The air reeked of scorched flesh.
Atop the charred ruins of the Crimson Sect's inner sanctum, crows feasted on the fallen. Not a soul remained to weep for the dead — only the wind, whispering through broken pillars and bloodstained stone.
Until something stirred beneath the ashes.
A single finger rose, blackened but whole, clawing free from the dirt.
Zhu Yan gasped — his first breath in this world reborn came not with peace, but with pain. Smoke filled his lungs. Blood dripped from his lips. But he lived.
He was whole again.
Or rather... something new.
His body was leaner, sinew packed with strength. His once-splintered meridians now pulsed with demonic qi, dark and volatile. His heart beat not just with life, but with wrath, burning with the mark of the abyss.
He stood.
The wind shifted, and as the ash cleared, Zhu Yan saw the mountain of corpses around him — disciples, elders, traitors. All dead. All silent. But not enough.
They weren't the ones he came back for.
"Yuwen. Ruoxi."
Their names left his tongue like a curse. He clenched his fists, and the demonic energy within him stirred — shadows writhed along his skin, whispering for him to destroy, devour, dominate.
But he was not a beast.
Not yet.
"I will return stronger," he whispered to the ruins. "And when I do… you will kneel."
A sudden movement.
A scavenger — a rogue cultivator — had come to loot the sect's remnants. The man stepped into view, blade drawn, his eyes widening as he spotted Zhu Yan standing where a corpse should've been.
"You… you're alive?! That's impossible!"
Zhu Yan's eyes met his — crimson, unblinking.
"Wrong."
In a blink, he vanished.
The looter barely had time to react before claws of demonic qi pierced his chest. The man screamed once, then choked, his soul siphoned into Zhu Yan's palm like smoke into flame.
Zhu Yan inhaled deeply as power surged through him.
So this… is the price of the manual.
So be it.
He would consume. He would kill. And when the heavens stood in his way—
He would burn them too.
From the ashes of betrayal, a new demon had risen. Not just to survive…
But to ascend.