The twilight city of Lianhua was a sprawling web of stone streets and flickering lanterns, nestled between rolling hills and ancient forests.
Yi Zhen moved with purpose, his satchel heavy with rare minerals mined from the fractured Dead Spine Mountains.
The market was alive with merchants and cultivators, their voices mixing into a chaotic symphony of commerce and ambition.
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With a calm yet commanding presence, Yi Zhen approached the Grand Exchange Hall — a vast structure of jade and gold, where only the most valuable goods changed hands.
Inside, the air buzzed with the weight of wealth and power.
He laid the minerals before the brokers, watching their eyes widen with greed and awe.
After a tense negotiation, the coins poured in — more money than Yi Zhen had ever seen.
The weight of gold in his hands was not just currency, but a promise of future power.
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But wealth alone was not enough.
Yi Zhen's gaze soon fixed on the towering silhouette of the Celestial Harmony Sect, a renowned cultivation sect just beyond the city.
Their domain was famed not only for martial prowess but for intricate ritual arts—arts Yi Zhen had never truly witnessed.
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Inside the sect's hall, Yi Zhen's eyes drank in the grandeur: towering statues of Daoist immortals, ancient talismans glowing with latent power, and air thick with incense and chanting.
For the first time, Yi Zhen was about to experience the true nature of ritual.
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The ritual chamber was circular, etched with celestial diagrams and runes that pulsed softly under the flickering torchlight.
Yi Zhen positioned himself at the center.
His voice, cold and deliberate, began the ancient incantation, a weave of syllables heavy with meaning.
> "From the depth of souls, I call upon the Inverse Dao."
The cultivators of the sect watched, mesmerized and horrified.
Yi Zhen extended his hands, palms open.
A chilling black light radiated outward, sweeping over every cultivator in the hall.
Their eyes glazed, souls slipping free from their bodies like threads of smoke, pulled into Yi Zhen's grasp.
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The soul ritual was a dark symphony of pain and power.
Each soul was a note; their essence a fragile thread to be severed and rewoven.
Yi Zhen's body began to glow with a sinister light as he absorbed their spiritual energies, feeding his Inverse Dao cultivation.
The ritual was complex—a dance of sacrifice and rebirth.
Bound by cosmic laws, souls sacrificed were exchanged for a violent yet controlled upheaval inside the cultivator's own meridians and spiritual core.
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As the ritual climaxed, Yi Zhen's veins shimmered with a black fire—the Inverse Dao evolving beyond mortal comprehension.
Power flooded through him, but it came at a cost: the dark hunger of the souls consumed lingered like a curse, a whisper of torment in his mind.
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When the last syllable was uttered, the cultivators of the sect lay unconscious or worse, their life essence drained.
Yi Zhen's eyes shone with cold triumph.
He had ascended beyond his previous limits.
The Inverse Dao was no longer merely a path of destruction—it was a covenant with darkness, sacrifice, and terrifying rebirth.
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Author's Note – Terry
This ritual marks a turning point—not just in Yi Zhen's cultivation, but in the very rules of power.
Sacrificing souls to ascend adds a terrifying new dimension: strength at the price of morality, sanity, and perhaps even the soul itself.
What price will Yi Zhen pay next? And how far will the Inverse Dao take him?
Darkness beckons.