The stink of blood was everywhere.
It clung to Shen Riven's skin, soaked into his clothes, and crawled into his nose until every breath felt tainted. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes—hunger, exhaustion, or the lingering backlash of Qi corruption. He couldn't tell anymore.
He crouched beneath the shattered overhang of a ruined transport hub, rubble piled like bones around him. The red haze from the rift sky above bled through cracks in the stone, tinting the dust in hues of dried rust.
Something was here.
Something breathing.
Shen's fingers tightened around the length of iron he'd pried from a collapsed support beam earlier. It was no weapon—just a rusted pipe, jagged at one end. But it was weight in his hand. A promise of resistance. That was all he had.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, steady but cold. No panic. Not anymore. Not after the things he'd already seen.
He pressed his back to the wall, listening.
Thud. Drag. Thud.
A sick, slithering rhythm, getting closer. He exhaled slowly through his nose, calming the tremor in his limbs.
You're not dead yet.
A few hours ago, he'd stumbled out of a skirmish with a fang-beast that nearly tore his guts out. He still had the three gashes to prove it—sloppily sealed with scavenged cloth, soaked in bile to prevent rot. It wasn't healing. It was festering.
But that didn't matter now. He'd live through this fight first. Then maybe the next.
A shadow moved across the rubble-strewn path ahead. Shen held his breath.
It emerged.
A creature crawled out of the darkness, hunched low, its skin raw and muscle-like, as if it had no outer flesh at all. It had too many limbs, too many joints bending the wrong way. No eyes. Just flared nostrils and a gaping maw that twitched at the scent in the air.
It's blind, but it smells me.
Shen didn't move. Didn't breathe.
The creature tilted its head. A low, wet rasp echoed from its throat.
Close enough. He exploded into motion.
The pipe slammed into the side of its skull with a brutal clang. The beast shrieked and reared back—but not far. Not enough. One of its limbs lashed out, raking claws across Shen's side. He twisted, rolling to the left and coming up with a grunt.
His vision swam. The gashes reopened.
He struck again—low this time—bashing the joint of its foreleg. It howled in pain, flailing wildly. He ducked a swipe, then another, but the third caught him across the cheek.
Blood sprayed. He tasted iron.
The pipe slipped from his grip.
Too fast. Too strong. He staggered back, heartbeat ragged. The world narrowed. The monster lunged.
And something inside him snapped.
Not with fear. With hunger.
A heat unfurled in his chest, slow and thick, like tar warming in fire. It coiled through his limbs, not with control, but with need. Shen didn't understand it. He didn't care.
He let it loose.
His hands shot up, catching the creature's jaws before they clamped around his throat. Muscles screamed as he held it at bay. The monster thrashed, trying to overpower him.
The Blood Qi pulsed.
He didn't shape it. Didn't guide it. It reacted, flooding his veins, feeding his muscles with raw, brutal instinct. Just enough.
He headbutted the beast. Once. Twice. Bone cracked. It reeled, stunned.
Shen dove, grabbing the iron pipe again and jamming it into the soft meat beneath its chin. A sick crunch followed. The monster spasmed, limbs twitching violently.
Then stillness.
Shen collapsed beside it, gasping for air.
His hands shook. His whole body trembled.
And then—he felt it.
The thread.
Something unseen flowed from the corpse into his core. Not physical. Not Qi as the cultivators described it in their scrolls. This was crude, raw, primal.
It bled into him like a drug—tingling, burning, twisting his insides. He choked back bile as the sensation gripped his chest.
But he didn't stop it.
The warmth settled in his gut, then slowly spread through his limbs. The pain dulled. His side still throbbed, but not as sharply. His skin felt flushed, hypersensitive, every grain of dust brushing against him like a spark.
He sat there for a while.
Silent.
Breathing.
Then he spoke aloud, voice hoarse.
"…What the hell am I becoming?"
The air didn't answer.
The ruined world around him remained still. The Rift sky above cracked with dull lightning in the distance, a reminder that nothing in this world was stable. Not anymore.
He dragged himself to his feet. The iron pipe was bent now, almost useless.
Didn't matter.
He had blood. He had instinct.
He had this… whatever it was.
The Blood Qi Manual carved into his back—it had called to him when he was delirious with fever. He remembered the sigils burning beneath his skin, remembered the way his body twisted, rejecting the cultivation paths others took.
His path wasn't built on peace or flow.
It was built on fury.
On survival.
On taking from what he killed.
This wasn't cultivation.
It was consumption.
He stared down at the corpse again. Felt a dull pang in his chest.
Not regret.
Recognition.
He was still alive because something else had died.
That was the truth of this world now. Monsters didn't care about your technique, your bloodline, your sect colors. They cared about flesh. About whether you could fight back.
And for once… Shen had.
He limped toward the edge of the ruin, pausing beneath a broken archway.
In the distance, past the haze and crumbling structures, he saw flickers of movement. Campfires maybe. Survivors. Or worse.
He didn't move toward them yet.
He wasn't ready.
Not until he could control the thing growing inside him.
Not until he understood the hunger in his bones.
He gripped his side and turned back toward the shadows.
There were more monsters here.
More blood to spill.
More power to claim.
And he would claim it all.
---