The inn room was small, damp, and smelled of mildew, but Shen Yuan had already traced a series of invisible sigils on the floor using the blood-limestone. To the outside world, this room had vanished from existence.
"Strip to your inner robes and sit," Shen Yuan commanded.
Ye Fan hesitated, but one look at Shen Yuan's abyssal eyes made his knees hit the floor instantly. Ye Lin followed, her breath hitching. She was a genius, a 'Jade Beauty' of her clan, but in front of this servant, she felt like an ant looking at a mountain.
Shen Yuan pulled out the [Grade-1 Spirit Cauldron]. With a flick of his finger, a purple flame ignited beneath it—not fueled by coal, but by his own nascent Qi.
"Your current cultivation is a joke," Shen Yuan said as he tossed the Devil-Tongue Root and a shard of the Ancestor's Bone into the pot. "You cultivate 'Pure Qi', filtering out the world's filth. It is slow, fragile, and weak. My path is different. We do not filter the darkness. We devour it."
The liquid in the cauldron turned a thick, obsidian black, bubbling with a sound like muffled screams.
"Drink," he said, pouring the sludge into two wooden bowls.
"It... it smells like a corpse," Ye Fan gagged, the foul stench making his eyes water.
"It is the [Shadow-Marrow Decoction]," Shen Yuan stated coldly. "It will tear your meridians apart and rebuild them using the essence of the Void. If you survive, you will have the strength to kill those who burned your home. If you fail, your bodies will melt into a puddle of black ink. Choose."
Ye Lin didn't wait. She grabbed the bowl and downed it in one go. Her face immediately turned a sickly shade of grey, and a guttural scream escaped her throat as she collapsed. Ye Fan, terrified of being left behind, followed suit.
The next four hours were a descent into purgatory.
Shen Yuan watched with clinical indifference as the siblings writhed on the floor. Black veins pulsed beneath their skin, and the sound of their bones cracking and resetting filled the room. This was the 'Shattering'—a process he had perfected eons ago.
"Don't fight the pain," Shen Yuan's voice acted like a tether to their sanity. "Focus on the cold. Imagine your soul is a black hole, pulling everything into the center."
As the sun began to rise, the screaming stopped.
The siblings lay in a pool of black, oily impurities that had been forced out of their pores. But the change was undeniable. Ye Lin's aura, once stagnant, was now sharp and predatory. Her Hidden Ice Physique had merged with the Shadow Essence, turning her Qi into something far more dangerous: Dark Frost.
Ye Fan, though less talented, now possessed a physical toughness that surpassed ordinary cultivators of his rank.
"Get up," Shen Yuan said, not offering a hand. "The Zhou family's trackers have reached the city gates. I can smell their 'Burning Sun' technique from here."
Ye Lin stood up, her movements now possessing a feline grace. She looked at her hands, which were now pale as marble. "I feel... different. The world looks... fragile."
"It is fragile," Shen Yuan replied, throwing them two new cloaks. "Now, we leave for the Myriad Grave Valleys. We have a sect to build, and for that, we need a 'Founding Stone'."
"And where do we find a stone for a Dark Sect?" Ye Fan asked, his voice now deeper, more grounded.
Shen Yuan looked toward the dark, misty horizon.
"In the tomb of the Wailing King. He's been dead for three hundred years, clutching a piece of Star-Iron in his chest. It's time he shared his toys."
As they slipped out of the inn's back window, Shen Yuan glanced at the city gate. Two men in crimson robes were questioning the guards.
'Search all you want,' Shen Yuan thought, a dark glint in his eyes. 'By the time you find me, I won't be a survivor. I will be your nightmare.'