Xu Mingyan sat cross-legged at the center of a scorched ring in the soil. The girl's offering — the beating heart and sect token — lay before him, now shriveled and dry. His fingers were stained with old blood, and the lines carved in his wooden hut glowed faintly in the early dawn.
The shard pulsed like a second heart in his chest.
His new follower, the girl — now dubbed Lian, stood at the edge of the ring, silent. Her face was pale, but her gaze sharp. She did not ask for thanks. She did not speak unless commanded. Her soul had been marked. Her will, reforged.
Xu Mingyan whispered, "Feed me."
The shard drank the residual memory of the dead cultivator's heart — a low-tier inner disciple who had insulted Lian days ago. It wasn't the power that mattered — it was the essence. The hatred. The death.
He exhaled, and his cultivation stirred.
Now he could see traces of Qi as flickers of light and ash. Every person was now a flame. Some burned high and bright. Others dim and cracked, ready to extinguish.
Xu Mingyan? He was a black ember.
Unseen by the righteous.
But deadly in the dark.
In the far halls of the sect, Master Shen of the Intelligence Division frowned at a soul slip that had just cracked apart in his hand.
"Another disappearance?"
His assistant bowed. "Yes, Elder. A minor inner disciple. Found only... this."
He dropped the shriveled heart and sect token.
Shen narrowed his eyes. "We have a hunter among the weeds."
He reached for a jade seal and pressed it into a scroll.
Initiate Code: Blackroot Bloom.
It was time to awaken old networks — cultivators forgotten by the sect but still loyal to coin, debt, or shared secrets. If something was growing in the Outer-Outer Sect, it needed to be pruned.
Xu Mingyan now had three followers.
Lian, the first. Bao, a failed alchemist who had consumed his own spirit beast in madness. And Chun, a mute boy who had survived being fed to beasts in the trial pit.
Each had a piece of the shard embedded under their skin. Each was bound, not by oaths or talismans, but by shared blood.
Together, they carved sigils into the rocks near the ravine.
Ritual circles. Memory wells. Deadman gardens where flesh turned into reagents.
This was not a sect. It was a cult — but it had order, unity, and purpose.
And it had teeth.
She returned on the fifth night.
No smile this time.
Just silence, and a box.
Xu Mingyan did not stand. He nodded toward Lian. She took the box and opened it.
Inside: a severed eye in a crystal orb, still moving.
"This is the price for spying on me?" Xu Mingyan asked calmly.
Ji Xuelan sat down beside the ring. Her spiritual pressure flattened the nearby grass.
"You think you're hidden," she said. "You're not. There are seven more eyes in the sect — some see better than others."
He laughed softly. "Let them look. The next one will blink in my jar."
She looked at him, gaze sharp as a drawn blade. "What are you trying to become?"
He looked up. "A shadow that even light forgets."
And for a moment, her expression flickered. Respect? Or hunger?
She leaned forward. "I can offer you a path. A real one. A branch sect. We cultivate different paths. Forbidden ones. Not like yours... but we share a tongue."
"And what do you want in return?"
She shrugged. "Your name. When it's famous."
He shook his head. "Then I'll give you a better deal."
She raised a brow.
He whispered, "I'll make sure they curse it."
She laughed, low and cold. "Deal."
At the edge of the sect, near the old Grave Pavilion, Xu Mingyan made his move.
A team of disciples had gone missing — his doing.
The sect sent a mid-stage Core Condensation cultivator to investigate.
They found him — and his followers — chanting in a circle made of bones.
The cultivator laughed. "A puppet cult? You dare perform rites within sect grounds?"
Xu Mingyan did not speak.
The shard did.
"CONSUME."
Flames erupted. Black chains rose from the earth. The air turned to ash.
The Core cultivator screamed — not from pain, but confusion. His Qi was burning backwards. His dantian collapsed inward.
Xu Mingyan stepped forward, hand touching the man's chest.
Soulbrand: Phase Three — Heartbrand Resonance unlocked.
He carved a new rune onto the dying man's forehead:
"Witness."
Then he devoured him.
A hidden chamber beneath the main hall buzzed with furious Qi.
Five elders, including Shen, sat in a pentagram around a floating jade disk.
The disk showed the replay — Xu Mingyan's newest act.
"He's become a plague," one elder spat.
"He's touched the Heartbrand phase before Foundation? That's impossible."
"Worse — he's building a structure. This isn't random madness. This is intent."
They looked to the Sect Head, who had remained quiet.
"Let him grow," she said finally.
The room froze.
"Excuse me, Elder Fan?"
She closed her eyes. "We have a greater enemy in the Southern Ridge. If this... Xu Mingyan is growing something capable of breaking rules, we need it. For now."
The others hesitated.
Then nodded.
But Shen's eyes narrowed.
He would not forget this.
Xu Mingyan dreamed.
He stood in a burning world. Not metaphor, not illusion — but memory. Not his.
A voice echoed from all sides.
"You wear the Brand. But do you know the Flame?"
He turned. Saw shadows — thousands of them — all branded.
And in the center: a figure with twelve brands across his body. His eyes were fire. His tongue, ash.
"You walk our path, young ember. But beware.
This flame does not warm. It consumes. It does not light the way. It erases it."
Xu Mingyan asked, "Then why walk it?"
The figure smiled, sad and vast.
"Because for some of us, there's no other road left."
Xu Mingyan woke with tears of flame.
And his brands glowing anew.
To Be Continued...