The stench of decay and human waste hung thick in the air of Outer District 7. Lin Feng stood in the crumbling doorway of his tenement, staring at the distant skyline of the inner city where crystalline towers pierced the clouds—monuments to wealth and power he would never touch.
Twenty years old today. The day every citizen of Azure Dragon City awakened their talent.
"Move, trash!" A cultivator shoved past him, nearly knocking Lin Feng into the sewage-filled gutter. The man didn't even look back, his clean robes and straight posture marking him as someone from the inner districts, slumming in the outer city for cheap thrills.
Lin Feng said nothing. What could he say? In this world, strength was everything. The weak didn't even have the right to voice complaints.
He pulled his threadbare jacket tighter and made his way through the crowded streets toward the District Awakening Hall. Around him, other twenty-year-olds pushed and shoved, their eyes bright with desperate hope. Everyone knew the statistics: ninety percent would awaken trash-tier talents—barely enough to survive. Nine percent would gain decent talents, enough to enter the inner city as servants or guards. One percent would awaken true power.
The Awakening Hall loomed before him, a government building that showed its age through cracked walls and missing tiles. Inside, hundreds of young people crowded around a massive Formation Array that glowed with pale blue light. Officials in worn uniforms processed people mechanically, their faces showing neither interest nor compassion.
"Next! Name and district!"
"Lin Feng. Outer District 7, Block 23."
The official didn't even look up. "Hand on the array. Don't move until the light fades."
Lin Feng placed his palm on the cold stone. Immediately, warmth flooded through his arm, spreading to his chest. The array pulsed, colors swirling—red, blue, green, gold—before finally settling on a sickly gray-green that made several people step back instinctively.
"Talent awakened," the official droned, checking his spirit jade tablet. His eyebrows rose slightly. "Primordial Pathogen Genesis. Rank: F-tier. Classification: Bacteria and virus manipulation." He looked at Lin Feng for the first time, his expression a mix of disgust and pity. "Next!"
Laughter erupted from the crowd.
"Pathogen Genesis? That's the plague rat talent!"
"F-tier! Even worse than my rock-throwing ability!"
"Who wants to manipulate diseases? What's he going to do, make people sick?"
Lin Feng stood frozen as the mockery washed over him. His left arm burned suddenly, and he looked down to see a mark forming on his forearm—the Dimensional Mark, the sacred symbol that allowed humans to travel to other worlds for cultivation resources.
But what good was a dimensional portal when you had no power to harvest anything?
"Your spirit stone allocation." The official tossed him a small pouch. Lin Feng caught it, feeling three small stones inside—the government's standard gift to new awakeners. Three spirit stones. Enough for perhaps one trip to the lowest-level dimensions. "Move along."
Lin Feng stumbled out of the hall, the laughter following him into the street. His hands trembled as he clutched the pouch. Twenty years of hoping, dreaming, imagining the day he'd awaken power and escape this hell.
And he'd gotten the plague rat talent.
He walked through the outer district in a daze, barely noticing the garbage-strewn streets or the addicts slumped in doorways. His feet carried him automatically back to his tenement—a single room on the fourth floor of a building that should have been condemned decades ago.
Inside, Lin Feng sat on his thin mattress and stared at the Dimensional Mark on his arm. It was intricate, beautiful even—a swirling pattern of symbols that glowed faintly in the dim light. Every human awakened it at twenty, a gift from the ancient Dimensional Emperor who had first opened the way to other worlds three thousand years ago.
But what did it matter? He had no talent worth developing, no family to support him, no resources to—
Pain exploded through his skull.
Lin Feng collapsed, his head striking the floor. Through the agony, words appeared before his eyes—not physical, but somehow burned directly into his consciousness:
[SLAUGHTER HARVEST SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
[HOST COMPATIBILITY: 100%]
[BINDING COMPLETE]
[WELCOME, HOST. YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.]
Lin Feng gasped, clutching his head as the pain slowly faded. "What... what is this?"
[I AM THE SLAUGHTER HARVEST SYSTEM. YOUR TOOL FOR ASCENDING TO GODHOOD.]
[PRIMARY FUNCTION: HARVEST 10% OF TOTAL CULTIVATION FROM ANY LIVING BEING YOU KILL.]
[CURRENT HOST CULTIVATION: BODY TEMPERING STAGE 1 (TRASH)]
[KILLS REQUIRED FOR NEXT STAGE: 10 LIVING BEINGS]
Lin Feng's breath caught. Ten percent of any creature's cultivation? That meant...
"If I kill a Spirit Gathering Realm cultivator..." he whispered.
[YOU WOULD GAIN 10% OF THEIR TOTAL CULTIVATION BASE. METHODS OF DEATH DO NOT MATTER. ONLY THAT YOU ARE THE CAUSE.]
His mind raced. Direct combat was impossible—he was trash, barely stronger than a normal human. But his talent... bacteria and viruses...
A slow smile spread across Lin Feng's face.
"I don't need to fight them directly, do I?"
[NEGATIVE. INDIRECT KILLS COUNT. POISON, DISEASE, INFECTION, TRAPS—ALL VALID.]
[RECOMMENDATION: YOUR TALENT IS PERFECTLY SUITED FOR MASS HARVESTING.]
Lin Feng stood, his earlier despair evaporating. The mockery, the laughter, the disgust in people's eyes—none of it mattered now. They called him plague rat? They had no idea what plague truly meant.
He walked to his window and looked out over the outer district. Hundreds of thousands of people crammed into squalid blocks. Rats in every alley. Stray dogs roaming in packs. Insects breeding in stagnant water.
And he could control bacteria and viruses.
"System, can I target specific creatures with disease?"
[YES. AS YOUR MASTERY GROWS, YOU CAN CREATE CUSTOM PATHOGENS FOR SPECIFIC TARGETS.]
[CURRENT LEVEL: CAN MANIPULATE EXISTING BACTERIA/VIRUSES IN YOUR IMMEDIATE AREA.]
Lin Feng closed his eyes and reached out with his talent for the first time. It was like gaining a new sense—suddenly, he could feel them. Millions of microscopic lives surrounding him. In the air, in the water, in his own body. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, prions—a invisible world of potential death.
He focused on the rats in the walls of his building. Even now, he could hear them scratching, breeding, living their filthy lives. With a thought, he reached for the bacteria in their digestive systems.
Multiply. Mutate. Kill.
The talent responded eagerly, as if it had been waiting for his command. The bacteria in the rats' guts began reproducing at exponential rates, becoming more virulent with each generation. Within minutes, he heard the first squeals of pain from inside the walls.
[KILL REGISTERED: RAT (BODY TEMPERING STAGE 0)]
[CULTIVATION GAINED: 0.1%]
[KILLS TO NEXT STAGE: 9/10]
It was tiny, almost nothing. But it was something.
More squeals. More notifications.
[KILL REGISTERED: RAT]
[KILL REGISTERED: RAT]
[KILL REGISTERED: RAT]
Lin Feng sat down, closed his eyes, and began to truly experiment with his power. He spread his influence through the entire tenement building, infecting every rat, every cockroach, every fly. The bacteria mutated under his will, becoming more lethal, spreading faster.
Within an hour, his room was silent except for the steady stream of system notifications.
[KILL REGISTERED: RAT]
[KILL REGISTERED: COCKROACH]
[BREAKTHROUGH! BODY TEMPERING STAGE 2!]
[PHYSICAL STRENGTH INCREASED]
[TALENT RANGE INCREASED: 50 METERS]
Lin Feng opened his eyes, feeling genuine power flow through his body for the first time in his life. It was intoxicating. The system had been right—his talent was perfect for mass harvesting.
But rats and insects were just the beginning.
He looked out his window again, this time focusing on the alley below where stray dogs fought over scraps. There were dozens of them in the district, maybe hundreds. And each one was stronger than a rat.
Each one would give more cultivation.
"System, can I make diseases that spread through biting or blood contact?"
[YES. BLOODBORNE PATHOGENS ARE WITHIN YOUR CAPABILITY.]
[WARNING: HUMAN HOSTS WILL PROVIDE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE CULTIVATION BUT WILL ATTRACT ATTENTION.]
Lin Feng's smile widened. "I'm not ready for humans yet. But those dogs..."
He reached out with his talent, feeling for the parasites and bacteria already present in the street dogs. With careful manipulation, he began crafting something new—a virus that would spread through their aggressive biting, that would multiply in their blood, that would kill them slowly enough to spread to the entire pack before the first one died.
"Let's see... three days incubation, then seven days of increasing symptoms. That should give it time to spread completely."
He released his creation into the alpha dog sniffing through garbage below his window. The animal showed no reaction, simply continuing its search for food.
But Lin Feng could feel the virus taking hold, beginning its work.
"Ten days," he murmured. "In ten days, every stray dog in District 7 will be dead. And I'll have harvested hundreds of kills."
[EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS: OPTIMAL STRATEGY.]
[PREDICTION: HOST WILL REACH BODY TEMPERING STAGE 5 FROM DOG PACK ELIMINATION ALONE.]
Lin Feng leaned back against the wall, his mind already planning the next steps. Dogs first. Then perhaps the rats in the other districts. Then insects during the summer breeding season. Small steps, building his power in secret while everyone continued to see him as trash.
And when he was strong enough, when he'd built enough cultivation from the animals and beasts...
Then he'd move on to humans.
The ones who laughed at him today would be the first to die screaming.
"Twenty years of being trash," Lin Feng whispered to the empty room. "But that ends now. I'll climb over mountains of corpses if I have to. I'll drown this entire world in plague if that's what it takes."
[ADVISORY: HOST SHOWS OPTIMAL MENTALITY FOR SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY.]
[SLAUGHTER WITHOUT MERCY. HARVEST WITHOUT HESITATION.]
[BECOME THE SOVEREIGN OF DEATH ITSELF.]
Lin Feng closed his eyes and began to meditate, feeling the stolen cultivation from dozens of dead rats flowing through his meridians. It was weak, barely a trickle.
But trickles became streams. Streams became rivers. Rivers became floods.
And floods drowned worlds.
His journey had begun.