The moment Ao Xian vanished, the warmth and light vanished with him. The mausoleum chamber plunged back into a suffocating darkness, the enchanting music replaced by an oppressive silence. The only illumination came from the terrifying, crimson glow of Lin Fan's eyes.
He stood hunched over, his body still trembling from the violent infusion of power. The Asura's Heart beat within his chest, a second, demonic pulse that flooded his veins with pure, unadulterated hatred. It was a power that screamed for release, for a target to annihilate.
"Brother... Brother Lin?" Tie Niu stammered from the doorway, his voice laced with fear. He and Old Man Chen had not moved, paralyzed by the horrifying transformation they had just witnessed.
Lin Fan's head snapped up, his crimson gaze locking onto his two loyal companions. In that instant, they were no longer his friends. They were simply the nearest living things, the most convenient outlet for the storm of malice raging within him.
"The power..." Lin Fan rasped, his voice a guttural growl that was no longer his own. "It needs... blood."
He raised a hand, his fingers curling into a claw as demonic, blood-red energy coalesced around it. An aura of absolute slaughter filled the room. Old Man Chen felt his soul freeze, and even the mighty Tie Niu felt a primal terror that rooted him to the spot. They were going to die. Their friend, the man they had followed into hell itself, was about to erase them.
Lin Fan lunged.
And then, nothing happened.
His body froze mid-strike, a mere foot away from his companions. The demonic energy around his hand sputtered and died. He stared at his own hand in confusion, a flicker of his old self piercing through the red haze. He tried to force the attack, to channel the immense power at his command, but it was like trying to push a mountain. The Asura's Heart in his chest recoiled, refusing to unleash its power on the two men before him.
"What is this?" he snarled in frustration.
In a completely different location, lounging on a cloud overlooking a serene lake, Ao Xian took a delicate bite of a pastry offered by Lian Xin.
"Young Lord, your little anomaly is trying to murder his friends," Hu Mei'er reported, observing the events through a celestial mirror. "It seems the leash is holding."
Ao Xian swallowed and smiled. "Of course, it's holding. What's the point of a toy if it just breaks everything indiscriminately? It would ruin the entire game board." He looked at the mirror with the air of a craftsman admiring his work. "When I had Long Jing 'discipline' the heart, I didn't just quiet it down. I installed a small, fundamental rule into its very essence: its power cannot be used against any being with a net positive karmic value. It's a simple, elegant solution. It ensures our new villain only targets other villains. It keeps the story interesting."
Back in the tomb, Lin Fan stumbled back, clutching his chest. A new layer of information was flooding his senses, a side effect of the 'purified' heart. As he stared at his companions, he didn't just see them as people. He saw the gentle, golden numbers floating above their heads.
[Name: Tie Niu. Karmic Value: +112]
[Name: Old Man Chen. Karmic Value: +87]
The power within him, the very hatred he had embraced, refused to touch them. It was a cage within a cage. He had been given ultimate power, but with rules he could not break, set by the very man he sought to destroy. The final, most exquisite humiliation.
The rage, denied its immediate targets, threatened to tear him apart from the inside.
"Master!" the old soul in his mind shouted, sensing the danger. "The hatred must be vented! Find another target! A deserving one! Think! Who do you hate, besides him? Whose sins cry out for judgment?"
Through the red haze, a memory surfaced. A face contorted in a cruel sneer. The Black Fire Sect. A demonic sect that had slaughtered a village where he had once stayed, whose young master had tried to steal a treasure from him months ago. Their karmic debt was immense.
The hatred inside him seized upon this new target with ravenous glee.
Lin Fan's breathing stabilized. The crimson glow in his eyes sharpened from chaotic rage to a cold, lethal focus. He turned his back on his companions.
"Your debt is paid," he said, his voice devoid of all warmth. "My path is not one you can follow. Leave this place and do not seek me out again."
Without waiting for a reply, he transformed into a streak of blood-red light and shot out of the mausoleum, a guided missile of vengeance aimed squarely at the Black Fire Sect.
Tie Niu and Old Man Chen were left alone in the terrifying darkness, the friendship they had cherished now just a chilling memory.
The Black Fire Sect was nestled in a volcanic mountain range, its very foundation built upon a vein of demonic earth-fire. The air for miles around was acrid with the smell of sulfur and something far more sinister: the lingering scent of burned souls. It was a place of rampant evil, a festering wound on the continent.
Inside the sect's main hall, the Sect Master, a corpulent man with a karmic value of -18,500, was laughing as he watched his son, the Young Master (-4,200), torture a captured cultivator from a rival righteous sect. The elders around them drank wine and cheered, their own karmic values pulsing in the deep negatives. They were celebrating their recent raid on a nearby city, a raid that had netted them a wealth of resources and slaves.
Their celebration was cut short when the massive, obsidian gates of the hall were blasted inward, reduced to molten slag.
A figure stood silhouetted against the fiery landscape. He was cloaked in an aura of blood-red energy so dense it seemed to drink the light from the room. His eyes were twin crimson stars, burning with a hatred so pure and cold it made the demonic earth-fire feel like a gentle hearth.
"Who dares?!" the Sect Master roared, leaping to his feet.
Lin Fan didn't answer. His new senses, empowered by the Asura's Heart, were a symphony of sin. He could see the pulsating, blood-red numbers above every person in the hall. He could feel the weight of their crimes, the echoes of their victims' screams. The power within him, which had been a caged, raging beast, was now a perfectly honed weapon, and it sang with joy at the sight of so many deserving targets.
"You..." the Young Master squinted, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. "You're that righteous fool from the Azure Hills! The one I almost killed for that spirit herb! I thought you were dead!"
"I was," Lin Fan's voice echoed, cold and alien. "You should have made sure."
He took a single step forward, and the entire sect trembled. He wasn't using a movement technique; he was simply imposing his will upon the world. He raised a hand, and a blade of pure, condensed hatred materialized. It was the color of dried blood, and it vibrated with the promise of annihilation.
"Kill him!" the Sect Master bellowed. The elders charged, unleashing their demonic arts—streams of black fire, claws of ghostly energy, curses that could rot the soul.
Lin Fan met the onslaught with a single, contemptuous slash of his blade. The blade of hatred, a core technique of the Asura's legacy called the Scythe of Resentment, tore through the demonic arts as if they were paper. It slammed into the charging elders, and instead of a clean cut, the blade dissolved into a torrent of blood-red energy that invaded their bodies. They screamed in agony as their life force and spiritual energy were violently devoured, their bodies withering into dried husks before crumbling to dust.
In a completely different location, the celestial mirror showed the one-sided slaughter with perfect clarity.
"Oh, he's quite efficient," Mo Lisha commented, sounding pleased. "The Asura's techniques were always crude, but effective. All that devouring and shredding. So direct."
Ancestor Meng stroked his beard thoughtfully. "The karmic leash is working perfectly. He is a divine tribulation in human form, a tool for balancing the heavens' books. And yet... he has his own will. A will that is focused entirely on your son. This is a fascinating paradox."
Ao Tian grunted, a rare hint of approval in his voice. "The boy is cleaning up the trash. At least his tantrum has a productive outcome."
Back in the hall, only the Sect Master and his terrified son remained. Lin Fan advanced slowly, the embodiment of their collective karma come to claim its due.
"Please! Spare me!" the Young Master shrieked, falling to his knees. "I'll give you anything! Treasures, women, cultivation arts!"
Lin Fan's crimson eyes were devoid of any emotion save for a cold, deep-seated loathing. "The heavens may have forgiven your debts," he said, his voice a deathly whisper. "But I do not."
He didn't even use his blade. He simply extended his hand, and a vortex of blood-red energy formed in his palm—the Asura's Devouring Palm. The Young Master was lifted into the air, his spiritual energy and life force being ripped from his body in visible streams of light that fed into Lin Fan. His screams were cut short as he was reduced to a desiccated corpse.
The Sect Master, seeing his son destroyed before his eyes, let out a final, desperate roar and charged, his body swelling with demonic energy. Lin Fan met him head-on, his hand, now glowing with the stolen life force, plunging directly into the Sect Master's chest. The immense demonic power of the Sect Master was instantly suppressed and devoured by the superior, more ancient malice of the Asura's Heart. The corpulent man's body imploded, leaving nothing behind.
Lin Fan stood alone in the now-empty hall. The rage in his heart was sated, the hunger of the Asura's Heart pacified for the moment. But he felt no satisfaction. No triumph. He had just single-handedly wiped out one of the most feared demonic sects on the continent, an act that would have once filled him with righteous pride.
Now, it felt like he had just completed a chore assigned to him.
He looked down at his hands, at the demonic energy that still coiled around them. This immense power was not truly his. It was a gift, a tool, and it came with rules. He could punish the wicked, but he couldn't touch the one whose sins, in his eyes, were the greatest of all.
He slowly looked up, his crimson gaze piercing through the roof of the hall, staring into the heavens above. The hatred in his heart was no longer a wild, chaotic storm. It was a cold, sharp, and patient thing. He understood now. Raw power wasn't enough. To defeat a god who treats the world as a game, you can't just get stronger.
You have to learn how to break the rules.