The courtyard was suffused with a colder breath than usual—the wind whipping through fractured tiles, stirring shards of broken wood and lantern ash like pale ghosts. Fading dusk washed the sky in bruised purples and cold greys, and every breath Li Tianchen drew tasted of iron and dust. Splinters of moonlight reached through the shattered roof, but even its silver fingers seemed hesitant to touch the devastation below.
Amid the ruin of his once-humble hut, stained crimson by Zhao Feng's blood, Li Tianchen stood motionless. His shoulders were trembling—not from fear, but from raw disbelief. Every fiber of his soul rebelled against the reality before him, yet here he was, an impossible truth dawning like a blade in his chest.
No divine aura shimmered around his hand. No celestial glow crowned his brow. Only a battered palm, cut and bruised, quivered with power far beyond mortal ken. He stared at those fingers as though they might betray him at any moment, drop him back into the shackles of weakness he had known all his life.
A single drop of blood rolled over his knuckle, dark as spilled ink on parchment. Zhao Feng's life seeped through his pores, a reminder of the moment this transformation had been unleashed. He was tempted to feel triumph—he had shattered his sectmate with a force no cripple should wield—but triumph tasted hollow, soured by the question echoing in his mind: What was he now?
Behind him, Zhao Feng lay crumpled in the courtyard. His ribs twisted beneath torn robes, each breath a ragged whisper of agony. He groaned, half-calling for help, half-drowning in confusion. Li Tianchen didn't need to kill him. He didn't want to. Instead, he stood silent, calculating how best to humiliate the man who'd always sneered at his weakness.
Death would grant Zhao Feng peace. Humiliation promised lessons he'd never forget.
The cracked mirror leaning against the splintered wall beckoned with a warped promise of answers. Across its surface, Li Tianchen saw the same gaunt boy, hair askew, robes singed and smeared with dust. But behind those familiar eyes glowed something ancient—an ember of something once buried, now scorched to life. The reflection was himself and yet far older, wiser, desperate.
"This… is not reincarnation," he murmured, voice low as a winter wind. "It's reclamation."
Memories assaulted him like shards of ice: the searing betrayal as Mu Yuelin's blade pierced his chest, her words, "I did what had to be done," echoing as life slipped away. The final gasp of blood-orange light, his last focus on vengeance that never came. All of it surging back, infused now with the power of the Vein.
He sank to the cold stone floor, legs crossing on instinct. The world around him receded until only the vortex within remained. He waited for the voice.
It arrived in a tremor, first in his bones, then coiling along his spine like a serpent of chill and flame. His nerves screamed with exhilaration, as if an ancient forge had lit in his marrow.
A pulse. Two pulses. Then a tide of soundless thunder in his dantian.
[ Heaven-Devouring Sword Vein – Reactivation: 98%… 99%… Complete. ]
[ Host soul resonance: Confirmed. ]
[ Memory trace embedded: Forbidden Ninth Sword Law detected. ]
Silence followed, pregnant and watchful—until a faint ripple tore space itself.
Before him hovered a cascade of violet runes, sigils carving themselves in midair like desperate graffiti. Sword-shaped scripts flowed as if underwater, weaving new patterns in every heartbeat.
A system—not cold, crystalline machinery, but living script, writ in the ink of his own blood and memory.
[ Base Meridians: Reconstructed ]
[ Sword Qi Channels: Unlocked – Stage 1 ]
[ Cultivation: Body Tempering Realm – Initial Rank ]
[ Talent Absorbed: Zhao Feng (Mid-Low Sword Potential) ]
Sword Vein Trait Gained:
– Fate Thread Consumption (Lv.1)
– Vein Pulse – Passive Qi Rebirth (5% faster regen)
Hidden Message:
"You have remembered yourself. Now devour what you forgot."
Li Tianchen paused, lips curving as a smile both triumphant and mournful.
"So it begins."
Pain blossomed in his dantian like a black rose. His teeth bit into his lower lip to stanch a cry—yet it was not agony, but transformation. He felt every cell bend, every bone whispering as it realigned. Underneath his skin, violet veins glowed, each pulse a reminder that his body no longer belonged to the fragile boy he had been.
The sword-shaped glyphs burned along his forearms, and each crack from within sang not of breaking, but becoming. The Vein was forging him—shaping him into something neither wholly mortal nor fully divine.
The world outside responded. Where before the breeze had skirted his skin, now it coiled around him, eager to feed. Qi danced in the air, previously repelled by his frail form, now drawn to him as iron filings to a magnet. Swords hanging in distant armories trembled on their racks, their latent energies rippling toward him like moths to a flame.
He flexed his newly tempered muscles, tasting potential on his tongue. He had become a blade untempered, a force dormant until now.
A hesitant knock shattered the reverie. The broken door creaked open, and a soft voice slipped through the gap.
"Tianchen?"
Xiao Ruoyu stepped in, shoulders hunched against the cold, her robes smeared with dust from her hurried journey. Her eyes darted across the carnage: the shattered walls, the jagged floor, Zhao Feng's broken silhouette—and then him. Standing tall, silent, his gaunt face aglow with an uncanny light that made her heart thump against her ribs.
"Tianchen… I heard what happened. They say Zhao Feng—he was thrown from the wall?" Her voice cracked, a tremor of genuine fear and worry. She'd been one of the few who treated him with kindness when the sect dismissed him as a cripple.
His gaze drifted to Zhao Feng's prone form, then returned to her. "He'll live," he said quietly. "Not because I spared him, but because I owe him a lesson, not a grave."
Her brow furrowed. "But… why?"
He turned away, as if the answer pained him. "Death is too kind. Humiliation burns longer."
Ruoyu swallowed, looking down at her hands. "I—I brought water." She set a gourd on the floor before him. Her eyes flicked to the mirror. "People… they fear you now."
He met her gaze. For a fleeting moment, he looked like the boy she once knew—helpless and yearning. "Fear is earned," he said. "Kindness invites death. Leave now."
Her lips parted, torn between loyalty and terror. Still, she nodded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Without another word, she stepped back and slipped through the door.
The latch clicked shut. In the sudden hush, Li Tianchen exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"I will not lose anything again. Not even kindness," he whispered.
That night, the Outer Sect Council Hall seethed with outrage. Elder Wu, robes rustling like dry leaves, slammed his palm on the lacquered table until the grains cracked.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN Zhao Feng was defeated by Li Tianchen?!" His voice echoed off marble pillars.
A trembling disciple bowed so deeply his forehead scraped stone. "Elder Wu, he—he was thrown from his hut. His arm shattered. He hasn't woken since. Witnesses claim—he flew through the wall—"
"From a cripple?!" Elder Wu's eyes bulged. "Explain yourselves!"
The hall fell into a stifling silence. Disciples shifted uneasily, unwilling to meet the elder's furious gaze. Outside, torchlight danced on the closed doors, a pale imitation of the heated anger within.
In a shadowed corner, Mu Yuelin watched. Her gray robes were immaculate, her expression unreadable. She leaned forward, lips curling into something close to a smile.
Li Tianchen. That name…it vibrated oddly in her mind. She'd only met him twice. A cripple, pitiable, easily dismissed. Yet now…there was a tremor of recognition in her thoughts. Did the name echo in her soul as it did in his?
No one noticed her attention—the hall thrumm ed with whispers of fear and uncertainty.
She stood, bowing with slender grace. "The body of Zhao Feng is under care. Li Tianchen has yet to present himself before the council." Her voice was calm, measured, but the thin edge of tension draped every syllable. "I recommend we send envoys to assess the situation firsthand."
Elder Wu's gaze snapped to her. "Is that your counsel, instructor?"
She inclined her head. "Yes. He is unpredictable now. We cannot risk underestimating him."
He quirked a brow. "Very well." With a grunt, he waved his hand dismissively. "Adjourned."
As the crowd dispersed, Mu Yuelin slipped away. Alone, she raised a hand, fingertips tracing an arc in the air. A whisper of Qi followed her motion. "So he has awakened," she murmured. "We shall see how long the Vein serves him… and where it leads me."
On the ruined precipice of Sword Hill, midnight draped the world in obsidian velvet. Stars blinked distantly, afraid to witness what might happen next. Li Tianchen emerged from shadow, the rusted practice blade heavy in his hand. Each step stirred pebbles and dust, the crunch echoing across the silent cliffs.
He approached the ledge, wind tugging at his robes, whispering promises of power. He raised the blade with deliberate slowness, fingers brushing the tarnished steel. A flicker of violet fire danced along its length—proof that even broken metal would bend to his will now.
For a heartbeat, he felt the shards of his old self: the boy beaten down, humiliated, cast aside. Then he inhaled, drawing Qi through his veins, through the ancient channels newly unlocked. His heart synchronized with the Vein's pulse until he could feel two rhythms—one his own, one that thundered like a forge's drum.
He lifted the blade, poised for a strike. Around him, the air thickened, charged with expectancy. Then, with a motion so fluid it seemed slow and fast at once, he sliced.
No Qi erupted. No torrents of energy. No roaring wind. Only intent, pure and untethered.
A split-second later, a fracture formed in the stone—not jagged, but precise, as if carved by a master smith's chisel. The crack spidered outward, delicate yet absolute.
He lowered the blade, eyes glinting beneath furrowed brows. "That… was intent," he whispered, voice hollow with awe. "No Qi, no cultivation. Only will."
The wind roared its approval, whipping around him like an invisible host. He sheathed the practice blade. It snapped into place with a satisfying click, as if it had always belonged there, awaiting his command.
Moonlight finally touched his face in full. In its glow, his features seemed carved from living stone—unyielding, determined, unbreakable.
He stepped to the cliff's edge and gazed at the distant lights of the Outer Sect, clustered like fireflies in the valley below. A surge of defiance twisted in his chest.
"You feared me once," he said to the night. "Fear me again."
Behind him, in realms unseen, something stirred. A distant resonance echoed through hidden layers of existence—an entity awakening to the return of its prodigal host. The Sword Vein pulsed in his veins, thrumming in harmony with forces older than mortals, ready to devour what had long been forgotten.
And so the hunter rose, a sword that had never been forged, a force reborn in the silent heart of darkness.
Chapter 2 ends.