(~1,000 words)
The first thing Shen Liun felt was pain.
Not the pain of broken bones or ruptured meridians—he had grown used to that during the fall. No, this pain was deeper. It clung to his soul, seared into every cell like molten metal poured into the hollow of his body.
His eyes fluttered open.
Only darkness.
The air around him was thick, almost tangible, like a swamp of shadows pressing in on him from all sides. The Abyssal Pit—they had thrown him into the bottom of the world, the cursed place from which no one ever returned.
He tried to move, but his limbs screamed in protest. His right arm hung useless, likely broken in multiple places. His legs were stiff, twisted at unnatural angles. Even his breath rattled, like shards of glass scraping against his ribs.
"I should be dead," he whispered, but even that came out as a ragged breath.
> "You were dying."
The voice came from nowhere—and everywhere.
It echoed in his skull, deep and ancient, like thunder rolling across the void of eternity. Shen Liun's eyes widened as he forced himself upright, leaning against the jagged wall of the pit.
"Who…?"
> "I am Aoshen. The one they sealed in flame, the one Heaven feared."
> "And you… you are mine now."
For a brief moment, silence followed.
Shen Liun coughed violently, blood splattering across the cold stone. He couldn't even feel his Qi. His meridians were mangled, ruptured. He had nothing—no power, no family, no future. Only hatred remained. Hatred and emptiness.
"Why me?" he rasped. "I've lost everything. I have nothing to give you."
> "Precisely," the voice replied. "Those who walk the Ashen Path must be hollow—emptied of hope, burned clean of attachments. Only then can the Ash Flame fill them."
> "Do you want vengeance, boy?"
Liun froze.
The voice wasn't cruel, nor mocking. It was ancient, tired, yet burning with endless fury. He closed his eyes—and saw again the sight of his father's bloodied body, lying in the ruins of their clan hall. His mother's broken hand reaching toward him before the flames took her. The icy glare of Ye Ruoxi, the woman who once promised to stand beside him for life, now watching him fall with disdain.
He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms until blood oozed.
"Yes."
The air shifted.
Heat began to rise from his chest, warm at first, then searing. His body convulsed as a mark—fiery and intricate—burned into his skin, over his heart.
It pulsed in rhythm with his breath.
> "Then accept my flame. Accept the pain, the hunger, the path of ruin. You will never cultivate like they do again. Qi, spirit roots, elemental affinities—useless to you now."
> "From this moment on, you will burn to grow. Devour to rise. Kill to survive."
A sharp scream tore from his throat as black-gold flames erupted from his chest, spreading like wildfire through his ruined meridians. They didn't just flow—they consumed. Old scars were swallowed, shattered bones reknit themselves. His broken dantian—useless and inert—cracked, then split open like a cocoon.
From within, something new emerged.
A dark core, the color of coal streaked with golden veins.
The Ashen Core.
Shen Liun gasped for air, falling to his knees, the last of his mortal pain searing away. The flames died down slowly, leaving glowing embers dancing across his skin.
When he looked at his hands again, they were different—firmer, stronger, steadier.
> "You have awakened the first flame," Aoshen said. "You now walk the Ashen Dao."
Liun rose to his feet, slowly. The darkness still pressed in on him, but now he saw it differently—not as a prison, but as fuel. The chill of death had receded. Something hotter, darker, had taken root within him.
"What… now?" he asked.
> "Now, you survive. You consume. You grow."
> "And when you are strong enough…"
> "You burn the heavens that betrayed us both."
A grin spread across Shen Liun's face—not one of joy, but grim determination. The embers in his eyes mirrored the ones in his chest.
"I will return," he whispered.
His voice, though soft, cut through the silence like a sword.
"To the world that threw me away."
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