Days bled into one another. Down in the Abyss, there was no sun, no moon. Only the endless, dripping dark and the ghostly blue light of the fungi. Time was measured by the hunger. The cold, sharp need inside me that was never truly satisfied.
I survived.
I ate the things that scurried in the dark. I devoured their life, their fear, their tiny, pathetic instincts. Each one made me stronger, faster. But it didn't fill the hole. It only made it bigger.
My body was a weapon now. My senses were sharp. But my mind was a room of ghosts. Liang Wei's sneer. Mei Lian's fake pity. Elder Shen's final, dismissive shove. I replayed it all. I savored the pain. It was the only thing that was truly mine.
One day, following a current of foul air, I found a way out of the deepest pits. I climbed for what felt like an eternity, my stolen muscles burning, until I emerged not into sunlight, but into a land of perpetual twilight. A sky the color of a bruise hung heavy above a forest of black, twisted trees. The air was thick with the stench of rot and something else… something metallic and wrong.
This was the edge of the **Gloomwood Marsh**, the territory of the Shadow Veil Clan. A clan that dabbled in arts the "righteous" sects called forbidden. I had only ever heard whispers of them, warnings told to scare children into obedience.
I moved through the twisted trees, a shadow among shadows. I saw their settlement in the distance. A village of huts built from bone and blackened wood, nestled in the roots of a colossal, dead tree. There were no guards. No walls. They didn't need them. The land itself was their weapon.
I watched them from a distance. They were pale, gaunt people with dark, knowing eyes. They moved with a strange, fluid grace. They didn't shun the darkness; they wore it like a cloak. They didn't fight the monsters of the marsh; they whispered to them, bargained with them.
They felt my presence. I knew they did. A few of them lifted their heads, their eyes scanning the treeline where I hid. But they didn't attack. They didn't shout. They just… watched. A slow, curious appraisal. I was an anomaly. A new, interesting scent in their familiar world.
One of them, a woman with intricate black tattoos crawling up her neck, raised a hand and made a gesture. It wasn't a threat. It was an invitation. Come closer.
I didn't.
I was done with clans. Done with groups. Done with people. They were all the same. They took, and they took, and when you had nothing left to give, they threw you away. The Shadow Veil Clan was just another side of the same coin. They offered acceptance, but it was the acceptance of a collector for a new, interesting specimen. I was not a specimen.
I turned my back on them and continued my journey. I needed to see the world that had cast me out. I needed to understand the enemy.
Days later, I left the twilight of the marsh behind and stepped into the blinding light of the Sunfire Plains. It was a world of gold and green. Rolling hills under a brilliant blue sky. The air was clean, warm. It felt like a lie.
In the distance, I saw a procession. A group of disciples in pristine white and gold robes, the colors of the **Golden Sun Sect**, Azure Sky's greatest rival. They were escorting a large, ornate cage. Inside the cage was a creature. It looked like a man, but its skin was the color of moss, and its eyes were like pools of stagnant water. A **Bog Wraith**. A nature spirit that had been corrupted.
The Golden Sun disciples were laughing. They were prodding the Wraith with the butts of their spears, mocking its guttural cries.
"Behold the foulness of the Shadow Veil!" their leader, a handsome young man with a sneer as sharp as Liang Wei's, announced to the farmers who had gathered to watch. "This is what happens when you turn from the light! This is what happens when you dabble in forbidden arts! This is the evil we protect you from!"
The farmers cheered. They threw flowers at the Golden Sun disciples. They spat at the cage.
I watched from the crest of a hill, hidden in the tall grass. I saw the "righteousness" in their eyes. I saw the "goodness" of their deeds. And I saw the truth.
They weren't protecting anyone. They were putting on a show. They were torturing a creature, not for justice, but for applause. The light they served wasn't pure. It was just a brighter, more arrogant kind of darkness.
The Wraith's eyes, dull and hopeless, met mine for a single second. In them, I saw myself. Trapped. Mocked. Helpless.
The hunger inside me roared to life. But it was different this time. It wasn't just for life. It was for something else. Something… darker.
I felt a strange pull, a resonance from the blackened trees of the Gloomwood Marsh I had left behind. The darkness there had felt my pain. It had felt my rage. And it was calling to me.
*Come back,* it seemed to whisper. *You do not belong in the light. You belong with us.*
That night, as the Golden Sun Sect celebrated their "victory" with a feast, I slipped away. I didn't go back to the marsh. I went deeper into the plains, following a pull I didn't understand. I was weak, the stolen power from the Abyssal creatures fading like a dying ember. I needed food. Real food.
I stumbled into a small farming village on the edge of the plains. A woman was hanging laundry outside her small cottage. She saw me approach, a ragged, gaunt figure emerging from the twilight. Her eyes widened, not with fear, but with pity.
"Oh, you poor thing," she said, her voice soft. "You look like you've been through the wringer. Come, sit. I have some leftover stew."
My heart, a frozen lump in my chest, almost thawed. A kind word. A kind gesture. It was so foreign it hurt.
I sat on a small stool she offered. She brought me a bowl of steaming stew. It was the best thing I had ever smelled. As I brought the spoon to my lips, her young daughter, no older than six, ran out from the cottage. She stopped dead when she saw me.
Her cheerful expression vanished. She pointed a tiny, trembling finger at me.
"Monster," she whispered.
The woman's face fell. She gently pulled her daughter behind her, looking at me not with pity now, but with a dawning, cautious fear. "Now, now, Elara, don't be rude."
But the damage was done. The word hung in the air between us. *Monster.*
I looked down at my hands. They were dirty, my nails were caked with grime. But under the dirt, I could feel the new strength. The stolen power. I was not like them. The child was right.
I stood up, leaving the untouched stew on the stool. "Thank you for the offer," I said, my voice a cold, empty rasp. "But I've lost my appetite."
I walked away, not looking back. I could feel their eyes on my back. The pity had turned to relief. The kindness had been a mistake. A fleeting lapse in judgment.
That was the final wound. Not the betrayal of my fiancé. Not the cruelty of the Sect. But the quiet, honest terror of a child who saw the truth of what I was becoming.
I was no longer Xia Lin. I was something else. Something to be feared. Something to be rejected.
That night, I found it. A small, forgotten shrine, half-swallowed by the earth. It was ancient, older than the sects, older than the clans. Inside, on a stone altar, was a single, black, unmarked stone.
It was cold to the touch. It felt… empty. Like me.
As my fingers brushed against it, the world went silent. The hunger in my gut vanished, replaced by a profound, chilling emptiness. A voice, not in my head, but in my very soul, spoke. It was the voice of the stone, the voice of the darkness in the marsh, the voice of every forgotten, hated thing in the world.
*They hurt you.*
*They threw you away.*
*They called you monster.*
*We see you. We feel you. We are you.*
*Take our hand. Take our power. And we will show them what a monster can truly do.*
The word echoed in the hollow of my soul. *Monster.* A child's honest terror. A world's final judgment.
I didn't hesitate. I had nothing left to lose.
"Yes," I whispered, my voice raw.
The stone didn't glow. It didn't shine. It drank the light around it, and a cold, black energy flowed from it, not into my dantian, but directly into my heart. It didn't feel like the viper's energy. It didn't feel like the Stalker's. It felt like… coming home.
It was a power of endings. Of decay. Of absolute, final stillness. It seeped into the cracks of my broken soul, filling me with a cold, terrible strength. I felt whole for the first time since I was thrown into that pit.
But as the darkness settled, a single, chilling thought bloomed in my mind, clear and sharp as a shard of ice.
Was this power corrupting me… or revealing what the world had already decided I was?
---
### **Hundreds of Miles Away**
In a tower of polished white stone that scraped the clouds, a man sat at a desk of obsidian. His name was **Lord Cassian Varek**, and he was the Enforcer of the Celestial Balance. His job was not to judge good or evil. His job was to ensure that the cosmic scales remained level.
Suddenly, he looked up from his reports, his head tilting as if he had heard a sound no one else could hear. He frowned, his sharp, intelligent eyes scanning the horizon as if he could see through the very walls of his tower.
A junior acolyte entered the room, carrying a fresh stack of scrolls. "My Lord, is everything alright?"
Cassian didn't answer. He stood and walked to the massive window that overlooked the world. He could feel it. A tremor in the fabric of reality. A tiny, pinprick of absolute, concentrated *unbalance*.
It was faint. Distant. But it was there. A new, hungry darkness had been born where none should be.
"Prepare my horse," he said, his voice calm but cold as winter. "And bring me the maps of the Sunfire Plains."
He didn't know what it was. He didn't know who it was.
But he knew he had to find it.
Balance had noticed her. And balance never asked permission.