The road to Black-Thorn Crossing was a scar across the wilderness—a ragged line of churned mud, splintered wagon wheels, and half-buried bones that refused to stay hidden. Wind moaned through crooked pine trunks like a choir of hungry ghosts, carrying whispers that made even seasoned bandits quicken their pace. For Li Tian, the path felt… familiar. Death had become his shadow; despair, his traveling cloak.
Black-Thorn itself crouched at the river's bend like a diseased animal, wooden palisades leaning inward as though ashamed of what they protected. Oil-lamps sputtered along the gate, painting sickly halos on the fog while vermin scuttled between broken cobblestones. Rumor said the settlement had once been a bustling trading post before law abandoned the region; now it catered to rogue cultivators, thrill-seekers, and merchants who dealt in flesh and spirit alike.
Tonight, the town pulsed with an undercurrent Li Tian could taste on the back of his tongue—fear mixed with eager cruelty. Someone important was expected. Someone powerful. The perfect place for Elder Zhao to hide.
> [Passive Skill — Soul Echo Sense]
Hate concentration: high. Fear concentration: extreme.
Optimal harvest predicted: 84 souls (±9).
Li Tian ignored the numbers. They were abstractions. What mattered was the single echo vibrating colder and sharper than all the rest—an echo tinged with familiarity and, somewhere buried beneath layers of corruption, regret.
"Elder Zhao," he muttered, the name tasting of ash. The man had once taught entry-level footwork to Azure Serpent's youngest disciples, praising Li Tian's diligence and gifting him a worn copper talisman for good luck on his eighth birthday. Now Zhao sold captive souls to the Crimson Sky Clan in return for protection.
Or so the rumors claimed.
The pendant at Li Tian's wrist—Mei Lin's serpent jade—clicked softly against the bone sigils etched into his forearm as he pushed his hood lower and stepped through the gate.
---
1
The Market of Broken Promises
Night markets in legitimate towns smelled of steamed buns, roasted chestnut, and perfumed incense. Black-Thorn's market smelled like cheap lacquer masking rot, charcoal disguising blood, and an opium variant called Ghost-Dust that left smokers sleepless—and soulless—after seven inhales.
Stalls fashioned from repurposed coffins displayed spirit beast pelts beside jars of "cultivator-grade" marrow. A hunched woman advertised bottled children's laughter ("Rejuvenates skin!"). Beggars without tongues rattled bowls for coppers they would never spend.
Li Tian drifted between them, a phantom wrapped in threadbare traveler's gray. His Void Step deadened footfalls; Soul Echo Sense painted every stall-keeper in a halo of sin. He could almost hear their crimes: petty theft hummed faint and discordant; murder throbbed like kettle drums; soul-harvesting rang out—a shrill choir of overlapping screams only he perceived. And above it all, a baritone resonance called to him from a squat warehouse at the market's edge.
Zhao.
A pair of Iron Wall disciples blocked the warehouse door—mercenaries hired cheap after Li Tian's last encounter left their ranks two souls lighter. They smoked Ghost-Dust from carved bone pipes, trading jokes about the "pretty goods" due to arrive with the moon's apex.
Li Tian waited until one exhaled a plume of gray haze.
He stepped inside the haze.
When it cleared, both guards lay in silence, eyes rolled back, mouths open in perfect circles—souls siphoned clean. Their bodies would not be discovered until dawn; few cared about corpses in Black-Thorn anyway.
> [HATE POINTS + 2,400]
[Soul Harvesting Grip → Level 3]
[Corruption Level: 11%]
[Memory Sacrificed: The taste of plum wine]
Another memory gone. A minor one, perhaps—he could not even recall if he'd tasted plum wine or whether Mei Lin once promised to brew it. It didn't matter. What mattered was the door now unbarred.
---
2
The Warehouse of Shifting Shadows
Torchlight flickered over stacked crates branded with Crimson Sky's serpentine stamp. Some rattled—iron muzzles clinking as half-drugged spirit beasts stirred. Others oozed faint white mist: condensed souls in jade bottles. A fortune in contraband waited to be sent upriver to the clan's mid-realm fortress.
Elder Zhao stood hunched over a ledger at the far end, wax seal glistening beside a gilt feather-quill. He wore Crimson Sky officer robes—maroon trimmed with black scales—but Li Tian still recognized the slight tremor in the man's fingers, the way his shoulders curled inward like a crow threatened by hawks. A coward's posture.
Yet Zhao's cultivation had grown; a poisoned tree can still dig deep roots. Late Gold Vein realm, the system whispered—a realm Li Tian's raw stats now rivaled if not surpassed.
Li Tian stepped past crates until torchlight brushed his hood. "Elder Zhao."
The quill snapped mid-stroke. Zhao turned slowly. His eyes widened, then narrowed, recognition battling disbelief. "Li Tian? It cannot be—you died with the sect."
It was almost comforting to hear his old name. Almost. He pulled the hood back.
Violet irises. Black sigils. No comforting smile.
Zhao's breath hitched. "You've… changed."
"And you haven't," Li Tian said. "Still wearing robes you didn't earn."
The insult stung. Anger flickered across Zhao's face, quickly smothered by false courtesy. "Times have forced difficult choices, child. Survival sometimes demands… pragmatism."
"Selling souls?"
"Securing alliances. The Crimson Sky Clan is the next heavenly pillar—resisting only invites annihilation." Zhao licked his lips. "Come, help me finalize tonight's shipment. You can join us. Wealth. Protection. Power beyond anything Azure Serpent—"
Li Tian closed the distance in a single Void Step, palm seizing Zhao's wrist before the elder could complete a defensive seal.
> "You feel it?" the system crooned. "His soul strains like a ripe fruit."
Zhao trembled. "Listen to me! The sect is gone. Our memories are all that remain. Help me preserve them. I kept the Copper Talisman you gave me—see?" He fumbled inside his inner robe and produced the small, dented charm. Its once-shiny surface was dulled, but Li Tian recognized his younger self's clumsy scratch marks etched around the serpent design.
A memory surfaced—eight-year-old Li Tian bowing shyly as Zhao returned the talisman, saying Courage lies not in blade or qi, but in a heart willing to protect.
He almost felt warmth.
Then the system hissed: "Weakness."
And the warmth died.
Li Tian's grip tightened until bone cracked. "You taught 'protect,' yet you butcher innocence for coin."
"I… I had no choice!" Zhao gasped. "Crimson Sky demanded tribute. I saved who I could! Better some souls lost than entire provinces—"
"Tell that to Mei Lin." Her name landed like a verdict.
Zhao's face collapsed into genuine grief—or a clever imitation. Tears glimmered. "Little Mei… dead?" He reached out as if the truth were tangible and he could push it away. "I never knew—"
Li Tian's other hand snapped up, fingers spidering across Zhao's chest.
> [Skill: Vein Lock Art]
Golden qi conduits detonated under Zhao's skin, sending arcs of pain through his meridians. He screamed, knees buckling. The copper talisman clattered, forgotten.
"Choice," Li Tian said softly, "demands consequence."
> [Soul Harvesting Grip]
The warehouse torches guttered. Shadows stretched long fingers as black mist spiraled from Zhao's chest, coalescing into a shrieking outline of his soul. Memories flashed between them like broken glass:
—Zhao sharing steamed buns with sect orphans in winter.
—Zhao kneeling before Crimson Sky emissaries, signing away his allegiance.
—Zhao turning his back as Azure Serpent burned, whispering Forgive me.
Li Tian felt each image blade across his mind, searing regret and cowardice into his nerves.
He could end it. Tear the soul free and feed the system in one rending pull. Strength would surge; the path forward would clear. But something brittle inside him fought—an echo of the boy who believed courage meant protection.
Zhao's eyes pleaded. "Please… spare me. Atone… I'll atone…"
The system's snarl split his skull. "Mercy devours power. Decide."
For a heartbeat the world held its breath.
Then Li Tian yanked.
Zhao's soul ripped loose in a soundless explosion of color only cultivators perceived. The body sagged limp. The elder's final expression froze between relief and horror.
> [HATE POINTS + 9,800]
[Soul Harvesting Grip → Level 4]
[Corruption Level: 17%]
[Memory Sacrificed: Mother's lullaby]
A chasm opened in Li Tian's mind where a song once lived—soft notes that could soothe nightmares. Now silence. Permanent.
He stooped, picked up the copper talisman, and slipped it into his belt pouch. Not as keepsake—no memory remained to give it meaning—but as evidence of what hollowed him.
---
3
Crimson Aftermath
Killing Zhao disturbed Black-Thorn's delicate equilibrium. Li Tian felt the ripple: enforcers sensing their overseer's sudden absence, cultivators bristling at an unclaimed trove of contraband.
He welcomed them.
What followed was not a battle; it was an execution performed at walking pace. Iron Wall mercenaries rushed in pairs—souls torn before weapons cleared scabbards. A rogue talisman-master triggered a volley of exploding glyphs; Li Tian emerged through the smoke untouched, glyph casings clinking to the floor like spent prayer beads. A rank-five beast handler unleashed a crimson mantis; Soul Echo Sense pinpointed the creature's rage-knot, and one Vein Lock plunged it into paralysis before its jaws could snap.
By dawn, thirty-seven bodies carpeted the marketplace, blood flowing into gutters that carried waste to the river. Black-Thorn's survivors huddled inside bolted shacks, praying to gods who no longer answered.
Li Tian stood at the riverbank washing gore from his hands.
> [Corruption Level: 20%]
"A milestone," the system purred. "Unlocking new module: Dream-Link Visions."
Color bled from the sunrise, replaced by wavering translucent scenes above the water: armies kneeling before a crowned silhouette wreathed in chains—his silhouette. Mountains split as titanic script etched across the sky: 破天 (Break Heaven). When the vision faded, ripples disturbed the river as if the world itself shuddered.
Li Tian exhaled. "Is this my future?"
"Potential future," the system answered. "The more you feed me, the more it solidifies. Devour heaven, devour fate."
He waited for guilt, for horror. Instead he felt—a hollow ache where they belonged. The absence might have frightened him once; now it was merely… predictable.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
A single survivor had dared approach: the mute beggar from the night market. She bowed, lifted a trembling parchment. Message network, Li Tian realized—beggars here worked as silent couriers.
He accepted the parchment, and she scampered away.
> Scroll-Ink still wet. Sealed with the sigil of Heaven's Order.
A bounty notice.
TARGET: Unidentified male cultivator, violet eyes, suspected soul-harvester.
CRIME: Sect-scale massacre, murder of Heaven-licensed traders, theft of classified contraband.
REWARD: 2,000,000 spirit jade. Immediate Immortal Court audience upon delivery.
STATUS: High priority. Celestial Envoy already dispatched to investigate Black-Thorn Crossing.
Li Tian folded the notice. A dry chuckle escaped his throat—its sound more brittle than humor. Celestial Envoys were peak Sky-Piercing cultivators, divine right incarnate. Facing one now was suicide.
Yet avoiding them meant detouring from revenge.
"Let them come," he said, and the river carried his words like iron filings in a current of blood.
> "Good," the system laughed, voice deepening into something almost… affectionate. "Your hate blossoms gorgeously."
---
4
The Broken Dawn
He left Black-Thorn before full light, stepping into mist that smelled of rain and smoke. Behind him, the town began crawling from hiding to discover their nightly god of death had already vanished.
Ahead lay the Crimson Sky Clan's border province—and beyond it, the mid-realm fortress where Grand Elder Xun presided, the strategist who orchestrated Azure Serpent's eradication. Li Tian felt the name burn his tongue even in silence.
The path wound upward into foothills scrubbed clean by last night's storm. Each step triggered faint pulses of memory fragments: Mei Lin's smile dissolving into static, elder chants replaced by silence. He clutched the serpent pendant, not because he remembered its significance, but because the weight kept dread from floating his mind apart.
As the sun climbed pale and cold, thunder rolled across a cloudless sky. Not weather—flight. He looked up.
A silver platform carved from living starlight descended on pillars of stormwind. At its center stood a woman draped in white celestial armor, eyes glowing with the pale fire of heavenly sanction. Behind her fluttered banners depicting scales balanced across an endless sky—the sigil of Heaven's Order.
The Celestial Envoy had arrived sooner than predicted.
Li Tian's lips curved, slow and dangerous.
> [System Alert]
"Predator detected. Calculating kill-toll projection: 0.07% success at current power.
Recommendation: Flee."
He lowered his stance, shadowy qi coiling at his fingertips. "No."
> "Clarify: host refusing optimal survival directive?"
"I don't survive," he murmured, violet eyes crackling with void lightning. "I destroy."
The envoy raised a jade decree scroll, her voice resounding like bell-metal:
"By mandate of the Immortal Court, stand down, soul-thief, and surrender to judgment!"
Li Tian answered with a single step forward—Void Step unleashed—ground fracturing beneath his heel.
The Blood Path had no exit.
And he had no intention of turning back.