Huan Lin traveled for three days, fueled only by stale water and the corrosive venom of his hatred. The Sanguine Thorn Art had kept him mobile, twisting the raw agony in his spine into a cold, driving force, but it had consumed his internal purity like acid dissolving silk. Every breath felt like chewing on rust.
He arrived at Gutter's Edge, a notorious trading post nestled where the Orthodox Alliance's lands bled into neutral territory. It was everything the Azure Canopy Sect was not: loud, stinking of cheap liquor, stale sweat, and unchecked ambition. He saw sect disciples—minor branches of the Alliance—swaggering with gaudy embroidery, their hands resting habitually on hilts, their eyes constantly scanning for weakness or opportunity.
This was the 'righteous' world that had extinguished his home. It felt like walking into a massive, gilded trash heap.
His immediate, desperate need was simple: resources. He needed silver, fresh clothes that didn't smell of blood and pine needles, and, most critically, information on the three architects of his ruin—the Banker, the Strategist, and the False Hero.
His first attempt at earning a living was pathetic.
He saw a weary mule driver struggling to push a heavy cart of salt barrels up a muddy incline. Instinctually, Huan Lin moved to help, intending to use the gentle force of the Verdant Blossom Qi to lend stability and strength, accelerating the mule's natural effort.
He tried to circulate the familiar warm current. The feeling was instantly wrong.
Instead of the gentle flow, the crimson energy of the Sanguine Thorn Art surged. It demanded a target, a host to drain. To use it to simply push a cart felt impossible, like trying to use a master assassin's poisoned dagger to chop vegetables.
He flinched, the uncontrolled surge burning the channels in his arm. The mule driver merely looked at the sickly, white-haired boy, saw his weakness, and snarled, "Move, brat! You look like death warmed over. Go cough up your lungs somewhere else."
Huan Lin retreated, heart sinking. The Verdant Blossom Qi, the power that required a peaceful mind and pure intent, was utterly locked away behind a wall of crimson hate. He could not even perform simple manual labor because the Sanguine Thorn Art only knew how to take, not give.
He tried his healing skills next. He found a low-end tavern where a burly mercenary had a superficial but painful slice across his forearm.
"Fifty coppers to clean and speed the mend," Huan Lin whispered, trying to sound confident.
The mercenary laughed, a grating sound like grinding stones. "Fifty coppers? And let that ghostly little hand touch me? Get lost, boy. I'll use my own low-grade medicinal paste. You look like a walking curse."
The world had no use for weak goodness. It rewarded brutal strength and immediate flash. His unique, gentle art was now worthless here. He realized his master was wrong. Purity was not a defense; it was a vulnerability.
Huan Lin spent the next forty-eight hours observing. He bought a cheap, dark-gray robe, staining it with mud to look weathered.
He slicked his unnaturally white hair back and adopted a constant, downward gaze—the look of a minor, insignificant shadow cultivator, too poor to afford a real sect's uniform.
He realized that his new path required a persona that repelled attention, yet possessed a silent, dangerous efficiency. He needed to be a tool, not a human.
His gaze fell upon Ma Geng, a man known in the Gutter's Edge as "The Vulture." Ma Geng ran a small, despicable racket: he preyed on desperate, injured wanderers, offering them exorbitant, impossible loans for basic medicine and then harvesting their life savings or, worse, their women and children when they defaulted. He was a petty parasite, a small reflection of the great parasitic leaders who had stolen his sect's life force.
A Banker in miniature.
Huan Lin watched Ma Geng casually break the fingers of an old farmer who couldn't repay a loan of three silver taels. The sight did not evoke shock or empathy, only a cold, focused determination. This man was not a high-value target, but he was a target of opportunity. A practice kill. A necessity.
The Sanguine Thorn Qi pulsed, a cold anticipation in his meridians. The pain was receding, replaced by a terrible, hollow clarity.
That night, Gutter's Edge was choked in thick fog and silence. Huan Lin tracked Ma Geng to his shabby lockup behind the main market—a place where the Vulture counted his ill-gotten gains.
Huan Lin waited in the shadows. He did not rush. He let the profound silence of the night swallow the last vestiges of his old conscience.
When Ma Geng unlocked his door and stepped inside, humming, Huan Lin moved.
He was faster than his old, weak self, the dark Qi granting a cold, unnatural speed. He slipped through the door before Ma Geng could swing it shut, sealing them in the suffocating darkness of the shed.
Ma Geng spun, reaching for a knife, but Huan Lin was already upon him. Not with a fist, but with a horrifying caress.
He clamped his hand over Ma Geng's mouth, his other hand pressing squarely onto the man's center of vitality—the Dantian.
"This is for the debt you owe," Huan Lin whispered, the voice raspy from disuse, the words sounding foreign even to his own ears.
He unleashed the Sanguine Thorn Art.
It was not a sudden burst of power, but a slow, excruciating withdrawal. The crimson Qi, fueled by Huan Lin's internal trauma, latched onto Ma Geng's vital energy. It wasn't the force of a hammer; it was the slow, relentless coil of a thousand thorny vines tightening inside the victim's channels.
Ma Geng's eyes widened to impossible sizes. He couldn't scream—Huan Lin's hand was clamped tight—but the sound of his choked, desperate inhalation filled the small room. The technique was doing exactly what it was meant to do: it was forcing the victim's own Qi and life force to painfully retreat and condense.
Huan Lin felt the resistance, the terrified surge of Ma Geng's healthy Qi trying to fight back, only to be crushed and forced inward, hardening into a solid, paralyzing knot around the Dantian.
The process was agonizingly slow. Ma Geng's face went from ruddy crimson to ashen grey in the span of thirty agonizing seconds. His body seized, his fingers clawing uselessly at the air, his eyes rolling back to show only the whites. He was paralyzed, screaming in the silent prison of his own body, fully aware as his life essence was choked out.
Huan Lin stood there, watching, feeling, absorbing the terror.
When the draining was complete, Ma Geng's body slumped, a pale, desiccated husk. The vital energy—a small, dark, and utterly corrupt sliver—flowed back into Huan Lin.
He felt the immediate rush of cold energy, which simultaneously strengthened his physical body and darkened his soul. The pain in his spine eased slightly. He found himself standing taller, his gaze steadier. The crimson Qi now pulsed with a greater, more malignant energy.
The cost was paid immediately. The tiny, persistent echo of his Master's voice, the memory of his gentle teachings, instantly dimmed. His loss of humanity was now a quantifiable transaction.
He methodically searched the shed, taking every piece of silver, every scrap of information, and destroying the evidence of the corrupted loans. He left no trace of the Sanguine Thorn Art, only the shell of a man who looked like he had died of a sudden, brutal illness.
As he walked out into the cold fog, now richer and more dangerous, Huan Lin felt the chilling confirmation: the Sanguine Thorn Art would protect him, provide for him, and grant him the strength for his revenge. But it demanded that he embrace the darkness.
He was no longer just a victim seeking justice. He was becoming a demon of vengeance, walking the path of calculated evil. The Banker was next, and the stakes would be infinitely higher.