The night swallowed him the moment he stepped outside.
Cold wind washed across Xue Yao's blood-soaked robes, making them cling to his skin. The world beyond the auction hall was eerily quiet — as if the city itself had sensed something unnatural walking its streets.
Lanterns flickered weakly.
Shadows stretched unnaturally long.
Every alley felt like the entrance to something deeper than darkness.
Xue Yao exhaled.
His breath curled white in the night.
The Abyss inside him stirred.
"Your first hunt begins," Abyss whispered.
Xue Yao's jaw tightened.
"My priority is to leave this district. If anyone senses I'm alive—"
"Then they will die," Abyss said simply.
He ignored that.
No.
Not yet.
He needed to devour, yes.
But he needed information more.
Who planned his death?
Who benefitted from his destruction?
Who surrounded the auction hall?
The answers were out there — and some might be dying right this moment.
Xue Yao closed his eyes.
And the world changed.
He felt it — a faint tug, like invisible threads pulling at his senses.
Dying breaths.
Fading remnants.
Last thoughts clinging to bodies like dew.
He could feel them.
A soldier bleeding in the alley.
A merchant gasping behind a broken cart.
A wounded assassin dragging himself along a rooftop.
Life… dissolving.
Death… spreading.
And every death was a scent.
"Eat them," Abyss murmured.
"Or others will."
Xue Yao's eyes snapped open.
He moved.
The alley beside the auction hall was narrow, littered with broken crates and ash. A soldier lay slumped against the wall, his chest rising weakly. Blood seeped through his armor in slow, rhythmic pulses.
He wasn't long for this world.
Xue Yao crouched in front of him.
The soldier's eyes fluttered open. Pain glazed his expression.
"You…" he breathed. "A survivor…? Did… did anyone else… make it—"
Xue Yao placed two fingers on the man's forehead.
Black flame flickered faintly.
"No."
The flame spread gently, like a shadowed hand caressing the dying man. The soldier shuddered, but he was too weak to fight, too close to the edge.
His voice thinned into a whisper.
"…please…"
Xue Yao offered no answer.
The remnant slipped from the soldier's body like mist and dissolved into his palm.
A cold rush.
A faint strengthening.
A tiny shard of the man's life — now his.
He stood.
"Next."
The trail led him deeper into the city.
Through backstreets.
Past flickering lanterns.
Across rooftops where he moved like a shadow with purpose.
Everywhere he sensed the dying, he followed.
A thief bleeding out with a broken leg.
A guard crushed by falling debris.
A merchant whose heart had ruptured in fear.
He consumed them all.
Each remnant gave a different flavor:
Courage.
Cowardice.
Regret.
Hatred.
Fear.
Fragments of lives whispered through him, forming tiny echoes that brushed the edge of his consciousness.
Abyss hummed approvingly.
"You grow quickly. But these are crumbs. What you need is meat."
Xue Yao didn't respond.
He already felt it too.
These weak remnants filled his circuits but barely sharpened his strength.
He needed a cultivator.
Someone with a foundation.
Someone whose remnant had weight.
The city answered his hunger.
Far away — beyond the walls of the wealthy district — Xue Yao sensed something larger. Stronger. Brighter.
A remnant was struggling.
Fighting.
Refusing to die.
A cultivator.
Xue Yao's heartbeat steadied.
He headed toward it instantly.
He found the man collapsed in a narrow street, surrounded by the corpses of three assassins.
The cultivator was middle-aged, blood cascading from a deep wound across his abdomen. His sword lay beside him, cracked. The remnants of a defensive talisman flickered faintly at his hip.
He had been strong — probably at the 3rd or 4th realm of normal cultivation.
But he was dying.
Terribly fast.
His remnant pulsed violently, like a spirit trying to tear itself free of a collapsing cage.
Xue Yao approached.
The man gasped, raising a shaking hand.
"S-Stay back… thief… scavenger… I will kill—cough!"
He spat blood.
Xue Yao crouched.
"You won't kill anyone."
"You…" The man's eyes widened. "I… I saw you… at the auction… the boy they—"
Xue Yao pressed his palm lightly over the man's heart.
"Good. Then remember me."
Black flame ignited.
This remnant didn't die silently.
It roared.
A wave of spiritual pressure slammed into Xue Yao's chest, almost knocking him backward. The man's dying will fought desperately — rage, sorrow, unfinished vows, and decades of cultivation force.
But Abyss surged inside Xue Yao like a black tide.
"Devour."
The remnant cracked apart.
Then it collapsed.
Then it was eaten.
The surge hit him like a storm ripping through bone and blood.
Xue Yao staggered.
His body convulsed.
His vision blurred.
His meridians screamed as a torrent of power forced itself through them.
His heart thundered.
His breath stopped for a moment.
His entire chest felt like it was tearing itself open.
Then—
A click.
A shift deep inside his marrow.
Abyss whispered:
"Second Abyssal Vein… opened."
Xue Yao inhaled sharply, trembling as the rush settled into him.
He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
"…This power… is intoxicating."
"It is destiny," Abyss murmured.
For a moment, he let the power wash through him.
His senses widened.
The world brightened.
He could hear distant footsteps three streets over.
He could smell fear.
He could feel agitation in the spiritual atmosphere of the district.
Something was shifting.
The city knew something unnatural was awake.
Then he heard it.
Voices.
Multiple.
Closing in.
"…search the area!"
"…someone witnessed the explosion!"
"…the Calamity Remnant's body is missing!"
His eyes narrowed.
They were hunting him already.
Faster than expected.
Abyss chuckled.
"Let them come. Every pursuer is a future meal."
Xue Yao turned away from the corpse.
"No."
He stepped into the shadows, cloak brushing the cold wall.
"I need a base first."
"A nest?"
"A place to hide," he corrected.
"A place to plan."
"…and a place to feed."
Abyss laughed softly.
"Then we choose somewhere with dying hearts."
Xue Yao's eyes gleamed.
He already knew where.
Every city had one.
A slum where the forgotten died quietly.
A street where criminals bled for coppers.
An abandoned district.
A cursed foundation.
A secluded graveyard.
A ruined temple.
Somewhere full of remnants.
Somewhere a devourer could grow.
He moved toward the outskirts, steps silent, flame sleeping beneath his skin.
As he faded into the night, the last trace of the cultivator's remnant pulsed inside his chest — adding weight to the hunger that would only grow with every step.
The city had tried to bury Xue Yao.
Now it would feed him.
And when he was ready…
He would return the favor.