The sun, a merciless eye glaring down from a sky choked with dust, scorched the barren land of the Blackwood estate. Li Shen's back bent under its heat, sweat streaming down his thin frame, soaking his threadbare tunic. The hoe in his hands struck the ground with a dull rhythm—crack, scrape, lift. The earth was cracked and dry, as if even the land itself had given up on hope. He dug anyway.
Around him, dozens of other slaves worked in silence. The only sounds were the scrape of tools, the occasional grunt of effort, and the barked insults of the overseers. Li Shen didn't look up. He knew the eyes on him. Watching. Waiting.
"You, worm! Faster!"
The voice lashed the air like a whip. Elder Feng.
Li Shen's jaw clenched as the shadow fell over him. Elder Feng was a gaunt man with hawk-like features and an ever-present sneer. His once-fine robes hung loose around his bones, the sleeves stained with soil and spiritual residue. Though his cultivation had barely reached Foundation Establishment, he strutted like a Core Formation elder. Among slaves, that was enough.
Li Shen didn't speak. Didn't flinch. He simply hoisted the hoe and struck again.
Crack. Scrape. Lift.
Feng's sneer deepened. "Still so quiet, eh? Still dreaming of Qi like the other filth? You're from that cursed line, aren't you? The 'Heaven Destruction' nonsense? Bah! There's not a trace of spiritual light in you."
He spat on the ground near Li Shen's feet. The phlegm sizzled faintly, a result of the weak Qi imbued in it. "Know your place, boy. You were born for dirt."
The words cut, though they were familiar. Li Shen had heard them a thousand times, from guards, from cultivators, from other slaves who feared association. He should've been numb by now. But he wasn't.
His grip tightened on the hoe's handle. His body trembled—not with fatigue, though it weighed him like a mountain—but with something hotter. Angrier.
But he buried it. That was survival. No anger. No resistance. No dreams.
He struck the ground again.
Crack. Scrape. Lift.
---
At night, when the other slaves collapsed into exhausted heaps in their shared huts, Li Shen would sneak away. He'd walk to the edge of the estate, near the dried-out well behind the old animal pens. It was the only place they didn't bother guarding—there was nowhere to run.
He would sit cross-legged on the hard earth, close his eyes, and breathe.
Inhale. Exhale. Silence.
The cultivators often spoke of spiritual Qi—how it flowed like rivers through the world, how one could draw it into themselves, refine it, become more than flesh. They said the world itself whispered to those who knew how to listen.
Li Shen listened.
But there was nothing.
No whisper.
No flow.
Only absence.
Sometimes, if he strained hard enough, he felt… not emptiness, but resistance. As if something ancient and unseen pressed against him. A veil that would not lift. Like a gate sealed by the heavens themselves.
It wasn't that the Qi was gone—it recoiled from him. Actively.
It made him sick with frustration. It made him doubt his mind. But above all, it made him wonder—why?
Was he truly born broken? Were the overseers right?
"Qi is life," he had heard once. "Without it, you are dead standing."
Then why was he alive?
---
The next day was no better.
They were made to clean the stables of the Spirit Horses—beasts that once roamed free in the misty edges of the Eastern Peaks. Now, broken and docile, they served the Blackwood Clan's cultivators. Just like Li Shen.
The air inside the stable stank of sweat, dung, and humiliation. Li Shen worked alongside a younger slave, a girl no older than ten. She coughed as she swept, and every time she paused, her eyes darted toward the entrance in fear.
Li Shen whispered, "I'll cover this side. Take a break."
The girl looked at him, wide-eyed. She didn't speak. She simply nodded and moved to the corner, curling into a ball.
He worked faster.
An hour passed.
Then footsteps.
Elder Feng again. With two younger cultivators behind him—disciples of the Blackwood inner circle. Their robes were embroidered with silver threads, and their eyes held the gleam of arrogance born from never having suffered.
"Still alive, slave?" Feng asked, stepping into the stable. "I wonder if you'll ever just drop one day and save us the trouble."
The two disciples laughed.
One, a lanky youth with sharp teeth, nudged the girl with his boot. "Hey, rat. What are you doing resting? Get up!"
Li Shen straightened.
"She was sick, so I told her to rest."
Feng's brows lifted. "You told her?"
A pause.
Then the strike.
Feng's palm slammed into Li Shen's chest. Not enough to kill. Just enough to hurt.
The force lifted Li Shen off his feet and threw him against the stable wall. Pain exploded in his ribs.
He slid down, coughing.
"Next time," Feng said, dusting off his hand, "you'll lose your tongue."
The girl was already back to work. Silent. Pale.
Li Shen said nothing.
But something inside him screamed.
---
That night, he returned to the well. But he didn't sit.
He stood. He glared at the stars.
"You mock me," he whispered.
The sky did not answer.
"I breathe. I bleed. I feel. But you deny me everything. Why?"
Still, silence.
But something stirred. Deep in his bones. A strange warmth, not of Qi. Deeper. Older. Not divine. Not demonic.
Primordial.
And then… he heard a sound.
Not from outside.
From within.
A single beat.
Thump.
And then again.
Thump.
His heart?
No.
It was different. Like an echo of something ancient awakening from slumber.
He gasped and staggered back.
Then it stopped.
And all was still.
---
In the coming days, he noticed things.
The cultivators were… uneasy. Whispers traveled among the higher-ranked ones.
"Another sect burned."
"They say the elders were corrupted… turned against their disciples."
"There's something in the Qi lately. Wrongness."
Li Shen listened.
And wondered.
He also heard something else.
Two guards near the granary laughed over rice wine.
"…like one of them Heaven Destruction bastards. That's what the elder said."
"Hah! That line? Weren't they all wiped out centuries ago?"
"Mostly. But the records say they defied Heaven's Will. Tried to rewrite the heavens."
"Idiots. That's why the heavens cursed them. Their descendants can't even feel Qi."
A pause.
"Still, dangerous blood. Makes you wonder… if any survived."
Li Shen passed them unnoticed, head bowed. But the words clung to him like thorns.
Heaven Destruction.
Again.
And something in him—some fragment—responded. Not with fear. But familiarity.
---
Later that week, during another backbreaking task—carrying water up the hill from the near-dry stream—a slave collapsed.
Old man. Cracked hands. Empty eyes.
No one moved.
Li Shen did.
He knelt beside him, offered water. Tried to shake him awake.
The man's eyes fluttered. "They… don't want us to know," he rasped.
"Know what?"
"The truth… of your blood… boy…"
Li Shen leaned closer. "What truth?"
But the man's body stiffened. His breath stopped.
Dead.
---
Days passed.
The pressure in the air thickened. Even the beasts were uneasy. Spirit birds flew in erratic patterns. The wind carried whispers of doom.
And then… the tremor.
A surge of energy tore through the estate one night. The ground shook. Alarms rang.
Li Shen was flung from his sleeping mat. Screams erupted outside.
He crawled to the window slit.
In the distance, the sky burned.
Dark figures flew toward the estate—cultivators cloaked in Qi, but their auras twisted. Corrupted.
Blackwood disciples rose to intercept them, blades drawn, techniques lighting the heavens.
But they were losing.
Something was wrong.
One of the guards ran past, blood on his robe. "Protect the inner sanctum! The corrupted are coming!"
Corrupted.
Demon-touched cultivators.
Li Shen's heart pounded.
And then… something snapped.
Not outside.
Inside him.
That beat again.
Thump.
Thump.
Louder.
Hotter.
Like a forgotten drum calling something lost back to life.
His skin prickled. The veil that had always held him back… shivered.
Then came the scream—louder than any human throat could produce. A wail of rage. Of ancient agony.
And something answered inside him.
He fell to his knees.
Eyes wide.
And laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
But because he felt something.
Not Qi.
But power.
Not drawn in…
…but buried within.