Rise of The Abandoned Husband

Deep in the forest, I sat cross-legged on cold earth, three Purple-gold Pills resting in my palm. The moonlight filtered through dense branches, casting eerie shadows around my secluded clearing. My breakthrough to late-term Military Marquis was close—I could feel it in my bones.

I'd already consumed one pill three days ago, which had pushed my cultivation to its limits. Now I needed the final push.

"Almost there," I whispered, placing a pill on my tongue.

The familiar burning sensation spread through my body as the pill dissolved. My meridians expanded painfully, struggling to accommodate the surge of energy. I regulated my breathing, directing the power to the bottleneck in my cultivation.

I closed my eyes and focused inward. The barrier was thinning. With each pulse of energy, tiny fractures appeared in the blockage. Just a little more...

A soft rustling sound broke my concentration. Someone was approaching.

I kept my eyes closed, feigning unawareness while extending my senses. The intruder moved with practiced stealth—a cultivator, and a powerful one.

"Well, well," a sultry female voice cut through the silence. "The famous Liam Knight, all alone and vulnerable."

I recognized that voice immediately. Vivian Frost—the woman from the Frostfall Sanctum who had tried to steal Clara's mask. Our last encounter hadn't ended well for her.

I slowly opened my eyes. She stood at the edge of my clearing, her figure silhouetted against the moonlight. Her platinum blonde hair gleamed silver, and her ice-blue eyes held murderous intent despite her seductive smile.

"Bad timing," I said calmly, though inwardly I cursed. I was at my most vulnerable during breakthrough. "I'm busy."

Vivian laughed, the sound like tinkling ice. "Oh, I know exactly what you're doing. Breaking through to late-term Military Marquis, aren't you? That's why I'm here now." She took a step closer, frost forming on the grass beneath her feet. "You humiliated me before. Now I'll kill you when you're weakest."

I maintained my cross-legged position, seemingly relaxed though my muscles tensed in preparation. "You're overestimating yourself."

"Am I?" She cocked her head, her blue robe fluttering in the night breeze. "Your qi is unstable, scattered. You can barely defend yourself right now."

She wasn't wrong. The pill's energy was surging chaotically through my system. I needed complete concentration to direct it properly.

"Last chance to walk away," I warned.

Vivian's smile widened, revealing teeth too white and sharp to be natural. "How cute. You're threatening me while you can barely stand."

In a flash, she was in motion. Her hand traced an arc through the air, and a dozen ice spears materialized, hurtling toward me from all directions.

I had no choice but to react. Summoning my golden qi despite the instability, I created a shield around my body. The ice spears shattered against it, but the effort cost me precious control over my breakthrough process.

"Just as I thought," Vivian purred, circling me like a predator. "You can defend, but each time you do, your breakthrough slips further away."

She attacked again, this time launching herself directly at me. Her hands became icy claws as she slashed at my shield. The impact sent painful reverberations through my unstable qi.

I gritted my teeth, fighting to maintain both my defense and my focus on the breakthrough. The pill's energy was beginning to dissipate uselessly. At this rate, I'd fail and have to start over—if I survived her assault.

"What's wrong, Liam?" she taunted, backing away momentarily. "Not so impressive without your little friends to help you, are you?"

I didn't respond. Instead, I swallowed the second Purple-gold Pill, ignoring the exponentially increased pain as its power joined the chaotic energy already ravaging my body.

Vivian's eyes widened. "Two divine-rank pills at once? You're going to kill yourself!" She laughed cruelly. "Save me the trouble."

She launched another barrage, this time frost daggers that curved around to strike from behind. I reinforced my shield, but some got through, slicing shallow cuts across my back. I barely felt them—the internal pain of the pills was far worse.

"I'm going to enjoy watching you explode from the inside out," Vivian said, preparing another attack.

But something was changing. The second pill had pushed me past some invisible threshold. The chaotic energies inside me began to synchronize, resonating at a frequency that made the air around me vibrate.

Golden light started leaking from my pores, intensifying until my entire body glowed. Vivian hesitated, uncertainty flashing across her face.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, a hint of fear in her voice.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. All my concentration was directed inward, where the final barrier was beginning to crumble. Just as Vivian launched another attack, the barrier shattered.

A wave of golden light exploded outward from my body, catching Vivian mid-leap. It wasn't an attack—merely the excess energy from my breakthrough—but it hit her with devastating force. She flew backward, crashing through two trees before landing in a crumpled heap.

"Impossible," she gasped, struggling to her feet, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. "You shouldn't be able to—"

She didn't finish. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked at me—or rather, at what was happening around me.

The plants nearest to me were withering. Grass browned, flowers wilted, and the bark of nearby trees began to crack and peel. A circle of death spread outward from where I sat, as if something was draining the very life from everything around me.

I felt it too—a strange, hungry energy emanating from my core, pulling in not just ambient qi but the vital essence of all living things nearby. It wasn't something I was consciously doing; it seemed to be an unexpected side effect of the breakthrough.

Vivian took a step back, then another. "What kind of monster are you?"

The draining effect reached her. She gasped, clutching at her chest as her qi began to flow involuntarily toward me. She tried to retreat, but invisible threads of energy bound her in place, siphoning her strength.

"Stop!" she screamed, genuine terror in her voice. "You're draining my core!"

I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. The process had taken on a life of its own. My body had become a vortex, drawing in energy from everything within range. And Vivian, as the strongest source of energy nearby, was bearing the brunt of it.

Her skin began to lose its luster, growing dull and lined as her life force was steadily pulled into me. She fell to her knees, her once-vibrant eyes clouding.

"Please," she whispered, her voice no longer sultry but thin and frail. "Mercy..."

The irony wasn't lost on me—she had come to kill me at my weakest moment, and now she was begging for mercy. But this wasn't my choice. The draining power was acting on its own, fulfilling some fundamental need of my cultivation method that I hadn't understood until now.

As Vivian's energy flowed into me, my transformation accelerated. My muscles densified, my bones strengthened, and my meridians expanded beyond their previous limitations. I could feel my body rebuilding itself on a cellular level, becoming something greater than before.

The third pill still rested in my palm. With a sudden certainty, I knew it was time. I placed it on my tongue, and the moment it dissolved, everything changed.

The ground beneath me cracked. The air became thick with power. My body lifted several inches off the ground as a pillar of golden light erupted from me toward the sky.

Vivian was no longer screaming. She lay motionless on the ground, her body withered like a dried husk, though I could sense she still lived—barely. All around me, the forest had transformed into a desolate wasteland. Nothing green remained within fifty yards of where I floated.

Then came the final surge. My qi exploded outward in a massive wave, toppling trees and carving deep furrows into the earth. The sound was deafening—like a thousand thunderclaps compressed into a single moment.

When it finally subsided, I descended slowly to the ground, my feet touching the barren earth. The breakthrough was complete. I had reached late-term Military Marquis, but somehow I felt even stronger than that—as if I'd gone beyond the normal boundaries of the realm.

I looked at my hands. Golden qi flowed just beneath my skin, visible like luminescent rivers. I flexed my fingers, and the air distorted around them.

Then I turned my attention to Vivian. She lay crumpled on the ground, barely recognizable as the beautiful, deadly woman who had attacked me. Her life force had been reduced to a flicker.

I approached her slowly, unsure what to do. She had come to kill me, but this... this hadn't been my intention. I didn't even understand what had happened.

Her eyes fluttered open as I stood over her. They were dull, the vibrant blue faded to a washed-out gray.

"What... are... you?" she whispered, each word a struggle.

Before I could answer, a massive surge of qi erupted from my body, beyond my control. The ground shook violently, and the devastation around me expanded in an instant. Trees hundreds of yards away splintered and fell. The earth buckled and cracked, forming deep crevasses that spread outward from where I stood.

The forest, once lush and vibrant, had become a blasted wasteland—all life drained away to fuel my ascension. And at the center of it all, I stood transformed, power radiating from me in palpable waves.

The breakthrough was complete, but as I surveyed the destruction I had unwittingly caused, I wondered what price I had paid for this power—and what it might cost me in the future.