Dark clouds crawled across the sky like crawling beasts, their bellies swollen with lightning. The scent of rain mingled with the ash and blood that still lingered in the forest clearing where Aeron had fought the mercenaries.
He stood quietly near the corpse of the dagger-wielder, his cloak flapping gently in the breeze. Around him, trees leaned as if listening. Nature had gone still again, cautious and wary.
Aeron looked down at the wrapped shard in his hand. It had pulsed stronger after the battle, but now it settled again into silence—waiting.
> This thing has power. Real power. Enough that men are willing to die for it...
He turned away from the corpses. Burying them was pointless. In this land, the beasts would find them by nightfall. They had made their choice.
He sheathed his spear across his back and set off, taking the northward path that ran parallel to the ancient ruins of Kael'dar—one of the last frontier outposts of the Crimson Spire Empire.
Crimson Spire.
Once, a mighty cultivation empire that ruled the skies and crushed all beneath them. But now… ruins and whispers. Aeron had been born in the dying shadow of that world.
He had lived through betrayal, watched his parents be executed by the Dominion of Ivory Flame, and had fled with nothing but a spear and rage in his heart.
Now, after years of hiding and scraping for survival, his power had grown. And the appearance of the shard had awakened something deeper: a mission.
Not for revenge.
But for reclamation.
He reached the ridge overlooking the ruins of Kael'dar by late afternoon. The stone watchtowers, broken and overrun with ivy, still stood like ancient sentinels. The red flags that once fluttered in the wind had long since rotted away.
He knelt at the edge, scouting the area.
Below, the ruins were occupied.
Dozens of tents were pitched in the central square. Smoke curled from cook fires. Armoured figures moved in patrols.
Aeron narrowed his eyes.
The sigil of a pale skull surrounded by black sun rays flew above the largest tent.
> The Black Sun Syndicate. Slavers. Cultivators of poison arts and dark soul manipulation.
He had heard rumours they were expanding north—claiming old ruins and using them as bases to capture wanderers and enslave rogue cultivators.
Aeron's jaw tightened.
> They'll pay in blood.
He sat back and drew a small scroll from his belt—one of the many strategic tools he had kept from his time learning under Master Tyrun of the Raven Court.
He unrolled it and began drawing the layout of the encampment with charcoal.
> Fourteen guards visible. Possibly more hidden. Three Soul Refinement cultivators, the rest in the Spiritual Beginner and Warrior stages. They're careless, relying on numbers and fear.
He circled the main tent.
> The commander is likely there. Cut off the head, and the rest will scatter.
He packed the scroll away and moved silently down the slope, keeping to the trees.
As he moved, he activated Veil of Wind, a movement technique that masked his aura and footsteps with faint wind distortions. To the untrained eye, he was just a shifting shadow beneath the branches.
Night fell.
The slavers began lighting torches and drank loudly around campfires. One of them sang a crude song about breaking the wills of new slaves. Laughter followed.
Aeron's eyes grew colder.
He waited until midnight.
Then he struck.
From the shadows, he emerged like a silent predator, spear in hand, his spiritual energy building in waves.
> Crimson Pulse Spear: Second Form – Moonlight Laceration!
He slashed forward, and a sharp crescent of red energy flew through the air, slicing through two patrolling guards before they could even scream.
Panic exploded in the camp.
"Enemy! We're under attack!"
Another slaver charged at him with a heavy axe, his aura flaring—late-stage Spiritual Warrior.
"Die, rat!"
Aeron ducked the blow and countered with Phantom Step, appearing behind the man and thrusting his spear clean through his back.
He yanked it out and rolled sideways as a volley of spirit arrows flew toward him from the east tower.
He raised his hand, gathering energy.
> Red Cascade!
A swirling wave of energy burst from his palm and slammed into the tower, knocking it to rubble and silencing the archers.
By now, dozens of slavers were converging on his position.
Aeron spun his spear in his hand and let the fury rise.
> Come, then.
The battle that followed was a whirlwind of blood and lightning. Aeron moved like a force of nature, his spear flashing like a red star. He used Iron Root Stance to hold ground against multiple attackers, then transitioned into Sky Fang Dash, a piercing attack that tore through a trio of enemies in one strike.
Spiritual auras collided.
One of the Soul Refinement experts leapt into the fray, wielding a chain whip that glowed with venomous light.
"You've interfered with our business, brat! That'll cost you your soul!"
Aeron parried the whip and felt its poison burn against his spiritual barrier.
He grimaced. "You call this a whip?"
He stabbed forward with a sudden burst of energy.
> Spear Form: Breaker Spiral!
His spear twisted mid-thrust, creating a vortex of pressure that shattered the whip and struck the man full in the chest, sending him crashing into the ruins.
The ground cracked under the force.
The second Soul Refinement expert tried to trap Aeron with shadow chains—Soul Grasp Technique, a vile method that attempted to bind the target's soul and drain it over time.
But Aeron unleashed his trump card.
> Forbidden Style: Dragon Vein Surge!
His spiritual energy exploded outward in a deep crimson light, forming the image of a dragon coiling around him.
The shadow chains burned away, and the caster screamed as the backlash tore into him.
"Impossible! That's a forbidden technique!"
Aeron didn't respond.
He drove his spear through the man's core and turned to face the last elite.
It was the commander—a bald man covered in tattoos, his aura strong and dark.
"You... You're the one they warned us about. The stray from the Vale."
He unsheathed a giant cleaver glowing with purple runes.
"I'll kill you and sell your corpse to the Bone Merchants."
Aeron stood tall, his spear glowing, his breathing steady.
"I don't sell. And I don't die easy."
The two clashed.
Steel met steel. Energy clashed in sparks and thunder.
Aeron felt the man's strength—solid, brutal. A cultivator hardened through blood and cruelty.
But Aeron's resolve was sharper.
He activated Crimson Pulse Spear: Fifth Form – Starpiercer Descent.
A whirlwind formed around his spear tip, and he leapt into the air.
The commander's eyes widened.
> Too late.
Aeron came down like a falling star, his spear shattering the man's weapon and punching through his spiritual core.
A silent shockwave ripped through the ruins.
Silence fell over Kael'dar.
The remaining slavers, seeing their leaders dead, fled into the night.
Aeron stood alone amidst the bodies and ashes.
He took no joy in the victory. There was only the silence of justice.
He looked down at the shard in his pouch.
It glowed again—bright, steady.
> This is just the beginning.
He turned his eyes north.
The kingdoms were broken.
But he was not.
Morning sunlight filtered through the broken arches of Kael'dar's ruins, casting long shadows over the blood-stained stones. The scent of death still hung thick in the air, but the winds of change whispered through the high grass and shattered walls.
Aeron stood atop the tallest tower, the wind pulling at his tattered cloak, his gaze locked on the horizon where distant mountains crowned the world. His body bore bruises and cuts, but his spirit burned stronger than ever.
He reached into his satchel and pulled out the shard once more.
This time, it hummed with warmth—not violent, but steady, as if recognizing that its protector had triumphed.
Aeron didn't fully understand it yet. But the piece pulsed with energy unlike anything he'd encountered—even greater than what flowed through high-grade cultivation crystals.
> "There are more of you, aren't there?" he whispered, eyes narrowing.
Henricus Longus, the god of another time, once said that legacies were left behind in fragments—hidden across the world, waiting for someone to unite them.
Aeron didn't know who left this shard behind. But one thing was clear—it was tied to something ancient. Something powerful enough to bring down empires.
As he descended from the tower, he found the Black Sun Syndicate's war chest buried beneath their command tent. Dozens of spirit stones glittered in lacquered boxes. Cultivation pills, stolen tomes, and weapons filled crates marked with the brands of captured sects.
But what caught Aeron's eye was a single sealed scroll wrapped in blue silk, stamped with a sigil he hadn't seen in years.
> The Crest of Darnath.
His breath caught.
Darnath was the empire that had ruled the northwestern continent before the Crimson Spire rose to power. It was destroyed during the Second Purge War centuries ago.
No remnant of it was supposed to remain.
With care, Aeron broke the seal and unrolled the scroll.
Inside were instructions.
A map.
A location.
And a name.
> Vault of Aetheris.
His hands trembled slightly.
This... this was a clue. The kind of clue that only the highest-ranking cultivators or legacy heirs could obtain. Somehow, the Black Sun Syndicate had found it—or stolen it.
And now it was his.
> So this is how it begins, Aeron thought.
The fight at Kael'dar wasn't the end.
It was the spark.
---
By midmorning, he began dismantling the camp. He destroyed the remaining poison barrels, burned the dark cultivation manuals, and purified the tainted soil with a spiritual cleansing technique passed down from the Raven Court.
> "Corruption spreads faster than fire. Leave even a single seed, and it'll rot the roots," Master Tyrun had once warned him.
Aeron wouldn't let that happen.
Once done, he buried the fallen in a stone cairn at the foot of the central tower. Friend or foe, they would return to the land.
He offered a short prayer. Not to any gods—he believed in none. But to the dead who fought, lived, and bled under cruel skies.
Then he departed Kael'dar.
His next destination: the Hollow Vale.
A cursed valley, long believed to be uninhabitable due to chaotic spiritual currents. But according to the map from the scroll, it was the closest marker to the Vault of Aetheris.
No one sane dared enter it.
But Aeron was no longer just a rogue cultivator.
He was becoming a legend.
---
Two weeks later – Hollow Vale's outer rim
Lightning danced through black clouds as violent winds howled across broken ridges and gnarled trees. The Hollow Vale was like a scar across the land—its soil blackened, its skies forever churning.
Aeron crouched behind a cluster of sharp rocks, scanning the terrain ahead.
He had already encountered signs of spiritual disturbances. Wild spirit beasts, mutated from centuries of chaotic energy, roamed the outer fringes. Several had attacked him during his journey—boar-like creatures with crystal tusks, serpents that slithered through stone like water, and once, a flying beast that screeched with the voice of a man.
All of them were twisted.
All of them fell.
Aeron's cultivation had advanced since Kael'dar.
He had broken through to level 29—the peak of the Spiritual Beginner stage. One more step, and he would enter the Spiritual Warrior realm.
But here, inside the Vale, strength alone wouldn't be enough.
He needed precision. Awareness. Caution.
He moved like a whisper between twisted roots and dead trees. The shard in his pouch had grown strangely warm the closer he approached the valley's heart.
Hours passed.
The path grew more unstable. Space itself felt warped. At one point, Aeron stepped through a shallow creek—only to emerge five paces behind where he started.
He frowned.
> Spatial distortions... but natural. Not man-made.
The Vale was wounded, not cursed.
That gave him hope.
He climbed a ridge and paused, breath catching.
Below him lay a circular crater filled with swirling silver mist. At its center, a massive stone door stood, half-buried, covered in ancient runes.
Aeron's heart pounded.
This was it.
> The Vault of Aetheris.
He descended quickly but carefully.
The mist clung to his skin, prickling with latent energy. He felt his spiritual aura flicker erratically.
As he approached the door, he noticed a depression in its center—shaped like a triangle.
Without hesitation, he drew the shard and inserted it.
The stone trembled.
The mist withdrew.
With a loud rumble, the door began to open.
Light poured out—not blinding, but calm and golden, like the dawn.
Inside, a vast staircase spiraled downward into darkness lit by floating orbs of fire. The air was thick with ancient power.
Aeron stepped forward.
And the door slammed shut behind him.
He did not flinch.
This was the path of cultivation.
The path of those who dared to change the world.
---
Somewhere far away...
In a dimly lit hall within the Dominion of Ivory Flame, a hooded figure read a scroll with shaking hands.
> "The shard has awakened."
The elder to his left straightened. "Then he has begun."
The figure nodded. "Yes. The child of fire walks again. And the world will burn or bow."
They turned to face a great stone map of the world carved into the floor.
One by one, glowing markers lit up—scattered ruins, dormant seals, ancient tombs.
A storm was coming.
And Aeron stood at its center.