The Scion of Ruin

The damp, metallic tang of demon blood still clung to Li Shen's robes, a smell no ordinary cleansing spell could entirely banish. He didn't try. Let others wear their silk robes and lavender incense — this scent was proof. Proof of struggle, of survival, of another inch clawed upward in a world determined to crush him underfoot.

Just hours after returning from his first successful demon-cleansing mission in the Shadow Mire, Li Shen sat cross-legged in the gloom of his secluded cultivation cave. The still air buzzed faintly with latent spiritual energy, but he ignored it, his senses turned inward, locked on the storm unraveling within his meridians.

The demon essence he had absorbed — dark, volatile, and corrupt — surged through him like wildfire. It wasn't ordinary Qi, which for him was like trying to force syrup through a pinhole thanks to the oppressive Heaven Suppression that sealed away his talent. No, this was different. Wilder. Hungrier. And his body… welcomed it.

The Heaven Asura Destruction Body drank deep.

A pulse of energy rippled through him. His heart thundered, his skin flushed hot, then cold. His meridians screamed — and then widened. Pain turned to heat, heat into clarity. Then came the silence, the moment of stillness before change.

Snap.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible — a shift, a click, as if a lock deep within him had unlatched. A wave of strength rushed in like a tide breaking through a cracked dam. He gasped.

Qi Condensation Stage 3.

That fast.

The surge faded slowly, leaving behind the hum of a slightly more open Dantian. A small victory, but a definitive one.

Li Shen opened his eyes, the dim light catching the edge of a cold smirk. The Heaven Suppression still clamped down on his ability to draw Qi naturally from the air, but with demon essence… with that cursed, tainted energy... he was no longer crawling. He was sprinting.

---

Time bled in strange ways within the Sect, marked less by the sun and moon and more by breakthroughs and battles. In six months, Li Shen had completed five major demon-cleansing missions — perhaps more, depending on how one defined "mission." Each assignment varied in form and danger. Some were squad-based ventures into corrupted forest edges and marshlands, where the demon-taint clung to flora and beasts alike. Others, increasingly so, were solo.

Zhou Tai had protested at first. "He's untested, unstable, and unsponsored," he'd said to the Mission Hall supervisors, no doubt hoping for a reprimand.

But results were results.

Li Shen returned from every mission not only intact, but victorious. He brought back proof: severed demon horns, blackened cores, and once, even a cultivator's jade medallion cracked with demon sigils. His reports were concise, cold, and always corroborated by witnesses or mission artifacts. No embellishment. No drama.

Each kill fed him.

Each tainted soul devoured by his Heaven Asura Destruction Body gave him a violent jolt forward in his cultivation. Where others had to meditate for weeks in Spirit Gathering Arrays just to solidify a single Qi strand, Li Shen took leaps. Stage 4, then Stage 5, and by the time his sixth month ended, he was comfortably resonating at Qi Condensation Stage 6 — possibly 7.

It wasn't just speed. It was stability. His cultivation foundation wasn't rushed or brittle. The essence refined by the Heaven Asura Destruction Body was chaotic at first, yes, but once digested, it merged with his own Qi perfectly. Each battle made him stronger, faster, more fluid.

His blade cultivation advanced just as sharply. Initially, he had relied on basic sect forms — Slashing Flow, Crescent Moon Sweep. Now, his blade work moved with instinct. One slash, one death. His blade was no longer a weapon, but an extension of his will.

---

One thing the missions always rewarded: Spirit Stones.

The first time he held one, it felt underwhelming. A small, cloudy crystal, warm to the touch, humming faintly with condensed spiritual energy. Curious, he had used it to cultivate. It worked — kind of. A thin stream of Qi drifted into his Dantian, but it was sluggish, like rain compared to a thunderstorm. Gentle. Predictable.

Useless.

Still, Spirit Stones were valuable. Cultivators used them for all kinds of things: to power formation arrays, to buy pills, to stabilize breakthroughs. And they were currency, in the most literal sense. Li Shen quickly learned to hoard them, but not for cultivation. No — for leverage.

He traded them for better gear, talismans, and once, a rare cleansing potion that helped him stave off the aftereffects of one particularly vicious demon's taint.

---

In the lulls between missions, Li Shen explored more of the sect than he had during his handyman days. The outer disciples mostly avoided him now — half out of suspicion, half out of fear — but he didn't mind.

He wandered near the Alchemy Hall, where the air constantly smelled of crushed herbs and sulfur. He once saw a female disciple calmly refine five pills at once, sweat dripping from her brow as green flames danced between her fingers. Each pill shimmered with power. Cultivation pills. Healing pills. Even a mysterious black one Li Shen had only heard whispered about — a Breakthrough Catalyst.

Nearby, the Formation Pavilion was quieter but no less intense. Disciples sat for hours hunched over stone tiles, inscribing intricate runes in loops and spirals, sweat beading on their foreheads. The arrays, once complete, flickered to life with defensive barriers or captured Qi like a spiderweb catching dew. One boy crafted a single-use array that could explode with spiritual force — something Li Shen immediately took interest in.

Then there was the Forging District. A place of fire and fury. The air rang with hammer strikes and the stench of molten ore. Cultivators here worked with glowing ingots, spirit fire, and bellows infused with wind-type Qi. He watched one forge a dual-blade artifact from silver demon-bone and red steel. The blades hissed with latent energy.

He respected them all — their patience, their skill — but had no desire to follow them.

He didn't need alchemy. He needed power.

He didn't need arrays. His body was the formation.

He didn't need a forged weapon. His blade, soaked in demon blood, sharpened by battle, was enough.

---

Of course, not everyone celebrated his rise.

Zhou Tai's eyes followed him like a hawk now. Every time Li Shen reported back from a solo mission, he noticed the twitch at the corner of Zhou Tai's mouth — the restrained disbelief.

Elder Guo, too, had begun taking interest.

Li Shen saw it in the changed tone of the mission board. Tasks grew more dangerous, less structured. One mission had sent him deep into a corrupted canyon — no map, no partner. Another paired him with disciples who were clearly instructed to test him, perhaps even let him die.

He survived.

He always survived.

But he knew sabotage when he saw it. The rumors were spreading too — whispered questions of forbidden cultivation methods, dark inheritance, or demonic contracts.

Let them talk. The truth was far worse.

---

One night, alone in his cave, Li Shen stared at his blade. It had no name. No inscription. It was just steel — but it had drunk more demon blood than any divine artifact in the sect.

He thought of his path.

There was no grand legacy backing him. No secret master, no sect elder guiding his steps. His power came from pain — from loss, from vengeance, from the cursed Heaven Asura Destruction Body that branded him unfit for Heaven's favor.

But he was climbing.

Faster than any of them. Faster than anyone expected.

He remembered the first time he saw Zhou Tai sneer at him during sect recruitment. The way Elder Guo's gaze passed over him like he was a rock on the road. He remembered scrubbing floors. Lifting crates. Being invisible.

Now?

Now they whispered.

Now they watched.

And soon… soon, they would fear.

---

Six months of blood.

Six months of growth.

Li Shen sat in stillness as the hum in his Dantian intensified. A subtle rhythm pulsed inside him. The border of Qi Condensation Stage 7 loomed near — close, so close he could taste it.

His blade rested beside him. His fingers curled around its hilt.

More missions awaited.

More demons to slay.

More power to seize.

He rose without a sound.

Let the heavens suppress him.

He would break them all the same.