Yunxi Village lay cradled in the unforgiving embrace of the Eternal Peaks, a cluster of ramshackle huts and terraced fields etched into the mountainside like scars from some ancient wound. The air was always crisp, laced with the scent of pine and damp earth, but on mornings like this, it carried the faint metallic tang of ore from the nearby mines. The villagers were hardy folk, mortals untouched by the lofty pursuits of cultivation, content to eke out a living under the shadow of sects that demanded tribute in exchange for "protection." Protection from what? The beasts that prowled the wilds, or the sects themselves? No one dared ask. Life here was a cycle of backbreaking labor—plowing fields that clung precariously to the slopes, mining veins of low-grade spirit ore that barely fetched enough to satisfy the enforcers, and praying that the next tribute collection wouldn't strip them bare.
Li Wei rose with the first hints of dawn, his body a testament to twenty years of relentless toil. Broad-shouldered and sinewy, his hands were callused maps of burns and cuts from the forge where he spent his days hammering iron into tools and weapons that would be carted off to the Iron Fist Sect. His hair, black as raven feathers, was tied back in a simple knot, and his eyes—dark, piercing—held a quiet intensity that belied his unassuming nature. He wasn't a dreamer; the cultivation world was for those born with fortune or folly. He was content with his family, the anchor that kept him grounded in this brutal existence. Every morning, he woke to the same routine: stoke the forge's embers, feel the heat kiss his skin like an old lover, and lose himself in the rhythmic clang of metal on metal. It was meditative, a way to drown out the whispers of resentment that sometimes crept in during quiet moments.
His father, Li Hao, had once touched the edges of that world. A former Qi Condensation cultivator from a minor clan, he'd been crippled in a skirmish with rivals years ago, his dantian shattered by a poison blade that left him limping and bitter. The injury had robbed him of his cultivation base, turning a once-proud warrior into a shadow of himself. Yet, he carried himself with the remnants of pride, teaching Li Wei the basics of martial forms in the yard behind their hut. "Strength isn't in qi alone," he'd say, his voice gravelly from years of shouting over the forge's roar. "It's in enduring what breaks others." Li Hao's stories of the cultivation realms were sparse but vivid—tales of soaring on swords, shattering mountains with a palm strike, and the endless pursuit of immortality. But they always ended with a warning: "The strong eat the weak, son. Stay mortal, stay safe." Li Wei listened, but deep down, he wondered if there was more to life than this endless grind.
Mother, Lan Mei, was the heart of their home. Soft-spoken and gentle, with hair streaked silver prematurely from worry and the harsh mountain winds, she tended the small herb garden and cooked meals that somehow stretched their meager rations into something nourishing. Her hands were rough from weaving baskets and mending clothes, but her touch was always tender—a pat on the cheek for Li Wei, a hug for Mei. She had a way of humming old folk tunes while working, songs about lost loves and eternal springs, that filled the hut with a fragile warmth. "Family is the only immortality we need," she'd say, smiling through the lines etched by hardship. Li Wei adored her quiet strength, the way she could calm his father's tempers or make Mei laugh even on the darkest days.
And then there was Mei, Li Wei's sixteen-year-old sister, a budding flower in the thorns of their life. With her lithe frame, cascading black hair that she often braided with wildflowers, and eyes that sparkled with mischief, she was the village's unspoken beauty. She helped with chores—fetching water from the stream, tending the goats, or assisting Mother in the garden—but her spirit was wilder, dreaming aloud of the grand cities beyond the peaks, where cultivators walked like gods among mortals. "One day, brother, we'll see the floating palaces and the spirit beasts tamed like pets," she'd say, her voice bubbling with excitement. Li Wei would roll his eyes, but secretly, he cherished those moments. Mei was his light, the one who could tease him out of his brooding moods. "You're too serious," she'd poke, flicking his nose. "Smile more, or the girls will think you're a grumpy old bear."
That morning, Li Wei was at the forge early, the hammer ringing against the anvil in rhythmic cadence. The plowshare he shaped was for Farmer Chen, who promised a sack of rice in return—a luxury in these lean times. Sweat beaded on his brow, mixing with soot, as the fire's heat baked his skin to a flush. The village stirred around him: children chasing chickens, elders gossiping by the well, the distant low of cattle. Mei brought him a bamboo cup of herbal tea, her laughter light as she dodged a playful swipe of his sooty hand. "You're going to melt yourself one day, big brother. At least the girls like watching you work—sweaty and strong."
He chuckled, wiping his face with a rag, leaving black streaks. "And what about you? Half the boys in the village follow you like lost puppies. Father will have to chase them off with his spear soon."
She blushed, swatting his shoulder lightly. "They're idiots. Besides, Father says no one touches me until I'm ready to crush their balls myself." Her grin was infectious, and for a moment, the world felt right—simple, enduring.
They shared that grin, the kind born of shared hardships and unbreakable bonds. Life wasn't easy in Yunxi. The Iron Fist Sect's enforcers came quarterly, demanding grains, ores, and sometimes young villagers for "trials" that few returned from. Whispers spoke of those taken being used as furnace fodder or worse, but no one rebelled. What could mortals do against immortals? Li Wei had felt Zhang Kai's boot more than once as a child—the outer disciple's "lessons" in humility, pissing on him for sport or whipping him for perceived slights. But they survived. They always had.
Until they didn't.
The first sign was a low hum, like distant thunder, vibrating through the ground and up Li Wei's hammer arm. He paused mid-swing, the tool hovering as he scanned the horizon. The sky darkened unnaturally, clouds boiling like ink in water, swirling into a vortex that blotted the rising sun. Villagers froze, murmurs turning to cries as the hum grew to a roar. Then, the swords came—dozens of them, streaking down like black meteors from the peaks, carrying figures in flowing robes emblazoned with the Iron Fist's emblem: a clenched gauntlet dripping crimson qi.
Panic erupted like a dam burst. Villagers spilled from huts, grabbing pitchforks, sickles, anything at hand. Li Wei dropped the hammer and bolted toward home, heart slamming against his ribs like a caged beast. "Mei! Father! Mother!"
The sect disciples hit the ground running, their auras flaring in waves that distorted the air—Qi Condensation novices with smug, predatory grins, Foundation Establishment enforcers radiating heat that singed nearby grass. At their head was Elder Huo, a Golden Core powerhouse whose mere presence made the earth tremble beneath his feet. His skin gleamed like burnished bronze, eyes glowing with infernal qi that seemed to suck in light. "Harvest them all," he bellowed, his voice echoing off the peaks like a avalanche. "The sect's Blood Cauldron requires fresh tribute for the upcoming ritual. No survivors—mortals breed too fast, like vermin. Take the young for essence, the women for pleasure and yin harvest, the men for meridian fuel."
What followed wasn't a battle; it was extermination, a symphony of screams and slaughter that would haunt Li Wei's every breath.
He reached the village square in time to see Zhang Kai, that leering outer disciple who'd made his childhood a living hell, with Mei pinned against the stone well. Zhang had visited Yunxi before for "inspections," demanding extras: rice wine, coins, or just a whipping boy to vent on. Li Wei had been his favorite—kicked, pissed on, humiliated for sport. Now, Zhang had Mei by the throat, one hand choking her while the other tore her simple robe open from neck to navel. Her small, firm breasts heaved in terror, nipples pebbling in the sudden chill, skin goosefleshed. "Look what we have here," Zhang sneered, his qi-infused fingers bruising her pale flesh as he mauled her, pinching and twisting. "The piss-boy's little sister. I've jerked off thinking about this tight cunt for years. Time to claim my due."
Mei clawed at his arm, nails drawing thin lines of blood, her face red from lack of air. "Bastard! Get off me—you'll pay for this!"
He backhanded her hard, the crack echoing, splitting her lip and sending blood trickling down her chin in a crimson rivulet. Three other disciples circled, laughing crudely, one grabbing her flailing arms and pinning them behind her back while another held her kicking legs. Zhang forced those legs apart with his knee, her skirt hiked up to expose her thighs and the dark curls of her pubic hair. She screamed, a high, piercing wail that cut through the chaos, but it only fueled his lust. He freed his cock from his robes—thick, veined with glowing qi that pulsed like a living thing—and rammed into her without mercy or preparation. The force tore something inside her; blood slicked his thrusts, mixing with her unwilling wetness. "Fuck, so tight—like popping a cherry," he grunted, pounding relentlessly, her body jerking with each brutal invasion. Mei's cries turned raw, animalistic, her eyes wide with shock, pain, and betrayal as tears streamed down her face.
Li Wei's mother, Lan Mei, charged from the hut with a kitchen knife clutched in trembling hands. "Leave my daughter alone! Monsters!"
Mu Feng intercepted her—a scarred, hulking Foundation Establishment brute with a twisted grin that revealed yellowed teeth. He snatched the knife from her grasp, snapping her wrist like dry kindling with a sickening crunch. She cried out, but he wasn't done. With a casual swipe of his claw technique, he carved her belly open from sternum to pubic bone, the fabric and flesh parting in a spray of blood. Guts spilled in a steaming rush, the metallic stench hitting Li Wei like a physical blow, making his stomach lurch. Lan Mei collapsed to her knees, gasping, her hands desperately trying to hold her intestines in place as they looped out like pale, slick ropes. Blood pooled beneath her, soaking the dirt.
But Mu Feng hoisted her up by the hair, her feet dangling helplessly off the ground. "Not done yet, you filthy mortal bitch. Let's see how you feel inside." He unzipped his robes, his erection springing free—hard, veined, and dripping with pre-cum—and thrust into the gaping abdominal wound, fucking the eviscerated mess while her blood lubed his savage motions. "Warm as a fresh kill, and tighter than your daughter's hole," he moaned, qi pulsing through his body to heighten the sensation and prolong her agony. Lan Mei's eyes bulged in horror, her mouth working silently as she gurgled blood, her body convulsing around the intrusion. He rutted like an animal, grunting with each thrust, until he climaxed, seed mixing with her viscera in a grotesque flood that spilled out in white-streaked red.
Li Hao roared—a sound Li Wei had never heard from his father, primal and desperate—and grabbed his old rusted spear from the hut's wall. Despite his limp, he moved like a ghost of his former cultivator self, skewering two Qi Condensation novices through the throat before they could react, their blood spraying in arcs. But Elder Huo intervened with a casual wave of his hand. A blast of scorching qi erupted, vaporizing Li Hao's legs at the thighs in an instant explosion of charred flesh and bone. He fell, screaming through gritted teeth, but kept crawling forward, dragging his bloody stumps through the dirt and gore, leaving trails like snail slime.
Huo pinned him down with a booted foot on his chest, the pressure cracking ribs. "You dare raise a hand against the Iron Fist?" the elder intoned, his voice a silken blade laced with mockery. Then he began the flaying—a forbidden art that peeled skin in deliberate, agonizing strips, the flesh curling away like parchment in flame while qi seared the exposed muscles and nerves. Li Hao's screams were inhuman, echoing across the village as Huo twisted the revealed meridians one by one, extracting them like glowing threads and weaving them into grotesque talismans that hung from his belt. "Let this be a lesson in hierarchy," Huo said calmly, forcing the surviving villagers—herded like cattle—to watch. The air filled with the sizzle of burning flesh and the wet rip of skin.
The horrors multiplied across the square. Children, innocent and wide-eyed, were impaled on sharpened stakes lining the paths, their tiny bodies twitching in death throes as disciples harvested "pure essence" from gouged eyes and slit throats, collecting the droplets in jade vials for alchemical brews. A pregnant woman from the neighboring hut begged on her knees for mercy; a disciple laughed, ripping her abdomen open with bare hands enhanced by qi, yanking the fetus free—a tiny, undeveloped thing—and crushing it underfoot for sport, the squelch audible even over the screams. The mother bled out, clutching the ruins of her belly, whispering prayers to deaf gods.
Lian Hua, a seductive and cruel figure from the allied Scarlet Lotus Sect, strolled through the carnage naked, her voluptuous body glowing with absorbed yin qi. Tattoos of lotuses pulsed on her skin as she fingered herself languidly, siphoning life-force from the dying villagers with each gasp and moan. She paused by a convulsing elder, straddling his face as he expired, grinding against his final breaths to fuel her cultivation. "Sweet despair," she purred, her juices dripping down her thighs as she climaxed, waves of stolen qi rippling through her.
Li Wei hid beneath the granary's floorboards, buried in shadows and the stench of stored grains, his body trembling uncontrollably. Urine soaked his pants in a hot, shameful rush, and he bit into his own arm to stifle sobs, tasting blood and salt. Through a narrow crack in the wood, he watched it all unfold—Zhang snapping Mei's neck mid-climax with a casual twist, her body going limp as he tossed her aside like discarded trash; Mu Feng kicking his mother's corpse into a heap of other bodies; Huo hanging his father's extracted meridians like festive banners from the village spirit tree, the glowing threads pulsing with residual agony.
The air reeked of semen, blood, voided bowels, and charred flesh as huts were torched one by one, flames leaping high to devour thatched roofs. Screams faded to whimpers, then silence, broken only by the crackling fires and the distant howls of spirit beasts drawn to the feast.
By midday, the Iron Fist Sect ascended on their flying swords, laden with harvested souls, essences, and talismans, joking among themselves about quotas met and the "fun" had. "That one screamed like a virgin," one disciple laughed, while another boasted of the yin he'd drained.
Li Wei emerged into the desolation, vomiting bile onto the blood-soaked earth. He staggered through the ruins, the heat from dying fires scorching his face. He kissed his mother's cold, mutilated cheek, the wound still oozing a sluggish trickle of blood. Closed Mei's glassy, staring eyes, her thighs crusted with Zhang's dried semen, her neck bruised purple. Held his father's flayed face to his chest, the skinless muscles frozen in a rictus of pain, until the blood soaked through his tunic to his skin, marking him forever.
In his father's clenched, rigid fist was the jade slip—a family heirloom, smuggled from a forbidden ruin years ago, containing fragments of the Void Devouring Scripture. It was cracked, ancient, and pulsing faintly with forbidden qi.
Li Wei pressed it to his forehead, collapsing to his knees amid the corpses. Pain lanced through him like lightning, as the slip's energy seeped into his untapped dantian, awakening it with a violent surge. Black veins spiderwebbed across his arms and chest—the Abyss Core stirring to life, a hungry maw in his soul that whispered of power through consumption.
The void inside him opened its jaws and smiled, promising vengeance at the cost of everything.
"I will," Li Wei vowed to the ghosts swirling in the smoke, his voice cracking with raw grief and budding rage. "I'll devour their qi, their memories, their everything. I'll climb until I drag the heavens down with me, until every last one pays in blood and screams."
The path of vengeance opened—not as salvation, but as a descent into the abyss, where the line between victim and monster would blur beyond recognition.