, and the soul was yanked free before the body could even fall.
The second turned.
"Soul Cultivator!" he shouted, reaching for his blade.
Too slow.
Li Tian's foot crushed his throat, and a second later, the soul was torn screaming from his chest. The body thrashed. Then nothing.
> [Mission Complete.]
[Skill Upgraded: Soul Draining Palm → Soul Harvesting Grip]
[Corruption Level: 7%]
[Memory Sacrificed: Snowfall in childhood]
Li Tian blinked.
Something was missing.
He couldn't remember what snow felt like. The image of winter, of frost, of white trees — gone. As if it had never been.
He touched his head.
It hurt. A lot. Like something beautiful had been ripped out.
> "You said you didn't need memory," the system purred.
"Progress always has cost."
---
He turned to the merchant's cart.
The door creaked open slowly.
A girl, no older than ten, peeked out. Her eyes wide, afraid. She looked at him — this blood-soaked boy standing in the rain with violet eyes and shadowy veins across his hands.
"Are you… are you a god?"
Li Tian didn't speak.
The child stepped out. Her father pulled her back, shaking, clearly thinking Li Tian would now kill them too.
"I'm not a god," Li Tian said finally.
The words came like ice.
"I'm what gods fear."
He walked away.
The system whispered gently.
> "Mercy is weakness."
> "You'll regret that."
---
Three Days Later
Cave Outside Red River Valley
He found shelter in a mountain cave.
Each kill made him stronger. Faster. More dangerous.
And more hollow.
The system had given him three more skills in exchange for blood:
Void Step — silence in movement, walking unseen.
Soul Echo Sense — he could feel fear and hatred like heat.
Vein Lock Art — disabling cultivators' meridians with a touch.
But each level took more memories.
He no longer remembered his favorite food. Or his mother's voice. Or the way Mei Lin used to laugh when it rained.
The system devoured those pieces first.
> "Tragic, isn't it?" it said, mockingly soft.
"But necessary. Pain makes power."
Li Tian stared at his reflection in a puddle.
His eyes no longer looked human. His skin was pale, etched with faint black sigils along his arms — the system's mark. He looked older. Harder. Like someone forged in violence.
He touched the jade pendant.
A single word escaped him, broken and raw.
"Why…"
> "Because you let them live."
"Because the heavens don't care."
"Because I do."
He didn't answer.
But he didn't argue either.
---
That night, the dreams came.
Twisted, vivid, real.
A throne made of bones. A sky torn in half. A god screaming in a voice that sounded like his own. A battlefield covered in corpses — and him, standing atop the mountain, laughing as the world burned.
He woke with a gasp.
Sweat. Blood. A faint taste of ashes on his tongue.
> [New Trait: Dreambound to the Forgotten God – Lv. 1]
"He is awakening… because you are."
Li Tian breathed slowly.
Then smiled.
It was the first time he'd smiled since the sect fell.
And it didn't reach his eyes.