The serpent lunged again.
Its jaws split wide, and the hiss of venom filled the air like rain hitting hot stone. Ezra ducked low, felt the heat brush his scalp, and twisted under its body. His hands found a sharp splinter of rock—cold, jagged—and he drove it upward with every ounce of strength left in him.
The shard pierced the creature's lower jaw, scraping against bone. It screamed—a sound too human to belong to an animal. The air trembled; frost burst outward in a circle as if the land itself recoiled from its pain.
Ezra stumbled back, chest heaving, eyes wide with disbelief. He had hurt it.
The serpent thrashed, tail hammering the ground, but its movements faltered. Venom leaked black across the frost, hissing and bubbling like acid. Ezra didn't think—he acted. He grabbed another shard, leapt onto the serpent's neck, and drove it down. Once. Twice. Until the light faded from its ember eyes.
Silence.
Ezra's breaths came rough and uneven, each one scraping through his throat like sandpaper. His hands shook, bloodied and pale. The cold air stung his wounds, but in that pain there was clarity.
Not triumph—understanding.
He crouched beside the corpse, staring as the frost began to recede, revealing strange runes etched beneath the serpent's body. They pulsed faintly, threads of light seeping into the cracks of the earth. The whispers returned—no longer distant, but inside his skull.
So it begins… another contender for Heaven's favor.
Another fool who believes survival is enough.
Ezra gritted his teeth. "Who said I wanted Heaven's favor?"
The ground trembled. A pulse of energy—raw Qi—burst from the serpent's body and surged into him before he could react. It burned. Every vein felt like it was splitting open; every nerve screamed with fire and frost. His vision blurred, his thoughts scattered.
Survive.
That single word roared in his head like a command.
He focused—on breath, on form, on rhythm. Inhale through pain. Exhale through chaos.
And slowly, the storm began to bend.
When he opened his eyes, the world was different. He could see the frost not as ice but as patterns of energy, coiling and moving like living things. The air shimmered with invisible threads connecting mountain, sky, and blood.
Ezra Thorn had touched Qi.
Not borrowed, not granted—taken.
He fell back onto the ground, panting, half-laughing. "So this… is what it takes."
As the sky bled into deeper shades of violet, shapes began to appear on the horizon. Towers of black stone and drifting banners carved with ancient sigils. He recognized the symbols—not from experience, but from the books he'd devoured back home.
The Sect of Silent Ash.
The Crimson Coil Cult.
The House of Endless Dawn.
And far beyond them, faint as a ghost on the horizon, the spires of the Heavenly Concord— the empire of faiths that claimed dominion over all paths of cultivation.
Every sect was a different belief system, a different truth. Some drew power from spirit beasts, others from blood sacrifices or ancient chants that warped the mind. To enter one was to swear your soul. To rise within one was to survive its purges.
Ezra felt his pulse quicken. He understood the danger now—this world wasn't ruled by law or morality, but by strength and conviction. Every cultivator, every disciple, every heretic fought not for balance, but for dominance.
And he, an outsider with no lineage, no sect, no divine blessing—was nothing.
But nothing had always been his starting point.
He pressed a bloodied hand against the serpent's cooling scales. The Qi within still flickered faintly, like embers. He let his palm rest there, drawing the energy slowly, deliberately. Pain shot through his arm—his veins blackened briefly, then cleared as he forced the energy to obey.
"I don't need their faith," he whispered.
"I'll carve my own."
The frost beneath him cracked, and the serpent's body dissolved into motes of light that sank into his skin. A faint symbol appeared over his heart—a serpent devouring its own tail, glowing faintly gold.
The Mark of the Ascendant Path.
His first step toward immortality. Not as a disciple of a sect. Not as a servant of a god.
But as a lone cultivator—one who would walk the path between creation and ruin.
In the distance, temple bells rang.
War drums followed.
And somewhere in the heavens, something ancient turned its gaze toward the mortal who had just stolen power instead of begging for it.
Ezra Thorn stood. Blood on his hands. Fire in his chest.
The path ahead was endless—and he would walk it until the heavens themselves bled.