The Imperial Heavens did not welcome him with thunder. They welcomed him with a suffocating stillness.
In the Domain 11, above the Sea of Buried Stars, the floating continent of the Ancient Xie Clan was usually bathed in the eternal golden glow of nine artificial suns. For a million years, this light had never dimmed. It was the symbol of the Xie Clan's dominance—a declaration that their will superseded the natural cycle of day and night.
But today, the nine suns flickered.
A terrified hush swept through the endless pavilions, jade towers, and spirit beast gardens. Millions of servants, disciples, and elders looked up, their faces pale.
The sky was not turning dark; it was turning void. The light wasn't being blocked by clouds; it was being eaten.
At the center of the continent, inside the Palace of Origin, the atmosphere was heavy enough to crush a mortal into meat paste.
"Push! The Dao Pattern is resisting!"
The voice of the Midwife Elder, a cultivator at the peak of the Spirit Ocean Realm, trembled with panic. Her hands, coated in Life-fluid, were glowing with green Qi, trying to guide a life into the world. But the womb she was attending to felt less like flesh and more like a sealing array.
On the bed of Ten-Thousand-Year Frost Jade, a woman lay gasping. Lady Yun, the wife of the Clan Patriarch, was pale, her cultivation base of the Void Treading Realm drained nearly to dry dregs.
"My child..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "Why... is he not moving?"
Standing by the window, with his back to the bed, was a man wearing robes embroidered with a constellation map. Xie Canghe, the Patriarch of the Ancient Xie Clan. His presence was like a mountain—immovable, cold, and terrifying.
He stared at the darkening sky outside. The spiritual energy of the entire continent was swirling into a vortex, funneling directly into this room.
"It is a Tribulation," Xie Canghe said, his voice devoid of emotion. "The Heavens do not want this child born."
"Save him!" Lady Yun screamed, clutching the sheets.
Xie Canghe turned. His eyes were not filled with a father's worry, but a ruler's calculation. He raised a hand. A terrifying pressure, that of a Supreme King, erupted.
"If the Heavens block the path, I will cut the path. Open!"
He pointed a finger. A beam of concentrated sword-light, refined from the essence of a dying star, shot into Lady Yun's abdomen—not to harm, but to sever the invisible "Karmic Umbilical Cord" that was strangling the infant.
CRACK.
A sound like shattering glass echoed through the soul of everyone in the palace. The pressure vanished. The darkening sky outside suddenly exploded with light as the nine suns roared back to life.
And then, silence.
There was no cry.
Newborns of the Ancient Clans were known to cry with the sound of dragons or tigers, shaking the room with their innate Qi. But this child was silent.
The Midwife Elder held the infant up, her hands shaking. "Patriarch... it is a boy. But..."
Xie Canghe stepped forward, his boots clicking on the floor tiles made of dragon bone. He looked down at his son.
The infant was small, covered in a faint, greyish fluid. But what froze the Patriarch's blood were the eyes.
The baby was not crying. The baby was looking at him. Those eyes were pitch black, possessing a depth that shouldn't belong to a living creature, let alone a newborn. There was no confusion in them. No fear. Only a cold, ancient appraisal.
It was the look of a predator evaluating a threat.
So... I made it.
Inside the infant's body, the soul of the transmigrator—now Xie Feng—took a shallow breath. The air tasted sweet, saturated with high-grade spiritual energy. It was disgusting. It tasted like a cage.
This body is weak, Xie Feng analyzed, ignoring the giant man looming over him. Meridians are narrow. Bones are soft. But the vessel...
He focused inward. Deep in his Dantian (energy center), he felt it. A hunger. A terrifying emptiness that swirled slowly, like a drain in the middle of an ocean.
The Devouring Void Physique.
In his past ten lives, he had possessed Saint Bodies, Divine Bodies, and even a True Dragon Body. But he had never seen this. This was a physique that was naturally rejected by the Heavenly Dao because it didn't generate energy; it only consumed.
Good, Xie Feng thought. A physique that steals. Fits my plan perfectly.
Suddenly, a cold hand gripped his ankle. He was hoisted into the air.
"Check the aptitude," Xie Canghe ordered.
The Midwife Elder hurriedly brought over a Measuring Stone, a pillar of translucent crystal filled with chaotic mist. "Young Master, please... forgive this servant." She pressed the crystal against Xie Feng's forehead.
This was the first hurdle. In the Ancient Clans, a baby was an investment. High aptitude meant resources, protection, and political power. Low aptitude meant being sent to a branch family to manage a farm, or worse, being "recycled" into a blood sacrifice for a more talented sibling.
Xie Feng narrowed his eyes. If I show too much talent, the Heavens will notice me immediately. The 'Omen' outside was already too loud. I need to be invisible.
He mentally connected to the Nameless Tablet floating in his soul. Suppress, he commanded.
The Tablet hummed. It acted like a black hole, sucking in the natural "Dao Rhyme" radiating from Xie Feng's soul.
The Measuring Stone flickered. Red... Orange... Yellow... It stopped at Green. (Rank: Mortal, Earth, Sky, Saint, Divine. Green was merely "Earth" rank. Mediocre. Common.)
The room went deadly silent.
The Midwife Elder paled. She looked at the Patriarch in terror. "P-Patriarch... The aptitude is... Earth Rank. Low grade."
An Earth Rank heir for an Ancient Clan? It was a joke. It was a humiliation.
Lady Yun sobbed on the bed. "It doesn't matter! He is alive! Canghe, give him to me!"
Xie Canghe did not move. He stared at the child, and for a second, Xie Feng saw the killing intent flash in his father's eyes. To a man like this, a trash son was a stain on his reputation.
Go ahead, Xie Feng thought, staring back. Try it. If you kill me now, the Karmic backlash of killing your own kin during a solar anomaly will sever your path to the Emperor Realm. You know the math, old man.
Xie Canghe's eyes twitched. He was a calculator, and the equation didn't balance.
"The anomaly outside... was great thunder but small rain," Xie Canghe muttered, disappointment dripping from his voice. "A false omen. He used all his fortune just to be born."
He tossed the infant onto the bed beside Lady Yun, like discarding a tool that didn't fit the hand.
"His name will be Feng (Wind)," Xie Canghe said, turning away. "Because he is as empty as the wind. No substance."
"Patriarch," a shadowy figure appeared in the corner of the room—the Shadow Guard. "The Elders are waiting outside. They want to know the Young Master's talent grade. What should we announce?"
Xie Canghe stopped at the door. "Tell them it is Saint Rank."
Lady Yun froze. Even Xie Feng was slightly surprised.
"If I announce he is trash," Xie Canghe said coldly, "The True Dragon Nest will laugh at us, and the branch families will riot. For the next ten years, he is a 'Peerless Genius' in seclusion. Feed him resources. If he hasn't improved by age ten..."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. If he hasn't improved, he will die "tragically" in cultivation deviation, and we will try for another heir.
The door slammed shut.
Xie Feng lay in his mother's arms. She was weeping, kissing his forehead, promising to protect him. He felt nothing for her warmth. He was calculating.
Ten years, he thought. He gave me a ten-year grace period of unlimited resources to maintain a lie.
A tiny, toothless grin spread across the infant's face.
Ten years of free resources without the expectation of performance? Father, you have just handed the thief the keys to the vault.
He closed his eyes. The Chaos Heart Sutra, a technique that required massive amounts of energy to even start, began to rotate slowly in his mind.
Sleep now, he told himself. Tomorrow, I begin eating this clan alive.