Chapter 3
1441 Words
I wheezed, clutching my throat. "The very air of this world... it’s different."
I reached out, sensing the spiritual energy floating in the room. In my previous life, the world had been a chaotic mix of light and shadow, a raw soup of elements. Now, the Qi was filtered. It was refined. It was... holy.
"It’s poison," I spat, a bitter laugh bubbling up. "She’s purified the entire world. To a being of my nature, this spiritual energy isn't sustenance. It's bleach."
I tried to circulate a single thread of the ambient Qi through Han Xiao’s meridians. The moment the energy entered my arm, I felt a searing heat. It was like pouring molten silver into a wooden pipe. My veins bulged, turning a sickly, glowing white before I forcefully expelled the energy back into the air.
"I can't use their techniques," I muttered, staring at my shaking hands. "If I cultivate their 'righteous' path, I’ll burn this body from the inside out in a fortnight. I am a creature of the eclipse, and she has turned the world into a sun."
I slumped against the wall, the weight of the situation pressing down on me. I was a King without a kingdom, a god without power, trapped in a body held together by spite and cheap bandages, in a world that was literally toxic to my soul.
"Is this your joke, Selene?" I asked the ceiling. "To bring me back just to watch me starve in a banquet hall?"
I stayed like that for hours, watching the moon crawl across the sky through the cracks in the roof. My mind raced, discarded strategies and ancient spells flickering through my memory like dying embers. None of them worked. They all required a foundation I no longer possessed.
Then, I felt it.
A strange, rhythmic throb. It wasn't the pain in my ribs, nor was it the ache in my head. It was coming from my chest—lower than the lungs, deeper than the bone.
"What is that?"
I placed my palm over Han Xiao’s heart.
The beat was... off. It wasn't the frantic flutter of a terrified boy. It was a slow, heavy thrum, like the tolling of a funeral bell. I closed my eyes again, focusing not on my soul, but on the physical organ itself.
"Show me," I commanded.
My internal vision narrowed, piercing through skin and muscle. There, in the centre of the boy’s chest, sat a heart that looked like it had been carved from obsidian. It was blacker than the deepest trench of the abyss, veins of dark purple pulsing with a slow, rhythmic power that seemed to swallow the light around it.
"A Void Heart?" I gasped, my breath hitching. "This... this is impossible. The legend says only one is born every ten thousand years."
I touched the organ with my spiritual sense. Unlike the rest of the body, which was frail and human, this heart was an anomaly. It didn't pump blood; it pumped shadows. It was a natural furnace for negative energy—grief, rage, despair, and malice.
"Han Xiao," I whispered, a slow, predatory grin spreading across my face. "You weren't trash. You were a walking disaster waiting for a spark. No wonder they hated you. Even their 'pure' Qi couldn't touch this. They sensed the darkness in you and tried to beat it out of you."
The realization hit me like a thunderclap. This was why I had ended up here. This was why my soul, a fragment of the ultimate darkness, had been drawn to this specific vessel.
"The spiritual energy of this world is poison to me," I laughed, the sound cold and hollow. "But emanation of the void... that is my bread and butter. I don't need their sun. I have my own night."
I began to concentrate, focusing all the agony of the night—the memory of Li’s boot, the sting of the spit, the crushing weight of a thousand years of betrayal—into that black heart.
The heart responded. It began to beat faster, not with fear, but with hunger. It started to draw in the toxic, white Qi from the air around me, but instead of letting it burn my meridians, it pulled the energy directly into the obsidian furnace.
I watched as the "pure" energy was stripped of its light, ground down by the gravity of the void heart, and converted into a thick, viscous liquid of pure, unadulterated shadow.
"Yes," I hissed, a surge of power—tiny, but real—flicking through my chest. "Eat it all. Turn their heaven into my hell."
The process was excruciating. It felt like my chest was being crushed by a mountain, but for the first time since waking up, the pain felt productive. It was the pain of a forge, not a slaughterhouse.
One shard, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. Find the first shard. The Pillar of the Sunder.
"I know," I replied to the memory. "The first seal is in this realm. I can feel the vibration of it. It’s close. Somewhere in these mountains, my power is being used to keep the sky blue. I’ll take it back. I’ll take it all back."
I spent the next few hours in a trance, refined shadow-energy beginning to trickle out of my heart and into my shattered meridians. It was like cool oil, soothing the burns and knitting the fractures. I wouldn't be a master by morning, but I would no longer be a victim.
"Nine realms," I murmured, my eyes glowing with a faint, violet hue in the darkness. "Nine pillars to topple. I will start with this sect. I will turn their 'Azure Cloud' into a shroud."
I was just beginning to feel the first stirrings of true strength when a sudden, violent crash shook the shack.
The door didn't just open; it was kicked off its rusted hinges.
"Han Xiao! You little rat! I know you're in there!"
The voice was loud, booming, and filled with a vulgar arrogance that cut through my meditation like a dull knife. I didn't move. I remained seated, my hands resting on my knees, though my internal energy coiled like a spring.
Three figures stepped into the small space, silhouetted against the silver moonlight. They weren't disciples. They were older, heavier men dressed in the grey robes of the sect’s logistical department. The man in the lead was a barrel-chested brute with a bushy beard and a face that looked like it had been carved from a turnip.
"Well, well," the lead man sneered, holding up a flickering lantern. "Look at the little lordling, sitting there like he’s some kind of immortal. You think because you hid in the dark, we wouldn't find you?"
I looked up slowly. "You're late, Collector Feng. Usually, you wait until the sun is up to harass the orphans."
Feng paused, his eyes narrowing. "Collector? That’s 'Master Feng' to you, boy. And I’m not here for a chat. You owe the sect twelve spirit stones for your 'protection' fees for the last quarter. My patience has run out."
"Protection?" I asked, a sliver of ice in my voice. "And who, exactly, was protecting me when Senior Li was breaking my ribs three hours ago?"
One of the men behind Feng chuckled. "We protect you from us, Han Xiao. That’s how it works. Now, cough it up, or we’re taking the payment in skin."
"I don't have your stones," I said simply.
Feng stepped forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight. He reached down and grabbed the front of my tunic, hauling me to my feet with one hand. "Don't lie to me. I heard you put Li in the infirmary tonight. Word is, you stole a stone from the dispensary to get the strength to do it. Hand it over, and maybe I won't break your other arm."
I looked into Feng’s eyes. They were small, greedy, and utterly devoid of the soul I expected from a living creature. To him, I was just a resource to be squeezed.
"You heard wrong," I said, my voice dropping to that low, vibrating thrum. "I didn't steal anything. I simply stopped being what you wanted me to be."
Feng’s grip tightened. "Listen to you. A bit of luck against a whelp like Li and you think you’re a tiger? You're still just a worm, Han Xiao. A worm in the dirt."
He pulled back his other hand, balled into a massive fist. "Maybe a few days in the Black Cells will remind you of your place."
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