The path ahead was no longer void.
It pulsed.
Every stone he stepped on was warm. Every breath tasted of copper and rot. The very air buzzed, as though saturated with whispers that had nowhere left to go.
Zhu Yan's spine stiffened as the third gate came into view.
It wasn't carved. It wasn't forged.
It was grown.
Flesh and bone, twisted into the shape of a door, beating faintly with a pulse of its own. Veins ran along its surface like thorned vines, and a massive fang served as the handle.
He stared at it, unsure whether to knock or bleed.
> "You have consumed pain," a voice rasped behind the flesh. "Now… can you endure hunger?"
The door peeled open.
Inside: blackness. Absolute and alive.
Zhu Yan stepped through.
The gate closed behind him with a wet sound.
---
There was no floor now. No ceiling. Just flesh. Layers and layers of it—stretching like a serpent's belly, pulsing, tightening.
Every step Zhu Yan took, the walls trembled.
He wasn't in a chamber.
He was in a maw.
And it wanted to devour him.
> "The Third Gate tests the void within," came the voice again, everywhere and nowhere.
"Feed it… or be consumed by it."
Zhu Yan narrowed his eyes. "Feed it what?"
The answer came not in words—but in hunger.
His body screamed. Not from exhaustion, but from need. His Wrathfire veins sizzled, desperately clawing at the air for something—anything—to burn. His Qi withered. His blood slowed.
Even his soul began to flicker.
> It wants my essence, he realized.
And the gate would not give power until he gave something worse than memory.
It demanded will.
---
A vision exploded before him—so sudden he almost screamed.
He was back in the sect. Kneeling. Bleeding.
They stood over him: elders, brothers, the master who once smiled.
Each one offered a hand.
Each one carried poison behind their eyes.
"Beg," one said.
"Submit," another hissed.
"Kill the fire. Return to the fold," the third whispered.
The hunger inside him screamed. It wanted him to say yes. To return. To let go of the pain. To abandon the wrath. The revenge.
But Zhu Yan…
…smiled.
"Swallow this," he said, voice hoarse.
And then he refused.
The vision shattered.
So did something inside him.
But not in surrender.
> "You chose hunger," the voice admitted. "You chose emptiness over comfort. You chose… truth."
The chamber shuddered.
Veins of light ran across the walls—deep red, then gold, then black.
From the center of the room rose a massive altar.
And on it, embedded in stone, was a single, dark tooth. Long. Curved. Heavy with old power.
Zhu Yan stepped forward, hand outstretched.
The moment his fingers touched it—
> 「Third Gate: Fang of Hunger – COMPLETE」
Self denied. Flame deepened. Hunger made whole.
The fang dissolved into smoke and poured into his veins. His body twisted—not breaking, but evolving. The Wrathfire sigils expanded further across his arms, curling like serpents, merging with the Soulbrand across his back.
His heartbeat changed.
No longer simply a rhythm.
Now… a drumbeat of domination.
---
He dropped to one knee.
Not from weakness—
—but from sheer weight.
Power now coiled inside him like a beast not yet named.
And the Manual whispered its next promise:
> "When hunger becomes strength, only then may wrath become command."
Zhu Yan stood.
He did not smile.
But his eyes now gleamed with something far beyond vengeance.
Appetite.