The world returned slowly.
Not like waking from sleep.
Not like crawling out of pain.
More like surfacing from beneath a thick, suffocating ocean… and realizing the shore has been burned away.
Xue Yao opened his eyes.
Cold lantern light flickered above him, fractured by smoke drifting through the ruins of the auction hall. The ceiling had partially collapsed, wooden beams jutting downward like broken ribs. Dust floated in the air, sparkling faintly in the aftermath of destruction.
His body lay in a twisted sprawl against shattered tiles.
He blinked once.
Twice.
He was alive.
He remembered dying — the talisman erupting in his chest, the elders watching him fall, the sensation of everything tightening to a single point of white agony.
Then darkness.
Then Abyss.
Now…
Breath pushed into his lungs, weak but steady.
Pain flickered across his ribs, sharp and insistent, but no longer fatal. His right hand twitched, tingling with returning sensation.
His heart beat with two rhythms — one human, one impossibly ancient.
Abyss whispered from somewhere deep within him:
"Get up."
Xue Yao pushed against the broken floor, biting down a groan. His bones protested but obeyed. Dust slid off his robes as he rose to one knee.
The air smelled of blood, burnt talisman residue, and shattered qi.
Dozens of corpses surrounded him.
Attendants.
Guards.
Guests.
And the three elders who had executed him with such calm smiles.
Their bodies lay twisted and stiff.
Their eyes wide.
Their spiritual remnants faintly drifting above them like threads of pale smoke.
Xue Yao exhaled slowly.
Abyss murmured:
"Welcome back to the world that tried to erase you."
He looked at his hands.
Tiny tendrils of black flame flickered across his fingertips — thin, elegant, almost eager.
His first thought wasn't horror.
It was clarity.
"…So it wasn't a dream."
He rose fully.
Pain clung to him, but strength seeped beneath it like a slow-moving storm. His meridians pulsed with a faint, alien power — not qi, not soul force, but something more primal.
Something hungry.
He stepped forward, glass crunching beneath his feet.
A spiritual remnant drifted toward him — a faint glow leaking from the corpse of a guard. It quivered, weak and unfocused, like the dying echo of a life.
Xue Yao watched it float.
Then he raised his hand.
Black fire ignited.
Soft.
Silent.
Hungering.
The remnant recoiled, trembling like prey sensing a predator. But the flame extended in thin tendrils, brushing the fragment's edge.
Abyss whispered:
"Consume."
Xue Yao didn't hesitate.
He clenched his hand.
The flame leapt.
The remnant screamed soundlessly and dissolved, funneling into his palm and sinking into his chest in a single breath.
The surge hit him like a cold shock.
His vision sharpened.
His pulse steadied.
The ache in his spine dulled.
A faint warmth settled in his dantian — a seed of something new.
He exhaled shakily.
"…So this is devouring."
Abyss's voice curled like smoke:
"A fragment only. A crumb. But crumbs become mountains if you never stop eating."
Xue Yao's gaze drifted to the corpses littering the hall.
"That means I can take them all."
"If you desire strength, yes."
He did.
Gods, he did.
He stepped toward Elder Ruan's corpse — the man who had pushed him into the talisman's path with a serene expression.
Xue Yao crouched beside him.
Elder Ruan's face was twisted in death, but the faint glow around his chest showed a remnant still resisting dissolution.
Xue Yao hovered his hand above it.
"Struggle all you like," he whispered. "You owe me this much."
He pressed his palm downward.
Black fire enveloped the remnant.
It fought back — a spiritual roar echoing weakly through the hall, claws of will scraping against Xue Yao's essence.
But the flame did not budge.
It tightened.
It devoured.
The surge nearly knocked him over.
His veins burned. His heart hammered. His meridians trembled violently as new force carved pathways through them.
Then, like water settling into a basin, everything aligned.
Abyss hummed:
"Your first Abyssal Vein has formed."
Xue Yao shuddered.
"…It feels like I'm becoming something else."
"Not something else," Abyss corrected.
"Something more."
He stood straight.
His wounds were still there — but reduced. His strength was still low — but rising. His senses expanded outward, allowing him to feel even faint breaths of energy.
And then he heard it.
Footsteps.
Many of them.
Boots striking stone.
Armor shifting.
Voices lowered to whispers.
Xue Yao froze.
"…Searchers."
Abyss's tone sharpened:
"They come to confirm a death. Let them confirm it."
Xue Yao moved instantly.
He dragged a broken beam over himself, scattering rubble, splattering his half-healed wounds with dust and fresh blood. His body lay at an angle that would look convincingly lifeless in the dim light.
He forced his breathing shallow.
Just in time.
Soldiers stormed in.
"Check the bodies!"
"Find the Calamity Remnant's corpse!"
"He couldn't survive that explosion."
Boots crunched closer.
A hand grabbed the rubble above Xue Yao.
Then—
"There. Found him!"
Another soldier leaned down.
"Face matches. The chest wound… yeah. He's dead."
A pause.
"Take the report. Elders want the body left untouched."
"Yes, sir."
They moved on.
Their footsteps faded.
Silence returned.
Xue Yao slowly rolled out from the rubble.
Dust drifted from his hair like falling ash.
Abyss chuckled darkly:
"Your acting is impressive."
He brushed blood from his jaw.
"Death teaches you how to imitate it."
He scanned the hall again.
Only one faint heartbeat remained.
Someone… still alive.
Xue Yao walked toward the debris near the collapsed stairs. A young man lay pinned beneath a fallen beam, chest crushed but eyes half-open.
One of the auction's privileged heirs.
When he saw Xue Yao approaching, horror twisted his face.
"You— you were dead—!"
Xue Yao knelt beside him.
"No," he said quietly. "I was… interrupted."
The heir's voice cracked.
"Help me— release me— I can pay— anything—"
Xue Yao's expression remained empty.
"You can pay," he murmured.
"Just not in the way you think."
Black flame curled across his fingertips.
The heir's eyes widened.
"No— wait— WAIT—!"
Xue Yao's palm touched his chest.
Black fire bloomed.
The remnant shrieked as it was torn free, devoured entirely. The man's body went still.
Xue Yao exhaled slowly, feeling the power trickle into him like warm oil.
"…One more step."
Abyss coiled contentedly inside him:
"And many more to come."
Xue Yao turned away from the hall.
The night outside was cold and quiet.
Stars glimmered faintly above the ruins.
Smoke drifted through the alleyways like ghosts.
He stepped into the darkness.
His wounds ached.
His strength was nothing yet.
His enemies believed him dead.
His path was narrow.
But his hunger was boundless.
He looked back once.
The auction hall crackled in the cold wind, shadows flickering against broken walls.
"They think tonight was my ending."
He raised his hand.
Black flame curled around his fingers like a silent promise.
"…It will be theirs."
And he vanished into the night.