The Scion of Ruin

The mountain morning was sharp with mist, the kind that seeped into robes and clung to the skin with a persistent chill. Yet the cold did nothing to quell the hum of energy around the Mission Hall. Disciples clustered in murmuring knots, the usual post-mission lethargy replaced with wide eyes and quiet reverence. Something new had appeared. Or rather, something long-standing had finally caught Li Shen's attention.

He moved through the crowd like a blade parting fog, ignoring the familiar sting of wary glances and half-whispered slurs—"demon-blood," "Heaven-cursed," and the like. His dark eyes were fixed ahead, not on the disciples, but on the towering structure that had become their center of gravity: a black jade obelisk, twenty feet tall and inscribed with pulsing lines of golden light.

The Outer Disciple Leaderboard.

Its surface glowed with more than spiritual energy—it radiated ambition. Each name etched upon it was a badge of excellence, cultivation stage and mission merit recorded in glowing script for all to see. It was a monument to effort, talent, and, above all, power.

Li Shen stepped closer.

The names shimmered slightly as his presence neared, adjusting in a slow, cyclical pulse. The top ten—blinding with arrogance and talent—were all at Foundation Establishment. He didn't linger on them. He let his eyes fall, scrolling line by line down the crystalline structure, past the brash legends, the known bullies, the whispered-about geniuses.

Then he found it.

500. Qi Condensation Stage 8.

A quiet silence settled in his chest, almost louder than the chattering crowd behind him. He was at Stage 7, and yet it wasn't enough to even make the lowest rung. Not even a flicker of recognition. Months of bloody work, of muscle torn and rebuilt, of missions that ended in carnage and solitude—meant nothing in the eyes of this monument.

And there—Zhou Tai. Rank 381. Qi Condensation Stage 8.

Li Shen's lip twitched.

Zhou Tai. The same disciple who, not long ago, had seemed like a wall of steel to overcome. His arrogant smirk, his posturing, his casual cruelty—they all made sense now. But even he, at Stage 8, was mired in the low hundreds.

Then what am I? Li Shen wondered. A ghost beneath the stones. A shadow without a name.

But rather than discouragement, a quiet thrill spread through him. This is the ladder. The real one. Each name on the list was a foothold on a mountain stretching to the clouds. He had found his measure—and his next target.

He turned from the obelisk, eyes burning with renewed focus. His dantian pulsed, the stolen essence of another demon-corrupted cultivator still simmering in his veins. Qi Condensation Stage 7—solid, stable, aggressive. The Heaven Asura Destruction Body fed on the wicked and the impure, and Li Shen fed it with relentless precision. He was no longer just ascending; he was evolving.

---

In the weeks that followed, he split his time with ruthless discipline. Missions continued—long, grueling expeditions into dark valleys and corrupted forests, hunting down tainted beasts and broken cultivators. His blade, once an uncertain extension of his will, now moved like a second thought. A flick of the wrist, a twist of the core, and the fight was over. Each kill whispered its secrets into his body. Each absorption left his eyes colder, his bones harder.

But more than battle, he began to listen.

In the mess hall, where weary disciples traded rumors and exaggerations over watery rice porridge and bitter tea, Li Shen sat in silence, letting their careless words sketch a map of the world beyond the sect's high peaks.

> "Azure Cloud might be Top 20 now, but back in the last Dynastic Review, they barely scraped by."

"You know who's untouchable though? The Zhou Family. Every one of their inner heirs is born at Qi Condensation. Can you imagine?"

"I heard their eldest general is a Peak Nascent Soul who hasn't aged in three centuries…"

He pieced the puzzle together, word by word, until a picture began to form.

The Azure Cloud Sect, for all its pride and prestige, was merely a piece on the edge of the Zhou Dynasty's grand gameboard. One of twenty sects, clinging to glory and influence in a world ruled by monsters in human form.

The Zhou Dynasty—a colossus that stretched across a quarter of the Primal Continent—was not merely a kingdom. It was a living empire, its foundation soaked in cultivation, its aristocracy built from battle-tested bloodlines.

And towering over it all was the Zhou Imperial Clan.

Their founding ancestors were said to have tamed primordial beasts and sundered mountains with their bare hands. Peak Nascent Soul Realm—a phrase that once meant nothing to Li Shen—was now burned into his memory like scripture. These were not just cultivators; they were gods in waiting.

What chance did a nameless bastard child of a fallen bloodline have against them?

Li Shen stood alone beneath the moon one night, overlooking the mist-draped cliffs beyond the sect walls. In his mind, he retraced the path he had walked: from the ruined remnants of the Heaven Destruction Clan, to the bloody slaughter of demon-corrupted prey, to now—standing at the gates of a realm that had once been beyond comprehension.

His hands clenched unconsciously.

His ancestors hadn't just angered a local power. They had challenged Heaven itself, and Heaven had answered with fire, steel, and suppression. The Heaven Will Judgment Clan, those elusive executioners of his bloodline, had vanished into the folds of history—but their presence lingered in the fear behind names, in the silence of records. Could they be tied to the imperial family? Or something older still?

If his bloodline was truly cursed… then that curse had been carved by ancient hands.

---

Across the Mission Square, Zhou Tai watched him.

Every day, Li Shen returned stronger, darker. The cursed blood in his veins was supposed to limit him, not accelerate him. But the results were undeniable. Missions completed faster, kills more efficient, and spiritual signatures flaring brighter with each return. Zhou Tai's attempts to trip him up—assigning more dangerous tasks, pushing elders to overburden him—had backfired.

Now even Elder Guo had taken notice. The old Handyman Hall overseer no longer wore a placid mask when Li Shen passed. There was tension there—unease. Fear, perhaps, in its earliest form.

---

As dawn broke over the Azure Cloud Sect once more, Li Shen stood at the cliff's edge, watching the sun rise beyond distant peaks. The ladder was tall. The dynastic horizon stretched far beyond the mountains he had once thought were the edge of the world.

But his path was clear.

Survival was no longer enough.

Revenge was no longer sufficient.

To rebuild the Heaven Destruction Clan… to protect the future of his bloodline… to challenge the forces that had shattered his past and shackled his destiny… he would have to climb the heavens themselves.

And the Outer Disciple Leaderboard?

It was just the first rung.