Chapter 1: Ashes and Awakening
The sky was broken.
Cracks veined the heavens like shattered glass, pulsing with dying embers. A few stray lightning arcs shimmered along the edges, burning silently through clouds that had long forgotten how to rain.
Beneath that shattered dome, buried beneath a collapsed overpass and a half-crushed transport vehicle, Shen Liang opened his eyes.
He couldn't breathe at first. Dust clogged his throat. His ribs ached with every shallow gasp. He tasted blood, old and dry. Slowly, painfully, he reached up with a trembling arm and pushed away the concrete slab pressing on his chest. His fingers were raw and blistered, nails cracked, but he moved with the stubbornness of someone too familiar with pain.
The wind blew, carrying with it the metallic scent of rust and the faint reek of rot. Somewhere in the distance, a low howl echoed through the empty city. Not a wolf. Something worse.
Shen Liang didn't flinch.
[System Initialization... Consciousness Core Detected...]
The voice was mechanical and disembodied, echoing not in the world but directly in his mind. It was sterile, emotionless, and yet there was something oddly familiar about it—like a dream he'd had long ago.
A faint blue light shimmered at the edge of his vision. Lines of text scrolled across an invisible interface.
[Compatibility check initiated...]
[Soul Integrity: 72% — Acceptable.]
[Cross-Realm Contamination Detected. Risk: Critical.]
[Void Signature Confirmed.]
[Class Path Unlocked: Voidwalker (Glitched)]
[System Binding... Incomplete.]
He sat up slowly, blinking ash out of his eyes. Around him, the ruins of a city stretched into a dead horizon. Skyscrapers leaned like tired giants. Cracked roads had been overtaken by mutated vines and silver fungi. A rusted car nearby had been gutted open by claws—massive claws.
Shen Liang's breath misted in the air, though the air was hot. Something wasn't right.
He looked at his hands. Slender. Callused. Not the body of his first life, and not quite the one from his second.
"...A third time," he whispered hoarsely.
A flicker of memory struck like a whip—electric blue tubes filled with data, white-coated researchers arguing behind bulletproof glass, and an explosion of golden light. Then: a lotus pond, crimson with blood, and a masked man slicing his heart open under a moonless sky.
Two deaths. Two lives. Now... a third.
"What the hell have I become?"
[Welcome, Shen Liang.]
[You are now linked to the personalized Void System.]
[Warning: Your karmic records conflict across three lifelines.]
[Alert: You have been flagged by Heaven's Will.]
Thunder cracked across the sky.
He flinched involuntarily. It wasn't the sound—it was the weight. A presence stirred far above, vast and ancient. It wasn't watching him. It was judging him.
"Still watching," he muttered, pushing to his feet with effort. "Even the apocalypse couldn't shake you off."
He stood amidst the ruins like a ghost returned. Tattered gray robes fluttered around his thin frame. His black hair was matted with ash and dried blood. Around his right wrist, a sleek black band glowed faintly—an old-world relic, fused now with his spiritual pulse.
The interface reappeared in front of him:
---
[Void System: Tutorial Incomplete]
Name: Shen Liang
Level: 1
Cultivation Stage: None
Spiritual Root: Undetermined
Affinities: Locked
Traits: Karmic Echo, Memory Retention (x2 Lives), Glitched Core
Status: Anomaly
Alert: Heaven's Will is observing.
---
He stared at the last line for a moment longer than the rest. Then, with a deep breath, he began walking—slowly, warily—through the shattered city street.
Nature and technology had warped together since the cataclysm. Spirit vines grew from lamp posts. Data cables slithered like roots. Here and there, half-finished digital projections shimmered into life—broken memories of the old world's AI systems still trying to process an apocalypse they couldn't understand.
Then he heard the growl.
It came from beneath a shattered convenience store across the road. The metallic whine of movement followed, followed by a snorting breath and the low clank of metal feet on cracked pavement.
Shen Liang turned calmly.
From the shadows emerged a beast.
It was twice the size of a bear, stitched together from organic tissue and cybernetic plating. Its eyes were yellow with infection. Its fur was patchy and scorched. Spines of rusted metal jutted from its back. A corrupted beast. Spiritually infected. Unstable.
It snarled at him, fangs dripping dark fluid.
[New Quest: Survive.]
Objective: Kill or evade the Corrupted Ironhide Beast
Reward: Awakening of Spiritual Root
Failure: Death
Timer: 10 minutes
Shen Liang's eyes narrowed.
"No weapon, no Qi, no root. You really want me dead from the start," he said flatly. "Typical system."
The beast lunged.
He sidestepped narrowly, feeling the wind of its charge as it crashed through a rusted truck behind him. The truck exploded in a shower of sparks and oil.
Without thinking, Shen Liang slid beneath the wreckage, grabbed a splintered metal pipe, and rolled away as the beast turned, now enraged.
His heart pounded, but his mind was cold. Calculating. This wasn't the first time he'd faced death in a ruined world. He just wasn't used to being this weak.
The pipe hummed faintly in his grip. Not just junk. A trace of spiritual alloy—still alive with residual energy. That would have to do.
The beast charged again.
He moved.
Sliding under the beast's gut, he struck upward, driving the pipe between two armored plates. The creature howled, spinning wildly. Its tail—a whip of blade and bone—lashed out. It caught his side, and pain erupted across his ribs.
He hit the ground hard, blood in his mouth.
[Health: 47%]
"Shut up," he growled at the system.
The beast lunged again, but this time Shen Liang was ready. He waited until the last second, then moved against the attack, planting the pipe into the creature's open jaw and driving it upward with every ounce of borrowed strength.
The pipe pierced through the roof of its skull.
The beast twitched once—twice—and fell.
Silence returned.
[Quest Complete.]
[Reward Granted: Spiritual Root Awakening...]
[Analyzing Soul Configuration...]
[Result: ???]
[You have awakened a Variant Root: Voidroot (Class: Forbidden)]
He gasped.
The world shifted.
Power surged through him—wild, alien, ancient. Not Qi. Not pure energy. It was absence. A pull toward everything and nothing. Cold, infinite space folded around his bones. In the depths of his soul, something laughed. Or wept. Or remembered.
[Warning: You have stepped beyond permitted bounds.]
[Heaven's Will is responding...]
Above, the cracks in the sky flared gold.
Shen Liang looked up, blood on his lips, and smiled.
"I never wanted to ascend," he whispered. "I just wanted to live free. But if the heavens insist..."
He reached down and picked up the beast's remaining core—a flickering orb of corrupted spirit.
"Then I'll tear the sky down first."
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