The scent of burning sandalwood and metallic blood was the first thing Shen Yuan felt. It was a repulsive, weak sensation.
"Wake up, you useless trash! Do you want to die here while the heavens fall?!"
A heavy, leather-booted kick landed squarely in his ribs. A jolt of agonizing pain radiated through a body that felt as fragile as dry glass. Shen Yuan's eyes snapped open, but they didn't reflect the opulent, star-chilled halls of his Eternal Sunset Sect.
Instead, he saw a crumbling courtyard, a sky dyed a visceral blood-red, and the terrified, tear-streaked face of a young man in tattered silks.
'Ye Fan... the young master of the declining Ye Clan?' Shen Yuan's mind flickered with foreign, pathetic memories. 'And I am... Han? A mere house servant? A worm meant to be stepped on?'
A cold, razor-sharp smile touched his soot-covered lips. He remembered it all. The cold steel of the Void Ice blade piercing his heart. The fragrance of the woman he loved—Ling Xian—as she whispered her betrayal while he was at the precipice of Godhood.
She had stolen his scriptures. She had shattered his physical form. But she had forgotten one thing: Shen Yuan was not a man who studied the Forbidden Arts. He was the Forbidden Art.
"The Ye Clan is burning," Shen Yuan whispered. His voice was raspy, broken, yet it carried a weight that made the young master flinch as if struck.
"Wh-what are you mumbling about?!" Ye Fan stammered, his legs shaking as the screams of dying guards echoed nearby. "The Zhou and Lin families have breached the inner sanctum! We have to run, Han! If they catch us, they'll flay us alive!"
Shen Yuan slowly pushed himself up. His new body was wretched. The meridians were clogged with impurities, and there wasn't a single drop of Qi in his dantian. To any cultivator, he was less than a cripple.
But Shen Yuan didn't need Qi. Not yet.
He looked at his trembling hands, then at the shadow stretching behind him. In his past life, he had mastered the [Nine Gates of the Void]. The first gate—the Gate of Whispers—didn't require a high cultivation base. It required a soul forged in malice.
"Run?" Shen Yuan turned his gaze toward the courtyard entrance, where three armored soldiers of the Zhou family emerged, their blades dripping with the blood of Ye Clan servants. "Why run when the tribute has delivered itself to my door?"
"There they are! The Young Master and a dying rat!" one of the soldiers laughed, raising a heavy broadsword.
Ye Fan shrieked and fell to his knees, covering his head.
Shen Yuan stood his ground. He didn't take a combat stance. He simply closed his eyes and whispered a chant that had been forgotten for ten thousand years.
"Shadows of the past, fuel the hunger of the present. Open... the First Gate."
The temperature in the courtyard plummeted. The flames consuming the nearby buildings didn't go out, but their light turned a sickly, bruised purple. The shadow beneath Shen Yuan's feet suddenly decoupled from the ground, rising like a sentient liquid.
"What is this...?" The leading soldier hesitated, his bravado replaced by an instinctive, primal fear.
Shen Yuan didn't answer. He flicked his wrist.
The shadow lunged. It wasn't a physical strike, but a spectral blur that passed through the soldier's chest. The man didn't scream. He simply froze. His skin turned grey, and his eyes rolled back as the very essence of his soul was dragged into the Void.
Thud.
The armored body hit the floor like a sack of stones.
Shen Yuan felt a tiny, warm spark ignite in his cold chest. Soul Essence. It was crude, but it was enough to start the engine of his vengeance.
He looked at the remaining two soldiers, who were now stumbling back in horror.
"The Ye Clan may be in ruins," Shen Yuan said, his voice echoing with a spectral resonance. "But this ground now belongs to me. And the price of entry... is your life."
"H-Han?" Ye Fan looked up, his face pale. "What have you done?"
Shen Yuan didn't look back. He was staring at the blood-red moon, his mind already calculating the path to the Imperial Capital where she sat on a throne built from his bones.
"I am merely collecting a debt, Young Master," Shen Yuan replied. "And I intend to collect it with interest."