A tremor wracked his body. His spine arched as the barrier between Early and Mid Flesh Tempering shattered. Power erupted within him; not the fleeting rush of a breakthrough, but something deeper, darker. His senses sharpened: he could taste the mildew clinging to the hut's walls, hear the skitter of insects beneath the floorboards, feel the faint vibration of distant footsteps as disciples began their morning routines.
When he opened his eyes, his vision pierced the dimness as though it were daylight. He flexed his hand, marveling at the corded muscle beneath his transformed skin.
He had reached Mid Flesh Tempering stage.
A leap forward, yet still far to insufficient...
Tao Yiming could have killed me.
The truth settled like a stone in his gut. His shadow was a weapon, yes, but crude and unrefined one. He had no counters for ghostly qi, no defense against the dead. The Wraith's Form Flesh Union Mantra had carved its lesson into his flesh: raw power meant nothing without precision and without adaptation, history is doomed to repeat itself...
He rose, his shadow slithering up the wall like a living tapestry; the dawn's light seeping through the hut's lone window, gilding the edges of the darkness. Zhang Yan stared at his reflection in a basin of water; a face sharpened by hunger, his eyes likened to a cold, predatory creature lurking in shadows..
The boy who had entered the Demon Sect was gone. What remained was a creature of survival, honed by desperation.
But survival was not enough at least not anymore.
His fingers brushed the manual tucked into what was left of his robes; the Devouring Nine Shadows, its pages now stained with blood and ambition. It had given him power, but it was a path he walked alone.
There's no master or no allies to trust or turn to in a demon sect.
Only the whispers of the shadows, urging him to...
Devour the fallen, adapt to the darkness and ascend over the corpses of the weak.
He would need more than stolen strength. He would need to become unstoppable.
Outside, the sect stirred to life, oblivious to the reckoning taking shape in the shadows.
Zhang Yan closed his eyes again, not to rest, but to plan.
The next hunt would be on his terms...