The Ninth Generation sky wept black rain.
Thunder without lightning cracked the heavens, as if the Dao itself mourned—or mocked—the fall of its most promising son.
Zhen Mo knelt on the shattered jade platform of the Zhen Clan Ancestral Hall, wrists bound by chains forged from star-iron and inscribed with suppression runes. Blood dripped from his lips, mixing with the venom that burned through his meridians like molten iron.
Each heartbeat sent fresh agony spiraling outward, qi pathways collapsing one by one.
Above him stood his elder brother, Zhen Kai, robes pristine white, sword still dripping crimson—their father's blood.
The patriarch's corpse lay sprawled at the hall's center, eyes wide in disbelief, throat slit clean.
The killing wound matched the curved blade Zhen Mo had once gifted his brother on their shared coming-of-age ceremony."You... framed me," Zhen Mo rasped, voice hoarse from screaming earlier when the venom first entered his bloodstream. "Our blood... the same vein..."Zhen Kai's smile was cold, devoid of the warmth Zhen Mo remembered from childhood nights when they trained together under moonlight, dreaming of ascending as twin Sovereigns."Blood? What is blood in the face of the Dao?" Zhen Kai stepped forward, boot pressing against the patriarch's lifeless chest. "Father was weak.
Clinging to outdated notions of clan unity. He favored you—the prodigy with the Ninefold Heavenly Root. He would have named you heir, and I... I would have been nothing. A shadow."The hall's elders—uncles, cousins, former teachers—stood silent. Their eyes flickered with guilt, greed, fear. None moved to speak.Zhen Mo laughed, a wet, broken sound. "The Dao... you speak of the Dao? The Heavenly Dao is impartial, brother. It rewards talent, not schemes.
You think killing Father and poisoning me will make you Sovereign?
You will only hasten your own tribulation.
"Zhen Kai's face twisted.
"Impartial? Look around, little brother.
The heavens have already chosen. They let this happen.
They let me win."He raised a hand. A jade bottle appeared—Soul-Devouring Venom, forbidden even among demonic sects.
One drop had already been forced down Zhen Mo's throat during the "trial." Now the rest hovered, black liquid swirling like living smoke."You were always too gentle," Zhen Kai murmured. "Too trusting.
You believed family meant something.
But cultivation is a path of solitude. The strong devour the weak.
Kinship is merely another chain."He poured.The venom cascaded over Zhen Mo's head, seeping into skin, eyes, nostrils. Fire exploded inside him—not ordinary flame, but soul-fire. His Nascent Soul screamed, cracking like porcelain. Memories flashed: childhood laughter with Zhen Kai, their mother's gentle hands teaching qi circulation, the patriarch's proud nod when Zhen Mo formed his first Golden Core at age twelve.All illusions
.All lies.
Pain reached a crescendo.
Zhen Mo's vision tunneled.
He saw the Dao—not as light and harmony, but as a vast, indifferent wheel grinding souls into dust.
The Heavenly Dao did not care for justice, only balance. And balance demanded sacrifice.
If the heavens are impartial... then why do the weak suffer while the cunning thrive?The philosophy burned hotter than the venom.The Dao is not kind.
It is cruel.
It rewards only those willing to sever every tie, to devour every obstacle.
Kinship? Love? Loyalty? Mere delusions of mortals clinging to mortality.
Zhen Mo's hatred crystallized, sharper than any sword.
He lifted his head, abyssal black eyes meeting Zhen Kai's. "Remember this day, brother.
The day you cast me into the abyss.
One day... I will return.
And when I do, no blood will protect you.
No heaven will shield you. I will devour everything you built upon my corpse.
"Zhen Kai laughed.
"Bold words for a dying man.
"The elders chanted.
Formation runes ignited beneath the platform. Space tore open—a pitch-black maw, the legendary Abyss of Eternal Night.
Gravity warped; wind howled upward like souls being sucked into hell.They dragged Zhen Mo to the edge.He did not resist.
His body was broken, but his will... his will burned eternal.As they shoved him forward, Zhen Mo whispered one final vow:"If death claims me... let hatred be my rebirth."The abyss swallowed him.
Darkness absolute.
No light.
No sound.
Only endless falling.
Time lost meaning.
Days? Years? The venom continued its work, dissolving flesh and soul alike.
Zhen Mo's consciousness frayed at the edges.
Yet something refused to break.Deep within his shattered dantian, a tiny, ancient artifact—long forgotten, a relic from the Eighth Generation he had unearthed as a child—pulsed faintly.
The Abyss Soul Devourer, a taboo item said to fuse wielder and void itself.Hatred fed it.
The artifact drank his rage like fine wine.
Black tendrils erupted from the relic, weaving through ruined meridians, stitching soul fragments back together.
Pain beyond pain.
But with pain came clarity.
The path of cultivation is devouring.
The strong consume the weak to become stronger.
Heaven devours the defiant to maintain order.
Then I... will devour heaven itself.His soul fused.
The Abyss welcomed him—not as prey, but as kin. A new core formed: the Void Abyss Core, a black hole where light died and power was born.
Zhen Mo's eyes snapped open in the dark. He was no longer falling.He was rising.Hatred had become his Dao. Revenge... his eternal flame.
The Ninth Generation would tremble.And the heavens... would burn.
.*Pre-Chapter 1
Ten years passed in the mortal world.But in the Abyss, time was a lie.Zhen Mo awoke to silence so profound it pressed against his eardrums like water.
His body—no longer flesh, but something denser, colder—lay on jagged obsidian shards.
Black ichor dripped from cracks in the stone, pooling around him like amniotic fluid.He inhaled.No air. Only void essence. It entered his lungs anyway, flooding meridians that should have been destroyed.
Qi—no, something purer, hungrier—circulated automatically.The Void Abyss Core thrummed in his chest.
With each pulse, abyssal energy cycled: inhale destruction, exhale creation twisted dark.
He sat up.
Bones cracked and reformed. Skin sloughed off in flakes, revealing new flesh etched with faint black marks—Abyssal Resonance Runes.
Each one a devoured fragment of the void's laws. Philosophy flooded his mind unbidden, deep and merciless:The Dao of Heaven is suppression.
It binds talent, enforces mediocrity, punishes the exceptional with tribulation.
The Dao of Abyss is freedom.
It devours limits, consumes boundaries, turns every fall into ascent. To cultivate is to devour. To live is to consume. There is no other path.
He clenched a fist.Space around his hand warped.
Tiny cracks appeared—void fractures. A low growl echoed.An abyssal beast—hulking shadow with eyes like dying stars—lunged from the darkness. Zhen Mo did not flinch.
His palm met its charge.Abyssal Devour Palm—instinct, not learned.Black light bloomed.The beast's roar cut short as its essence funneled backward—qi, blood, soul—straight into the Void Abyss Core. Power surged.Zhen Mo felt his cultivation rebound: from ruined Nascent Soul remnants... straight to Foundation Establishment peak, then Core Formation early.One devour. One step closer.
The beast collapsed into ash.Zhen Mo stood.A rift shimmered ahead—thin tear in reality, leading to the mortal realms.He stepped toward it.Behind him, the Abyss whispered:Return. Devour. Defy.Zhen Mo smiled coldly."The world cast me down.
Now... I return to claim what is mine."The rift swallowed him.Light pierced the dark for the first time in a decade.
Eastern Domain. Wasteland border.
Zhen Mo emerged, robes tattered, aura restrained—but eyes burning with abyssal fire.A patrol of Zhen Clan outer disciples appeared on the horizon.Their leader sneered. "Another beggar from the forbidden zone?"Zhen Mo's lips curved. First taste... of revenge.
(Cliffhanger into Chapter 1: "The First Devour")!