The blood had long dried on his face, but the heat of it still lingered in his veins.
The demon prince's essence was powerful—but far from perfect. Rotten bloodline, scattered will, a dying body. The devouring had not lifted him as much as it had corrupted him. His veins had pulsed with chaotic energy, like oil poured into a fire, threatening to consume him from the inside out.
He had screamed in silence beneath the stars that night.
But he had not fallen.
Instead, he endured.
For the next thirty-one days, he vanished from the world, hidden deep in a cave carved into the side of a blackstone cliff overlooking the cursed forest. There, beneath the weight of trembling stone, he fought not enemies, but himself.
The stolen power thrashed inside him. Inferior fragments of a noble bloodline fought for dominance, screaming in rejection of his own. His meridians cracked, his core throbbed like a heart dragged through molten iron. Darkness leaked from his pores at night, and his eyes glowed like coals as he bit down on the madness inching through his soul.
But each time the chaos surged, he tamed it. Slowly. Painfully.
He breathed through shattered lungs and held his mind still.
He made the demon's power his own.
One month later, as dawn broke across the shattered peaks, he stepped out of the cave—not as a vessel of instability, but a cultivator of terrifying calm.
"First Claw, Third Realm," he murmured. "That's all? Hmph... even rotten meat has limits."
He clenched his fists.
The foundation was steady now. Not pure—but stable. Hardened. Hungry.
The Forest of Sighing Souls sprawled before him—an ancient region layered in poisonous mist and buried qi. Every tree root, every stone, every whisper of wind here carried fragments of lost cultivators and wild beasts who'd died with grudges in their bones. Beasts born in such soil were not ordinary—they carried soul fragments, trace cultivation, even inherited instinct.
Perfect prey.
But he wouldn't make the same mistake again.
He no longer sought flesh. No longer wanted their corrupted blood.
"Only the essence," he whispered. "Only what sharpens me."
The first hunt began under a blood-red moon.
A howl split the mist.
He moved without sound, his dark robe hugging his tall frame like a shadow given form. He wore no armor. He needed none. His killing intent had been honed in the fire of devouring.
A rustle.
He paused atop a gnarled branch and stared below.
A Stonehide Hornbeast lumbered through the undergrowth. First Claw, Fifth Realm by the pressure of its qi. A dull brute with armor-thick skin and stubby tusks caked in dried gore. Its bloodline was weak—too much earth, too little refinement. But its qi and soul pulse throbbed like a drumbeat.
Enough to feed him.
He dropped.
Before the beast even turned its horned head, his hand struck its back.
Dark energy coiled from his palm, not like fire or lightning, but like a hole in reality itself. The Devouring Dragon Art activated.
The beast shrieked—but not in pain. Its body remained whole. Its skin unbroken. Yet its eyes rolled white as its qi and soul were ripped from its core and pulled into his open hand.
Its body slumped forward with a dull thud—alive for only a heartbeat longer than its soul.
He stood over the corpse and exhaled.
"Still crude," he muttered. "But it will do."
His core pulsed once—steady, heavier than before.
The hunts continued.
Days passed in a blur of fog and death.
He learned the rhythm of the forest, the way the beasts moved—alone or in packs. He ambushed a Nightstalker Lynx by baiting it with a false heartbeat, then crushed it mid-pounce and drained its essence while it thrashed silently.
He avoided those with mixed bloodlines.
"Beast kings that slept with wolves, or pigs who think themselves dragons… Filth."
Each beast he devoured brought him closer to the edge of breakthrough. He felt it in the way the world slowed around him, how his breath synced with the pull of the forest's qi, how even the fog seemed to move around him rather than touch him.
He did not just consume.
He refined.
He took in their battle instincts, their territorial pressure, their compressed essence—and spun it into a tighter storm within his core. No corruption. No poison.
Only purity by exclusion.
He avoided blood like plague. Every soul stripped clean of body, every trace of beastly lineage denied entry. The Devouring Dragon Art howled with hunger but obeyed.
By the third week, his power had grown sharp.
He stood before a Scarlet Ironback Ape, Second Claw Realm, in the remains of an ancient grove. The ape roared, shattering stone with a swing of its glowing fists.
He didn't blink.
He raised his hand—and the ape vanished.
No flash. No explosion.
Just silence, and a burst of soul mist being pulled into his mouth as he exhaled dark qi from his nose like smoke.
His eyes glowed brighter.
First Claw, Seventh Realm.
He trained even as he hunted. Every fight refined his movements, every essence absorbed tightened the cyclone within. He moved like a predator that had always existed in the forest. No scent. No trace. No hesitation.
Two more weeks passed.
The air began to resist him. The pressure of the Second Claw Realm now lay just beyond his grasp—so close he could taste it in the way lightning danced in his breath.
Then it happened.
He stood on a jagged spire overlooking a pool of black water, surrounded by the corpses of a Howling Fang Pack—six beasts drained of soul and essence, their bodies left intact in ritual silence.
His heart beat once.
A crack echoed through his core.
First Claw, Ninth Realm.
The edge of breakthrough.
He opened his hand and watched as a flicker of crimson and black danced in his palm, a tiny spiral of energy so condensed it hummed with potential.
Then…
Rustling.
Not wind.
Movement.
His eyes narrowed.
From the bushes ahead, a figure stepped out—not with caution, but with the confidence of something that did not fear predators.
The mist parted.
A lion.
He didn't need to see details.
He felt it.
A soul lion.