The air within the Azure Canopy Sect's valley was always thick with the scent of pine sap and living Qi. For two centuries, the small, hidden sect had upheld the purest branch of the Orthodox Murim, not through devastating martial power, but through the unique Verdant Blossom Qi.
Huan Lin, the final, white-haired disciple, had always found peace in the gentle pulse of this technique. At seventeen, his hair was the color of snow, not from age, but from a congenital weakness that his Master, Old Man Qing, claimed required him to cultivate purity above all else. His ranking—the very lowest—was a reflection of his slow progress, not his diligence. He could feel the Verdant Blossom Qi, a current of warm, clean water, gently circulating, coaxing the life from withered leaves and knitting small cuts closed. It was the art of slow, perfect harmony.
On that last morning, he was tending the high-altitude Jade Dew Herb—a plant that only bloomed under the influence of the purest Verdant Qi. Old Man Qing, his face a roadmap of kindness and decades of peaceful meditation, watched from the porch.
"Lin'er," his master called, his voice like rustling silk. "Remember why we are sought after, yet remain small. The Verdant Blossom Qi is powerful, yes, but its true cost is the purity of the heart. To grant true longevity, one must cultivate a peaceful century first. They seek the fruit without planting the seed."
Huan Lin bowed, his heart light. He didn't understand the politics of the Murim Alliance, only the quiet rhythm of his home.
The tranquility was shattered by iron and screams.
It began not with a roar, but with a horrifying silence as the defensive barrier, maintained for decades, simply ceased to exist. Then came the crash of armored boots, the cruel laughter of powerful men, and the wet, terrible sounds that followed the clanging of weapons.
It was the Orthodox Alliance—the so-called pillars of righteousness: the Iron Fists, the Azure Dragons, and the Silent Scorpions.
They moved with brutal, surgical efficiency, their goal not destruction, but acquisition.
Huan Lin, his heart hammering against his ribs, rushed out, attempting to circulate his gentle Verdant Blossom Qi. He tried to heal the gash in Elder Mei's arm—a wound dealt by a heavy-bladed saber. His Qi flowed out, warm and pleading, but it was like pouring a cup of water onto a bonfire. The opponent's killing intent was too thick, the Qi too aggressive.
"Pathetic," spat a man wearing the bronze pauldron of the Azure Dragons, his face a mask of hunger. "This is the great Verdant Blossom? It barely keeps a scratch from bleeding. Take the old man, leave the rest for the vultures."
Huan Lin saw his Master, Old Man Qing, pinned by three high-level masters. The Master's face was serene even as his chest was being slowly crushed, his pure Verdant Qi extracted through needles and suction arrays—stolen to fuel the corrupt longevity drug the Banker had promised.
"Lin'er, flee! Do not—" The Master's final words were drowned out by a choked, rattling gasp.
Huan Lin was struck from behind, a searing pain exploding across his spine. He tumbled down the stone steps, landing in a heap amid the trampled Jade Dew Herbs. The white armor of a Strategist's general stood over him for a moment—a cold, beautiful woman with calculating eyes—before she dismissed him as a casualty.
"He's weak. Just another corpse. Ensure no one saw this atrocity. We will tell the Murim he was eliminated by a Demonic Cult intrusion."
The assault retreated as swiftly as it came, leaving behind only the dead, the ruined herbs, and the silence.
Huan Lin was not dead.
He lay there for hours, pinned beneath the rubble of his master's study, the scent of fresh blood and crushed herbs a sickening perfume. The wound in his back pulsed with agonizing fire. His spiritual sea—the core of his cultivation—was a chaotic storm. The warm, clean current of the Verdant Blossom Qi was shattered, fractured into a thousand shards.
As the sun dipped and the mountain air turned bitterly cold, an insidious transformation began.
The overwhelming pain in his spine, the unbearable weight of his grief, and the white-hot core of his hatred did not extinguish his Qi; they perverted it. The shattered fragments of pure Qi did not seek to heal him. Instead, they recognized the trauma.
They recognized the agony. They recognized the desperate need to inflict this very suffering back onto the world that had stolen everything.
The broken energy condensed, turning from the clear, spring-green of Verdant Blossom into a viscous, deep crimson. It was freezing, painful, and sentient. It began to circulate, not to harmonize, but to absorb the raw, acidic hate tearing at his gut.
This was the awakening of the Sanguine Thorn Art.
He pressed his hand against a loose piece of rubble, a small rock stained with the blood of a fellow disciple. He didn't intend to move it; he intended to use his Qi.
The crimson energy flowed from his shattered spiritual sea, through his meridian channels, and into his palm. It did not push the rock. Instead, the Qi surrounding the rock suddenly reversed its internal flow. The minute, dormant life force within the stone was painfully drawn out, concentrating, leaving the rock brittle and unnaturally cold.
Huan Lin gasped, not from exertion, but from the sheer agony of the power's touch. It felt like tearing strips of skin from his own soul.
But with the pain came a sickening, intoxicating surge of cold strength.
He crawled from the ruins hours later, dragging himself over the silent, still forms of his brothers and sisters. He reached the main courtyard and found the corpse of the Azure Dragon guard who had struck him—the one they had carelessly left behind.
The guard had a minor, non-fatal wound. Huan Lin knelt, tears streaming down his face, the crimson Qi in his veins screaming for release.
He placed his fingertips on the guard's neck.
The Sanguine Thorn Art exploded outward. It bypassed the guard's defenses, latching onto his life force. The guard did not die instantly. His eyes flew open in a silent, widening scream. Huan Lin watched, his own pain fueling the technique, as the man's healthy, vibrant Qi was violently forced to retreat and condense around his heart, turning into a solid, paralyzing knot. The man's skin grayed rapidly, his body seizing in silent, unbearable pain. He died a slow, agonizing death that was a hideous mirror of Old Man Qing's final moments.
When the guard was nothing but a desiccated shell, Huan Lin pulled his hand away. The crimson Qi flowed back into his spiritual sea, darker than before, bringing with it a sliver of the guard's vitality, but a mountain of the guard's final, desperate terror.
Huan Lin rose, a boy wrapped in the trauma of a massacre. His white hair framed a face pale with shock and stained with the tears of grief and the shadow of true malice. He walked toward the mountain's edge, where a clear spring reflected his image.
The boy in the reflection was gone. The eyes were hollow, filled with a cold, terrifying emptiness. The Verdant Blossom Qi was silent.
The Sanguine Thorn Art, the twisted reflection of all he had lost, pulsed, demanding its next debt.
"They wanted a longevity drug," he whispered, his voice hoarse and alien. "They will receive a slow death. Every leader. Every step. Every drop of stolen life will be choked out, drop by agonizing drop."
He turned his back on the valley of the Azure Canopy Sect and stepped onto the path that led to the prosperous Murim world, no longer a healer, but a walking shadow, the first thorn in the Alliance's corrupted heart. The path of the villain had begun.