The sky shattered like glass. And from the depths of its wounds, ruin descended.
A massive tear split the heavens, writhing with chaotic energy. From this cosmic gash poured ruin—monolithic structures, rivers of corrupted Qi, and fragments of Dao laws too profound for this realm to contain. Destruction rained in a storm of annihilation.
Black flames burned in eerie silence, their existence twisted by yin-yang laws, devouring anything they touched. The land groaned under the weight of so much foreign power, Qi itself recoiling as the remnants of divine and abyssal intent tried to take root.
And at the heart of it all—Xuán Tianlei.
His limp body tumbled through the storm, his robes tattered and drenched in blood. The wounds that should have killed him pulsed with an eerie energy, Dao remnants flickering like dying ghosts across his skin. Though unconscious, his body remained untouched by the chaotic forces around him, as if something unseen refused to let him perish.
Yet his arrival was not the only consequence.
Though the devastation was vast, stretching across a valley, it was nothing compared to the scale of the world he had entered. Here, what could have swallowed entire nations in his old world was merely a scar upon a single landscape.
Even so, cultivators were never blind to calamity.
---
At the valley's edge, a group of rough-looking men stood, their faces lit with greed.
Rogue cultivators—drifters and bandits who preyed on the weak. They had witnessed the sky's fracture, the descent of ruin, and the unnatural storm of Qi that followed. Though many weaker cultivators had fled in terror, these men had rushed forward, their hearts burning with avarice.
Because when heaven and earth clashed—treasures were left behind.
The leader of the group, a burly man with a long scar running down his cheek, surveyed the ruined valley. His narrowed eyes flickered across the broken landscape. Charred remnants of stone structures, shattered relics, and black flames dancing in unnatural silence.
"Careful," he muttered.
The others hesitated, but the allure of fortune drove them forward.
The wiry man beside him, draped in tattered robes, scoffed. "What are we afraid of? This is an opportunity! The heavens tore open—who knows what might've fallen through?"
Another cultivator, younger and less experienced, swallowed hard as he gazed at the flickering remnants of Dao laws scattered across the wreckage. "This… doesn't feel right," he murmured.
The scarred leader ignored him. Step by step, they entered the ruined valley.
The moment they crossed into the wreckage, the air changed.
The Qi here was wrong.
It churned and twisted unnaturally, as if resisting their presence. Some areas felt weightless, as though they had stepped into the void. Others pressed down with suffocating force, distorting their movements.
The rogue cultivators tensed.
The black flames—silent, endless, unnatural—licked at the stone and debris. Though they burned cold, their presence alone was disturbing. One man, too eager to test their nature, flicked a blade of Qi toward them.
The Qi blade flickered forward—and then halted. A ripple spread through the air, unnatural, wrong. The black flames stirred as if awakening, and before the man could react, his own attack reversed—twisting back toward him at impossible speed. A scream tore through the silence.
The black fire flickered. A pulse of yin-yang energy reversed the flow of Qi, twisting it back on the attacker.
The man barely had time to scream. His own attack rebounded, piercing straight through his shoulder, sending him sprawling.
The others froze.
"What the hell was that?!"
The leader's expression darkened. He hadn't expected this. Dao remnants from a higher realm had been left behind, their laws still active. This wasn't just a battlefield of destruction—it was a graveyard of foreign forces, a place where even stepping wrong could mean death.
And yet… that only meant greater rewards.
"Be careful where you step," the scarred man muttered, motioning for them to move forward. "If something this strong was left behind, imagine what else we might find."
Despite their unease, greed won out.
They moved deeper into the valley, weaving through the wreckage. The echoes of Dao laws twisted the air around them—fragments of celestial power, abyssal corruption, and traces of forces beyond their understanding.
And then—
A sound.
A faint, ragged breath.
The group halted.
They turned toward the source. Among the wreckage, beneath the shadow of a broken structure, lay a lone figure.
A young man, his robes torn and drenched in blood. His breathing shallow, but present. His body… untouched by the destruction around him, as if the world itself had bent to avoid harming him.
Xuán Tianlei.
The bandits stiffened.
The scarred man's grip tightened on his blade.
"Look at his body," he muttered.
The others followed his gaze—and their eyes widened.
Strange energies clung to the unconscious boy. Dao remnants flickered around him—laws that did not belong to this world. Some bore the radiance of celestial power, others the abyssal corruption of something darker. The black flames that had devoured stone and earth moments before flickered around him—but did not burn him.
The wiry man swallowed hard. "He's an… otherworlder?"
The term was not unfamiliar to them. High-realm cultivators often spoke of such phenomena—places where the boundaries between worlds frayed, allowing things, people, and remnants of other dimensions to slip through. Such occurrences were rare, but when they happened, they always carried one truth.
Otherworlders were anomalies.
They carried secrets, power, and things that did not belong in this world.
The bandits' expressions twisted. Greed warred with caution. The scarred man took a step forward, blade drawn.
"Check if he's alive," he ordered.
The wiry cultivator hesitated—then moved. He crouched beside Xuán Tianlei, reaching out with careful fingers. The moment his hand neared the boy's chest, an unseen force pulsed outward.
The bandit recoiled as if burned. His face paled.
"What the hell was that?!"
The others tensed. The scarred man scowled. "What happened?"
The wiry cultivator shook his head, breathing ragged. "His body—it's soaked in some kind of law. I don't know what it is, but it reacted the moment I got close."
The group fell silent.
The scarred man's expression darkened. He was no fool. This wasn't just some lucky find. Whatever this boy was, he was beyond them. Messing with an anomaly like this could bring fortune—or disaster.
His grip on his blade tightened. "We should kill him."
The wiry cultivator snapped his gaze up. "What?!"
"If he's too dangerous to touch, he's too dangerous to leave alive," the scarred man said coldly. "We don't know who or what will come looking for him. If we take care of him now—"
A soft sound cut through the air.
Breathing.
The bandits froze.
Xuán Tianlei stirred. His body shuddered as his eyes fluttered open, dazed and unfocused. His lips parted—his voice weak, barely a whisper.
"…Father…"
The bandits shared a look.
"He's still alive," one muttered.
The scarred man's expression darkened. His decision was made.
"End him."
The wiry cultivator hesitated.
And then—
A ripple tore through the air.
A sudden weight filled the valley, pressing down like a tide of blood. The air thickened. A chilling pressure, suffused with raw killing intent, descended upon them.
The bandits froze, their Qi stalling in their meridians.
A deep, rumbling voice echoed through the valley.
"How amusing."
A man clad in dark robes emerged, his crimson eyes glinting.
A demonic cultivator.
Their blood ran cold.
The valley fell silent.
The rogue cultivators, hardened by years of wandering and bloodshed, stood frozen as the presence pressed down upon them like a mountain of slaughtered souls. The air itself quivered under the weight of his aura—dense, suffocating, steeped in the scent of death and malice.
The man stood at the edge of the destruction, clad in dark robes embroidered with crimson patterns resembling writhing tendrils. His long black hair cascaded down his back, his pale skin stark against the backdrop of ruin. His eyes—deep pools of red that gleamed with amusement—swept over the group like a predator sizing up its prey.
One of the bandits took an unconscious step back, his instincts screaming at him to flee.
A demonic cultivator.
Not just any demonic cultivator. The sheer density of his Qi, the way the land itself seemed to reject his presence, spoke of a realm far beyond theirs. He was no mere rogue who had turned to forbidden arts—he was a master of his craft, a being steeped in slaughter and dark Dao.
The scarred leader gritted his teeth, forcing himself to speak. "Senior… this place is filled with dangerous remnants. We—"
Before he could finish, the demonic cultivator raised a hand.
A single motion.
A force unseen swept through the valley.
The bandits barely had time to react. An invisible grip two of their men, lifting their bodies into the air as if they were mere insects caught in a storm. Their Qi resisted for a fraction of a second—then crumbled.
The weakest among them—two men in ragged armor—let out strangled gasps as the pressure increased. Their bodies convulsed, bones creaking, eyes bulging in terror.
"Senior! Spare us—!"
Their voices were cut short.
The invisible force tightened. Then twisted.
A sickening crunch—too sharp, too final—filled the air.
Their bodies crumpled inward, flesh and bone crushed into orbs of congealed blood. The crimson spheres floated lazily around him, pulsing as if still alive.
The remaining bandits trembled. One of them—a younger cultivator with a wild beard—dropped to his knees, his forehead pressed against the dirt.
"Senior! We had no intention of offending you! Please, we are mere wanderers seeking fortune—"
The demonic cultivator tilted his head, amusement flickering in his crimson eyes.
"Fortune?" His voice was smooth, almost mocking. "Then why do you quiver so? You sought opportunity in ruin… yet fear the consequences?"
The scarred leader forced himself to speak, his hands clenched at his sides. "We— We were only scavenging, Senior. We did not expect to disturb someone of your stature…"
The demonic cultivator chuckled. It was a low, dark sound, like a blade dragging against bone.
"Leave, then."
The bandits hesitated. One of them, a wiry man with sharp eyes, looked between his fallen comrades and the demonic cultivator. His fists clenched, his Qi stirring as if he were weighing his chances.
The cultivator's gaze flicked toward him.
A single glance.
The wiry man's legs buckled. He stumbled back, sweat pouring down his face as his breath came in ragged gasps. He didn't even understand what had just happened—only that for a brief moment, something had crushed his will to resist.
He turned and fled.
The others followed. No words were exchanged. No one even looked back. Within moments, they had vanished into the ruined landscape, their figures swallowed by the shadows of the valley.
The demonic cultivator let out a soft hum.
A few ants had slipped away. It mattered little. He had no need to slaughter needlessly—it was more entertaining to see who could survive the fear he instilled.
His attention shifted.
Xuán Tianlei lay motionless on the ruined ground, his body still wrapped in the remnants of foreign Dao laws, untouched by the black flames that had consumed everything else.
The demonic cultivator stepped forward, his boots sinking slightly into the disturbed earth.
He studied the boy for a moment, eyes flickering with intrigue.
"…Interesting."
Others would have perished. Even seasoned cultivators of his realm would have suffered irreversible damage, their foundations shattered, their minds eroded by the chaotic remnants of the battle beyond worlds.
And yet, this boy—this mere child—bore those scars without breaking.
His body had been torn apart, his meridians cracked, his cultivation base in turmoil. Yet he still lived. Not through luck, not through some external force—but through sheer defiance of death itself.
A slow smirk curved the demonic cultivator's lips.
He crouched beside the unconscious boy, reaching out. The moment his fingers neared Xuán Tianlei's skin, the lingering Dao remnants reacted. An unseen force pushed against him, resisting, twisting, trying to reject his touch.
He chuckled.
"Even now, these laws refuse to let you fall. Just what are you?"
His hand pressed forward. The resistance cracked.
A pulse of crimson Qi seeped into the boy's body. Not to harm, not to probe, but to test. He watched, fascinated, as Xuán Tianlei's body instinctively absorbed the energy—his meridians, no matter how damaged, drinking it in as if his very existence refused stagnation.
The smirk deepened.
"Fascinating."
He had planned to simply reap the corpse, to extract whatever lingering essence remained within this anomaly. But now?
Now he was curious.
A gust of wind swept through the valley, carrying with it the whispers of destruction left behind. The black flames flickered one last time before fading, the remnants of higher realm laws dissipating into the void. The land, though scarred, was beginning to settle.
The demonic cultivator rose to his feet, Xuán Tianlei's unconscious form floating beside him, wrapped in a cocoon of crimson Qi.
"This might be interesting after all."
And with that, he vanished, leaving only the echoes of slaughter in his wake.