"He has no path left to walk."
"Let him rot in the void."
"Even eternity cannot fix a broken fate."
The voices echoed like ghosts in the dark.
Xu Shen's body floated in nothingness—no bones, no blood, no soul. He had died again. The 10,000th death. Struck down by the Celestial Lords after climbing halfway to the Origin Realm.
He should've been gone.
But something remained.
A flicker.
A spark.
"…You refuse to disappear, Xu Shen."
A new voice, deeper, colder. One that hadn't spoken in millennia.
From the abyss emerged a swirling black rift—the Void Gate. And from it, countless versions of Xu Shen tumbled through. Each from a different life. Warrior. Beast. Demon. Slave. Monk. Emperor.
"You are the echo of yourself."
"Now, remember."
Flame ignited.
Memories of ten thousand lives surged back into his core. Pain. Glory. Failure. Victory. Sword arts. Palm techniques. Dao insights. All returned.
And something else awakened with them: a mark on his soul. One shaped like a devouring serpent curled around a broken wheel.
The Mark of the Devourer.
He screamed—not from pain, but from rebirth.
He opened his eyes.
Mud. Rain. A dirt hut that smelled of smoke and sweat.
He was no longer in a divine palace or battlefield. He lay on a straw mat in a crumbling village.
His hands—small. His body—weak. Barely thirteen.
A child's body… but my soul is ancient.
He clenched his fist. Though frail, it trembled with power that hadn't yet surfaced.
Footsteps approached.
An old man hobbled in, long white hair tied back in a crude knot.
"So, you're awake, eh? Took you two days. Thought you were brain-dead." The man tossed him a cracked wooden bowl of rice. "Eat. Then come sweep the courtyard."
"Who are you?" Xu Shen asked.
"Your master," the old man replied. "Welcome to the Bone-Fist Pavilion, brat."
The Bone-Fist Pavilion.
A low-ranked martial sect at the edge of the Slag Realm, known only for hard labor and being forgotten by the heavens.
Perfect.
Xu Shen smiled faintly. "What's your name, old man?"
The elder raised a brow. "They call me Old Ghost. You'll call me Master."
"Fine."
The rice tasted like ash, but Xu Shen didn't complain. He needed strength.
Not to impress anyone.
But because he remembered what came next.
That night, as the village slept under thunderclouds, Xu Shen sat alone, legs crossed on the cold dirt floor.
He closed his eyes.
"Let's test what survived the passage."
In his mind, a black sea spread wide—his spiritual sea.
At its center floated a glowing ember: the Heaven-Devouring Core, forged over thousands of lifetimes and tempered through endless failures.
Even in this child's body, it still pulsed.
He reached for it.
[System Awakening…]
[Initializing Soul Integration… 3%… 12%… 45%…]
A searing pain ripped through him. His bones cracked. Blood dripped from his nose.
[Devourer's Path Activated.]
[Flame-Fist Sutra (Life #189) recovered.]
[Ironbone Body (Life #402) partially integrated.]
He gasped.
It worked.
He hadn't lost everything.
His soul—tied to 10,000 lifetimes—was still evolving.
"If I can unlock even a fragment of every life… I'll become something the heavens cannot erase."
At dawn, he went to the training yard.
Children of the Bone-Fist Pavilion practiced basic forms—sloppy, weak, unrefined.
Xu Shen mimicked them. He didn't draw attention.
Not yet.
But every night, in secret, he cultivated forbidden styles from lives long past—styles that had once shattered mountains and slain immortals.
On the seventh day, a young disciple named Luo Jin mocked him publicly.
"You barely hold a stance, orphan. What are you? Some cripple they dug from a ditch?"
Xu Shen didn't reply.
Jin struck first—aiming for the ribs.
Xu shifted slightly. No effort. His palm moved.
Crack.
Luo Jin hit the wall and collapsed, clutching a broken shoulder.
Silence.
The sect elders watched from above.
Xu Shen lowered his head, but not out of shame.
He was just tired of hiding.
That night, lightning flashed.
Rain fell in sheets.
And deep in the mountains, the Devourer's Core pulsed again.
[Memory Fragment — Life #1: The Ash-Blood Emperor — Recovered.]
[Do you wish to merge the Ash-Blood Sword Style?]
Xu Shen opened his eyes. They glowed crimson.
"Merge it. All of it."