WebNovels

Beyond Mortal Strife

Zavior
7
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
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Chapter 1 - The World Beyond the Pages

The air smelled of iron and ash. It clawed at Ezra Thorn's lungs with every shallow breath, hot and acrid like a forge fire. He coughed, clutching his chest as he blinked against the strange light that danced across jagged mountains in the distance—mountains that seemed to scrape the belly of a sky painted in bruised purple and streaked with molten gold.

One moment, he had been hunched over a half-eaten instant noodle cup in his cramped dorm room, the glow of his laptop casting a pale halo across the walls plastered with posters of wuxia heroes and manga panels. The next, he was here. His sneakers crunched over cracked stone, his hands brushing against a layer of frost that seemed alive, whispering with the voices of the damned.

Ezra forced himself to steady his breathing, analyzing every detail. He had read thousands of cultivation novels, memorized countless techniques and strategies—but knowing and surviving were two entirely different beasts.

A shadow shifted across the rocks. He froze, heart hammering, but his mind didn't panic. Calculating, observing, he recognized the creature's movements—fluid, serpentine, with coiled strength that could snap a man in half. Its eyes glowed like coals beneath a skull-shaped head; its fangs dripped black venom that hissed as it struck the air.

Most would have fled. Most would have died.

Not Ezra.

He vaulted sideways over a stone outcrop, rolling lightly as the creature's jaws snapped shut inches from where he had stood. "Predictable," he muttered under his breath, scanning its pattern like a puzzle. Every flick of its tail, every sway of its body, revealed weaknesses if one was patient and precise.

Ezra's chest burned—not with fear, but with the heat of clarity. He wasn't just surviving; he was calculating, adapting, learning. Every fight is a lesson. Every misstep, a death sentence—but every success brings me closer.

A voice—or perhaps just a thought—whispered in the back of his mind: You're not here to survive. You're here to ascend. To defy heaven itself.

He smirked, wiping frost and blood from his knuckles. "Heaven doesn't know who it's messing with," he said softly, letting instinct and intellect guide him as he lunged forward.

The first step toward immortality wasn't in mastering some ancient technique or gaining legendary power. It was in surviving the impossible—and Ezra Thorn knew that in this brutal, beautiful world, surviving was the most dangerous cultivation of all.

The air smelled of iron and ash. It clawed at Ezra Thorn's lungs with every shallow breath, hot and acrid like a forge fire. He coughed, clutching his chest as he blinked against the strange light that danced across jagged mountains in the distance—mountains that seemed to scrape the belly of a sky painted in bruised purple and streaked with molten gold.

One moment, he had been hunched over a half-eaten instant noodle cup in his cramped dorm room, the glow of his laptop casting a pale halo across the walls plastered with posters of wuxia heroes and manga panels. The next, he was here. His sneakers crunched over cracked stone, his hands brushing against a layer of frost that seemed alive, whispering with the voices of the damned.

Ezra forced himself to steady his breathing, analyzing every detail. He had read thousands of cultivation novels, memorized countless techniques and strategies—but knowing and surviving were two entirely different beasts.

A shadow shifted across the rocks. He froze, heart hammering, but his mind didn't panic. Calculating, observing, he recognized the creature's movements—fluid, serpentine, with coiled strength that could snap a man in half. Its eyes glowed like coals beneath a skull-shaped head; its fangs dripped black venom that hissed as it struck the air.

Most would have fled. Most would have died.

Not Ezra.

He vaulted sideways over a stone outcrop, rolling lightly as the creature's jaws snapped shut inches from where he had stood. "Predictable," he muttered under his breath, scanning its pattern like a puzzle. Every flick of its tail, every sway of its body, revealed weaknesses if one was patient and precise.

Ezra's chest burned—not with fear, but with the heat of clarity. He wasn't just surviving; he was calculating, adapting, learning. Every fight is a lesson. Every misstep, a death sentence—but every success brings me closer.

A voice—or perhaps just a thought—whispered in the back of his mind: You're not here to survive. You're here to ascend. To defy heaven itself.

He smirked, wiping frost and blood from his knuckles. "Heaven doesn't know who it's messing with," he said softly, letting instinct and intellect guide him as he lunged forward.

The first step toward immortality wasn't in mastering some ancient technique or gaining legendary power. It was in surviving the impossible—and Ezra Thorn knew that in this brutal, beautiful world, surviving was the most dangerous cultivation of all.