The wind changed.
It wasn't just the weather—though the snows had begun to ease, and the clouds above the Azure Cloud Continent thinned, revealing a cold blue sky.
No. The air carried something deeper. Blood. Smoke. Fear.
Li Fan crouched by a stream, washing his hands clean of beast ichor. A razor-furred frost bear lay in pieces behind him, its remains already fading into the snow. He didn't linger over his meal anymore. Consumption was an instinct now—subtle, quiet, quick.
He barely even noticed the way his arms had thickened, or how his irises had begun to faintly glint silver in the dark. Each piece he took changed him.
Somewhere far to the west, a border conflict brewed between sects—skirmishes near a long-forgotten portal stone said to connect to the Illusory Demon Realm.
That's what had drawn him here.
Not the politics.
The aftermath.
---
Three days later, he arrived.
A battlefield—cold, quiet, still tinged with faint spiritual smoke. The corpses had not yet been cleared. Hundreds of them. Most were common soldiers—sect-affiliated mercenaries—but a few carried the scent of profound strength.
He moved like a ghost between the fallen. Not scavenging for wealth. Not looting.
Just feeding.
A broken swordmaster—half of his neck torn away—gave Li Fan enhanced muscle memory for blade flow. He didn't need to train with the weapon. His hands simply knew now.
A dead spear cultivator had a strong sense of footwork and balance, though no elemental affinity. Li Fan took that too.
The corpses of beasts—used as war mounts—offered him even more: explosive muscle fibers, high-speed regeneration, keen night vision.
It was slow work.
It was perfect.
---
He found a secluded cave to sleep in that night. It overlooked the charred forest from a ledge, half-covered in ash. The moon hung high. And there, in the silence, Li Fan felt something...
Familiar. Pressing. Inevitable.
He opened his eyes.
"Yun Che is in New Moon City now."
He could feel the wheel of fate turning.
The Heretic God's profound veins had awakened. The Sky Poison Pearl was already proving its worth. Jasmine was bound to Yun Che's soul, teaching him to defy the heavens.
"Which means... Xiao Sect will fall. That arrogant branch sect elder will be crushed. And the name 'Yun Che' will become known soon."
He stared at the stars, his expression unreadable.
"He moves forward like a flame in darkness."
"I move behind, like the cold under it."
---
That night, he dreamed for the first time in years.
But not of his former life. Not of Earth. Not even of death.
He dreamed of hunting.
Not as a man—but as a thing.
A shape that slithered between treetops, invisible to beasts and men. A thing with limbs that changed as needed. A thing that consumed and wore its prey like cloaks.
He saw a dragon's eye, golden and terrible, watching him from the void.
He did not flee.
He sank into it, like meat into flame.
---
When he woke, his bones ached.
He stumbled outside, caught his breath, and looked at his hands.
They had grown longer. Too long.
He forced the change back, willed his shape into something more human again. It hurt. A deep, grating pain. But it passed.
"I'm forgetting how to stay still."
He looked toward the west. Beyond the shattered plains and the sea.
"I need to go to the Profound Sky Continent."
"I need to see him. Even from afar."
---
It took weeks to find a smuggler who could arrange passage—quietly, without drawing the attention of the continent's cultivators.
He had to trade the talon of the storm hawk he'd killed and the last core of a flame bear from the south. The smuggler was blind in one eye and never stopped smiling. He asked no questions.
Li Fan left at night.
The skies were clear. The sea between Azure Cloud and Profound Sky hissed with moonlight.
He said nothing as the ship crossed the divide.
But in his mind, he traced the steps Yun Che would soon walk.
"Rising in New Moon City."
"Entering Blue Wind Profound Palace."
"Meeting Lan Xueruo."
"Crushing his so-called rivals."
"Uncovering more of the Heretic God's legacy."
Li Fan's claws twitched behind the skin of his fingers.
"And all the while... I'll be watching. Feeding."
"By the time he learns to fly... I'll be something that doesn't walk anymore."