Blood.
The world around me reeked of it.
The battlefield was littered with corpses—clan brothers, cousins, enemies—all dead, their faces twisted in agony. Above, the sky burned with smoke and fire, but I couldn't lift my head high enough to see it. My chest was torn open, my arm useless, my body sinking into the dirt.
I could barely breathe. Each gasp tasted of iron.
So this was it? Damien Veyra—the cripple of the Veyra Clan. Mocked since birth, laughed at for my shattered dantian. A "waste" too worthless to cultivate, dragged here as cannon fodder.
Pathetic.
"Trash like you should've stayed behind."
The voice stabbed into my ears like a blade. I forced my head up, vision spinning, and saw him—Alden. My cousin. His armor gleamed, his fire-root blazing with pride. Not a single scar on his perfect skin.
A smirk tugged at his lips.
"You couldn't gather a wisp of qi in your life. A cripple. But at least you've done something useful today—bleeding here so I can escape."
His blade sank into my side. Pain unlike anything I'd felt before exploded in my body. I tried to scream, but blood drowned my voice.
"You'll die nameless, cousin. Forgotten. I'll return as a hero. They won't even bury your corpse."
He yanked the blade free and walked away, leaving me to choke in the dirt like a dog.
The agony consumed me. I couldn't move. My breath rattled. My vision dimmed.
So this is my fate? To die as nothing. To rot in the dirt like carrion. Was I truly born for this?
No.
No, I refuse.
Even if Heaven itself denied me a path, I would crawl, claw, and bite until I carved one with my own hands.
Something inside me cracked.
Not bone. Not flesh. Deeper. My dantian—the useless hollow pit everyone mocked—shivered. Then, chains shattered.
A voice did not speak. A light did not descend.
Instead, cold symbols, etched in black flame, burned into my mind.
[SYSTEM AWAKENED.][ABYSSAL DAO SYSTEM ONLINE.][HOST CONDITION: TERMINAL.][INITIATING PROTOCOL: SURVIVAL.]
I froze. My body still screamed in agony, but a strange clarity drowned the pain.
Lines of text. Runes in a tongue I should not understand, yet somehow did.
[OPTION DETECTED: DEVOUR.]Target: Corpses within 3 meters.Result: Abyss Points +1 per mortal, +5 per cultivator.]Cost: Pain.]Proceed? [Y/N]
My blood ran cold.
Devour… corpses?
My gaze shifted to the bodies strewn around me. Men I had fought beside. Enemies I had bled to kill. Flesh rotting in the dirt, eyes glassy and vacant.
A sane man would recoil. But sanity had never saved me. What had mercy, honor, or dignity given me? Nothing.
I coughed blood, lips twisting into a bitter smile.
"…Yes."
The shadows obeyed.
They burst from my abdomen like chains unbound, coiling around the corpses. Flesh withered. Bones cracked. Souls screamed as they were dragged into me.
Their deaths had been meaningless. But in death, they finally had a purpose—my survival.
The world shuddered.
[Devour Complete.][Abyss Points Acquired: +37.][Dantian Condition: Abyssal Core Formed.][Warning: Host incompatible with Heaven's Mandate.][Designation Assigned: Heaven's Enemy.]
The wounds on my body closed with unnatural speed, leaving black scars etched into my skin. Strength surged into my veins, dark and heavy, intoxicating.
I trembled, not from weakness, but from the weight of what I had just done.
I had consumed them. Their bodies. Their souls. Their fates.
And yet… I felt no guilt. Only hunger.
My so-called shattered dantian had never been broken. It was sealed. A pit of shadows, an abyss without end.
And now, it had awakened.
I pushed myself up, feet steadying on the corpses beneath me. The sky above was aflame, the valley a graveyard. My shadow stretched long against the fire.
Heaven had cast me aside. My clan had thrown me away. Fate itself had spat in my face.
Fine.
If I were never meant to walk the path of Heaven, then I would consume it instead.