Chapter 4: The First Ripple
The sky wept ash.
Somewhere far from Jiang Fan's quiet mountain slaughter, across a continent of burning deserts and whispering tombs, the Zhenxian Temple held its Grand Convergence.
It was a sacred event.
Nine sects gathered in solemn stillness. Thousand-year-old elders floated on spirit-clouds, their very breaths twisting qi into golden halos. Proud disciples lined up in perfect formation, swords on backs, banners raised. The air smelled of incense, thunder, and pride.
At the center, on an obsidian dais carved with ancient scripture, sat Monk Jieyin—Immortal Ascendant of the Soul Path. His eyes had not opened in thirty years. He had long transcended worldly thoughts.
But today… they opened.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Gasps rippled through the temple. The birds above stopped mid-flight, frozen by his gaze.
"It stirs," Jieyin said, voice like bells dipped in frost.
"What stirs, Master?" a disciple asked, his knees trembling under the weight of the moment.
The old monk frowned.
"Not a beast. Not a god. Something between."
He touched the air. Threads of karmic energy trembled.
"An echo," he murmured. "No… a seed. No longer asleep."
All nine sect leaders looked at one another.
Then Monk Jieyin whispered a name — one not heard in 10,000 years.
"Heart Demon God."
Far away, beneath the rotting canopy of the Whispering Woods, Jiang Fan was laughing.
He didn't know the world had noticed him. Not yet.
All he knew was bliss.
The wind carried fear to him like perfume. Even the insects crawled away when he approached. His every breath stirred shadows. When he walked, the ground seemed to sigh.
But more than that… he had found something.
A village.
Small. Quiet. Forgotten by maps. Just thirty people clinging to life. Mortals. No cultivators. No warriors.
Just peasants.
He stood at the edge, watching them from a tree branch.
Children laughed. Mothers scolded. Men chopped wood. There was no killing intent. No plots. Just life — fragile, beautiful, and undeserving.
He tilted his head.
Something inside him stirred.
Emotion Detected: Contempt.
Seed Nourished: +2.1%
He didn't move for hours.
Then a child walked into the forest. A girl, perhaps six, with a red ribbon in her hair. Humming a song, carrying a tiny wooden bucket.
She saw him.
She froze.
He did not hide.
Their eyes met.
She smiled. "Are you a ghost?"
Jiang Fan blinked. "Maybe."
She giggled. "Ghosts don't sit in trees."
He dropped down. Slowly. Soundlessly.
She didn't flinch.
Something inside him shifted.
Emotion Detected: Curiosity. Conflict. Memory Fragment Activation – Earth
File retrieved: 2007. Street lamp. Snow. A sister he never had time to protect.
His fingers twitched.
The girl looked up at him. "You're sad."
"No," he replied. "I'm just... remembering."
She held out the bucket. "Want water?"
He stared at her hand.
Then he heard footsteps.
A man burst through the trees—her father, wild-eyed with fear, a rusty blade in hand. "GET AWAY FROM HER!"
Jiang Fan sighed.
The man charged.
A mistake.
In one breath, Jiang Fan moved.
The blade shattered mid-swing.
In the next breath, the man's arm bent the wrong way. Bone jutted from skin.
He collapsed, screaming.
The girl screamed too.
Jiang Fan turned toward her, but she was already running. The village echoed with chaos.
Emotion Detected: Betrayal. Guilt. Rage. Contempt.
Seed Nourished: +7.6%
He looked at his hands.
Then at the man, whimpering on the ground.
"You were protecting her," Jiang Fan muttered. "Like I couldn't."
The man gasped, "Monster…"
Jiang Fan nodded. "Yes."
He didn't destroy the village.
He left it in silence, its people broken with fear, not fire. Their nightmares would carry his image long after he was gone.
The system whispered:
Heart Demon Influence Spread – First Ripples Detected.
Local Faith shattered. Fear blooms. Emotion absorbed by host: +11.2%
Technique Unlocked: Mind Mark – Level I
Imprint a fear-based memory into mortals. Will act as emotional beacons, feeding cultivation at distance.
Host Path Progress: 17% toward Tier 2
Designation: Cultivator of Despair.
That night, he sat beneath the moon, cloaked in silence.
He carved a name into a stone with his finger. A name no longer his. A name from Earth.
"Jiang Fan."
He crossed it out.
Above it, he etched something else.
A new name.
One born not from the stars… but from the abyss.
"Demonheart."
And far away, Monk Jieyin opened a jade scroll, one forbidden even to the Nine Sects.
He stared at the ancient painting — a man of black wings, whose steps turned gods to corpses.
His whisper echoed like a funeral bell.
"He walks again."
End of Chapter 4