There was no sky. No light. No breath.
Only silence… and the cold caress of eternity.
Zhu Yan floated in a void beyond death — a liminal space between realms. His flesh had been torn asunder, his bones crushed to dust, but something deeper still pulsed: his soul, tethered to the echo of his vengeance.
And something was waiting for him.
A flicker.
It started as a whisper — no louder than a breath — coiling around his shattered will.
"You fell because you trusted."
He opened phantom eyes, and in the distance, crimson embers glowed like eyes watching him.
"You died because you hesitated."
The whispers formed words, then sentences, then promises. They beckoned him.
A great obsidian gate emerged before him — jagged, ancient, pulsing with a rhythm not of the mortal world. Upon its surface were carved runes older than language, writhing with demonic hunger.
"Beyond this gate lies the path denied by heaven. Do you seek power?"
Zhu Yan clenched spectral fists. His pain had long turned into resolve. His trust had turned into blade. His name would be etched into the bones of those who betrayed him.
"Yes."
The gate shuddered.
Chains exploded into dust. Runes blazed red. And as it opened, a rush of knowledge surged into his soul — forbidden cultivation, etched not in ink, but agony.
The Demonic Ascension Manual branded itself onto his very essence.
He screamed.
Not from pain, but from awakening.
A storm of dark qi engulfed his soul. Memories not his own tore through his mind — battles, massacres, betrayals, dominion. And through it all, a mantra echoed:
> "Devour. Corrupt. Ascend."
Zhu Yan's body, far above, still lay broken amidst the ruins of the Crimson Sect.
But deep within the void, black flames surged around the cocoon of his soul. Bone knitted. Meridians reformed — not of light, but shadow. His golden core was reborn, obsidian and pulsing like a heart of the underworld.
And when his eyes opened again—
They glowed crimson, filled with hatred… and purpose.
The traitors thought him dead. The world would forget his name.
But the abyss remembered.
And soon… so would they.
together.