Blood stained the pristine white marble of the Cloud-Hidden Peak, its crimson hue a stark contrast to the ethereal mists that perpetually blanketed the Azure Cloud Sect. Rain fell in jagged, freezing sheets, washing the blood into the intricate grooves of the ancestral altar.
At the center of the altar knelt Lu Chen.
His breathing was ragged, each inhalation accompanied by the wet, sickening sound of punctured lungs. A jade-hilted longsword was buried to the hilt between his shoulder blades, perfectly severing the flow of his World Essence. The spiritual energy he had cultivated for seventeen years—the foundation that had made him the unparalleled genius of the Eastern Province—was bleeding out of him, scattering into the uncaring winds of the Great Azure Realm.
He didn't scream. He merely stared at the hands that had pushed the blade into his back.
"Why, Muxue?" Lu Chen's voice was a raspy whisper, barely audible over the roaring storm.
Lin Muxue stood ten paces away, the rain seemingly avoiding her entirely, repelled by an invisible barrier of Qi. She was beautiful, ethereal like a fairy descended from the heavens, clad in robes of spun moonlight. But her eyes, which had once looked at him with warmth and devotion, were now empty pools of freezing water. She methodically wiped a stray drop of his blood from her flawless cheek using a silk handkerchief.
"You should not ask such naive questions, Chen," Muxue said, her tone devoid of malice, which somehow made it infinitely worse. "We live in the Age of Fading Providence. The spiritual ley lines of the Nine Provinces are drying up. The Heavens are fractured. You know this. The Great Celestial Sunder ensured that true ascension is a myth for all but one. To survive, to truly live, one cannot afford to share the world's dwindling luck."
"Do you remember the Frostbite Caverns?" Lu Chen rasped, the memory tasting as metallic as the blood in his mouth. "When the Ice Wyrm cornered us. I burned a decade of my lifespan using the Blood Ignition Art just so you could escape. I dragged myself out half-dead, clutching the Frost Core you needed to cure your meridian blockage. Was that... was that all a lie?"
Lin Muxue's expression flickered, a momentary ripple in her icy facade, before smoothing over completely. "It was not a lie, Chen. I loved you. I still hold affection for you. But affection cannot mend the Heavens. Affection cannot stop the decay of the Great Azure Realm. Every hundred years, the concentration of World Essence drops by another fraction. Soon, there will not be enough ambient Qi to push anyone past the Golden Core stage."
She took a step closer, looking down at him with a chilling pragmatism. "Only a 'Child of Heaven'—someone holding the entirety of the world's remaining luck—can break the ceiling and become the Infinite Sword Sovereign. You possess the Innate Spirit Root, but you lack the ruthless ambition, the political backing, and the bloodline. Fang Tianyou has all three. You were just a temporary vessel for the world's luck."
"A brilliant rationalization for treachery," a new voice echoed through the storm.
Footsteps sounded, slow and deliberate, like the tolling of a death knell. From the swirling mists emerged Fang Tianyou.
He walked with the languid grace of a predator that had already secured its meal. Fang Tianyou, the 'Chosen One' of the Azure Cloud Sect, possessed a handsome face, an easy smile, and a charismatic aura that drew followers to him like moths to a flame.
In the arcane field of vision known as the Heavenly Eye, every cultivator possessed 'Qi Yun'—a golden aura representing their providence, their fortune, their favor with the Heavens. Minor cultivators had wisps of gold; prodigies had halos. Lu Chen had possessed a roaring, sun-like pillar of luck that stretched into the firmament. It was what guaranteed his 'Heavenly Opportunities'—the random inheritances, the fortuitous encounters, the miraculous escapes from death.
Fang Tianyou's Qi Yun was a pathetic, wispy thing compared to the raging fire that had always crowned Lu Chen's head. Until today.
Today, Lu Chen's golden pillar of Qi Yun was wavering, its brilliant light flickering violently as his life force ebbed away.
"Junior Brother Lu," Fang Tianyou smiled, coming to a halt beside Lin Muxue. He wrapped an arm around her slender waist. She didn't resist; instead, she leaned into him, a subtle submission that twisted the knife in Lu Chen's heart far more fiercely than the physical blade in his back. "Still so arrogant, even when brought low."
"Fang Tianyou," Lu Chen spat the name like venom. "The Sect Master's precious son. So lacking in talent you have to steal from a cripple?"
Fang Tianyou's smile didn't waver, but his eyes hardened into chips of obsidian. "Talent is a myth, Lu Chen. There is only Providence. You were born with the Supreme Sword Root. The Heavens dumped a mountain of luck upon your head for no reason. I, on the other hand, have the bloodline, the status, the vision—yet the Heavens gave me a mediocre Foundation. In this age of scarcity, morality is a luxury of the dead. The Azure Cloud Sect cannot afford to bet its future on an outsider. My father agrees."
Lu Chen's eyes widened slightly. "Sect Master Fang... he sanctioned this?"
"Sanctioned it?" Fang Tianyou laughed, a bright, melodic sound that cut through the thunder. "He planned it. Who do you think provided Muxue with the Soul-Severing Jade Sword? It was the only weapon capable of piercing your flawless Sword Intent."
A cold realization washed over Lu Chen, chilling him far deeper than the mountain rain. His entire life in the sect, his meteoric rise, the praises, the resources—it was all a pen. He was a beast being fattened for the slaughter. They had waited until his Innate Spirit Root fully matured at the peak of Qi Refinement before making their move.
"Now," Fang Tianyou stepped forward, his hands glowing with a sickening, sickly-sweet purple light. It was the aura of a forbidden art. "It is time to correct the mistake the Heavens made. Do not worry, Junior Brother. I will put your Supreme Sword Root to excellent use. When I become the Infinite Sword Sovereign and mend the fractured Heavens, I will be sure to engrave your name on the lowest step of my throne."
"The Heaven-Devouring Art," Lu Chen realized, his eyes widening in horror. "You... a so-called righteous sect..."
"Righteousness is written by the victors," Fang Tianyou chuckled.
"Don't touch me!" Lu Chen roared, trying to force his broken body upward. He attempted to summon his Sword Intent, the razor-sharp willpower he had cultivated, but his dantian was a shattered mess. The jade sword acted as a lightning rod, grounding his spiritual energy into the altar.
Fang Tianyou ignored his struggles. He casually reached out and plunged his glowing, purple-clad hand directly into the open wound on Lu Chen's chest.
Agony, pure and transcendent, erupted through Lu Chen's nervous system. It was not merely physical pain. It felt as though Fang Tianyou had reached into the very core of his soul and grabbed hold of his identity, his memories, his very destiny.
"Ah... what a magnificent Spirit Root," Fang Tianyou whispered, his eyes rolling back in ecstatic pleasure. "The sheer density of the World Essence... it's intoxicating."
Lu Chen let out a raw, guttural scream that tore his vocal cords. The storm above seemed to respond, thunder crashing in a deafening crescendo. He could feel his Sword Intent—the razor-sharp manifestation of his will that he had tempered through countless battles—fracturing. The 'World Essence' he had painstakingly refined leaked out of his pores like steam.
Slowly, agonizingly, Fang Tianyou withdrew his hand. Clutched in his grasp was a pulsing, ethereal manifestation of pure golden light, shaped like a miniature, intricate root system made of solidified starlight.
As soon as it was pulled from Lu Chen's body, the massive pillar of golden Qi Yun that had always hovered above Lu Chen's head violently detached. It swirled like a golden hurricane before funneling directly into Fang Tianyou.
Lu Chen collapsed completely onto the wet marble, his vision dimming. The vibrant colors of the world instantly washed out, leaving everything in dull, lifeless shades of gray. The innate connection he had always felt to the spiritual energy of the world—the whispers of the wind, the thrum of the earth—went dead silent.
He was hollowed out. A husk.
Fang Tianyou, conversely, was practically glowing. The golden cloud of providence above his head swelled massively, solidifying into a towering pillar of light that pierced the storm clouds. The Heavens themselves seemed to resonate with him now.
"It is done," Lin Muxue breathed, staring at Fang Tianyou with a mix of awe and hunger.
"Yes," Fang Tianyou murmured, examining his glowing hands. He looked down at the twitching, bleeding mass of flesh that used to be the Eastern Province's greatest genius. "Clean up this mess, Muxue. The grand banquet to celebrate my sudden, 'miraculous' breakthrough to Foundation Establishment begins in three hours."
Lin Muxue nodded. She walked over to Lu Chen. There was no pity in her eyes, only the cold pragmatism of a survivor. She grabbed him by the collar of his blood-soaked robes and dragged him toward the edge of the Cloud-Hidden Peak.
Beyond the edge lay the Abyss of Despair.
It was a geographical anomaly that sat at the center of the Great Azure Realm, a bottomless chasm shrouded in eternal darkness. It was a graveyard of deities, a void where spiritual energy went to die. Located at the geographic heart of the Nine Provinces, it was a remnant of the primordial war that caused the Great Celestial Sunder. Nothing that fell into the Abyss had ever returned.
"In another life, Lu Chen, things might have been different," Muxue whispered as she hauled his limp body over the precipice.
Lu Chen couldn't move. He couldn't fight. But his eyes, staring up at the woman he had loved, burned with a hatred so profound, so absolute, that Muxue involuntarily flinched.
"I will... tear down... your heavens," Lu Chen gurgled, blood bubbling past his lips. "I will... consume... everything."
Muxue scowled, recovering her composure. "Goodbye, Lu Chen."
She let go.
Gravity took hold. Lu Chen plummeted into the howling darkness of the Abyss of Despair.
The fall felt like an eternity. The freezing wind whipped past him, tearing at his torn flesh. Above him, the faint light of the Azure Cloud Sect rapidly shrank into a tiny, distant star before vanishing entirely, swallowed by the suffocating gloom.
As he descended into the crushing depths, the ambient spiritual energy vanished, replaced by an oppressive, suffocating miasma. This was a place forgotten by providence. A place where luck meant nothing.
Is this how it ends? Lu Chen thought, his consciousness fraying at the edges. Robbed of my destiny. Butchered by my love. Discarded like trash.
His hatred flared, a dark, consuming fire in the void of his shattered soul. He refused to accept it. He refused to let them win. If the Heavens dictated that Fang Tianyou was now the Chosen One, then he would slaughter the Heavens. If providence had abandoned him, he would become a demon that fed on providence.
I want it back. I want all of it back!
His blood, trailing upwards in the zero-gravity sensation of his terminal velocity, splattered against something in the darkness.
Clink.
A hollow, metallic resonance echoed through the roaring wind.
Suddenly, the darkness below him fractured. A blinding, silvery-black light erupted from the depths of the Abyss. It wasn't the warm, golden light of Qi Yun. It was something older, colder, and infinitely more terrifying.
A massive, ancient mirror, its surface cracked and entirely devoid of reflection, floated upward from the abyss, rushing to meet him. Its obsidian frame was carved with archaic runes that predated the Great Celestial Sunder. As Lu Chen's bleeding body crashed into the unyielding surface of the mirror, it didn't shatter.
Instead, the mirror rippled like a disturbed pond.
A voice, sounding like grinding stones and dying stars, echoed directly into his mind.
[Providence stripped. Destiny shattered. The vessel is perfectly hollow.]
Lu Chen's blood soaked into the cracks of the mirror.
[Condition met. Binding the Sovereign of the Void. Would you like to plunder the Heavens, mortal?]
Through his fading consciousness, Lu Chen forced his bloody lips into a savage, terrifying smile.
Yes.
The mirror dissolved into black liquid shadow, sinking into Lu Chen's chest, filling the gaping hole where his Spirit Root used to be. The descent stopped. The darkness swallowed him whole.
The Azure Cloud Sect believed they had killed a genius. They didn't know they had just birthed a monster.