"Rain fell in sheets, slicing through the night air. The courtyard of the Azure Flame Sect was silent except for Lin Yuan's ragged breathing".
He knelt in the mud, blood dripping from his lips. His once-bright aura had completely vanished.
"Your spiritual veins… shattered. Your cultivation base… destroyed."
Elder Tian's voice was calm, like announcing the weather.
The disciples laughed.
"Look at him. The prodigy of the sect… now a joke!"
Lin Yuan's hands clenched in the mud. He didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
Three days ago, he had discovered a fragment of black jade in the forbidden ruins. It pulsed with ancient power, a path to greatness.
But Zhao Chen, his senior brother, had ambushed him. Crushed his dantian. Stolen the jade. Left him to die.
And now the sect called him trash.
"From today onward, you are no longer an inner disciple," Elder Tian continued. "You are demoted to the lowest rank—outer servant."
The crowd erupted in mockery.
Lin Yuan lowered his head. Shame. Anger. Despair. They all mixed into a cold, dark fire in his chest.
That night, in the servant quarters, Lin Yuan curled on the cold wooden floor. Rain tapped against the roof. The fragment… was still there.
Cracked, jagged, but alive.
Before he could react, it merged into his chest.
Pain exploded through him. His broken veins burned. Agony. Fire.
Then… reformation. Not healing. Rewriting.
A voice whispered in his mind.
"Heaven Defying Scripture recognized. Mortal body detected. Initiating rebirth."
His bones cracked. Blood surged like lightning through his veins.
Lin Yuan's body trembled. Power flooded him. Raw. Dark. Infinite.
He opened his eyes. The rain felt different now—warm, alive.
"I will not kneel again."
The next morning, Lin Yuan stood in the courtyard. Disciples were whispering, daring not to approach.
Zhao Chen appeared, smirking.
"You're weak. Broken. Don't try to fight back."
Lin Yuan smiled faintly. Blood-red light danced across his palms.
"I'm no longer the Lin Yuan you knew," he said softly.
Before Zhao Chen could react, a wave of crimson energy burst from his body. The ground cracked. Mud flew. Zhao Chen stumbled back, eyes wide in terror.
Fear… tasted sweet.
"Power…" Lin Yuan murmured, "is not given. It's taken."
The sect would never forgive him.
His senior brother would never escape revenge.
Heaven itself would eventually notice his existence.
But none of that mattered.
Lin Yuan stepped into the pouring rain, letting it wash the last traces of his former self away.
He was no longer a prodigy.
He was no longer mortal.
He was a demon in the making.
And the world… would tremble beneath him.