The sun hung low behind thin gray clouds, casting the village in a colorless light. Lee stood atop a moss-covered ridge, overlooking the quiet huts and sloping rice fields below. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys. Children played in the dirt paths. His parents — still alive, still unaware — worked silently in the distance, harvesting greens.
And yet, to him, it all felt... distant. Meaningless.
He hadn't spoken to them beyond surface pleasantries in months. Smiles. "Yes, Mother." "I will, Father." Empty shells of conversation.
The same was true of Bo, the old soldier who had once taught him to punch and fall. Lee hadn't visited in over a year. The man had probably assumed he'd lost interest. That was fine.
Then there were the two boys — his "friends." The ones who once followed him into the burned woods, laughing nervously as they trailed behind the quiet prodigy who always seemed to know too much. He hadn't seen them since they tried to visit his home weeks ago. He hadn't answered the door. He hadn't cared.
No sadness. No guilt.
Just data.
People were tools. Some sturdy. Some brittle. Some sharp. But tools all the same.
A tool used too long becomes predictable. Blunt. And in this world, predictability was a liability.
He breathed slowly, the forest wind brushing against his skin like a whisper.
His power had grown.
Fear was no longer just an aura to him — it was an art. He could play with it like an instrument now. Direct it into someone's chest and watch them crumble. Shape it subtly, like a trickling doubt in a merchant's heart. Or unleash it like a roar through the trees, causing even spirits to shiver.
And it wasn't just fear anymore.
He had absorbed over eleven minor spirits in the past months. Each one brought a sliver of something new — not enough to overwhelm him, but enough to change him. The owl spirit had honed his night vision. A smoke-hopper gave him brief camouflage when he held his breath. A breeze wisp gave him a kind of muscle memory drift — letting him almost anticipate movement in a fight.
They were layering. Slowly, carefully.
And yet...
It wasn't enough.
Lee stepped deeper into the forest, past the threshold where his human scent began to vanish. Where the roots coiled like serpents, and the shadows moved when he wasn't watching.
There, beneath a jagged old pine, he had drawn a circle — an experimental seal, designed not just for threading or absorption, but resonance. A prototype for something greater.
A new idea had begun to form in his mind: Sympathetic Drain Theory.
What if he could use the emotional signature of a spirit — fear, sorrow, rage — to connect to others of its kind? If two spirits had ever felt the same thing, could their energies sync?
If so, he could hunt smarter. Extract faster. Pierce through defenses.
He knelt, adjusted the threads and bone-dust, and whispered a chant. Not in any sacred tongue, but his own invented code — a fusion of logic, symbols, and spoken resonance.
Nothing happened for several heartbeats.
Then, something emerged.
A spirit, pale and stretched, like a wisp of fog with too many eyes, slid into the circle.
It was weak.
It was perfect.
Lee didn't just absorb it.
He threaded its emotion — sorrow, deep and shaking. Then he mirrored it, pushed his own imitation sorrow into the circle like bait.
Another flicker.
A second spirit appeared, drawn by resonance. Stronger. Faster.
Lee's pulse quickened — not from fear, but excitement.
He extended the seal and began the drain.
This one fought hard. It screamed. Not through air, but inside the mind — a cascade of shrieking static. Lee gritted his teeth, focusing. His body trembled, but his mind held steady.
When it was over, he collapsed to one knee, breathing hard.
But he felt it.
Clarity. A new layer in his perception. His thoughts moved faster. Not magically — not like bending — but sharper. Crisper. As though he'd trimmed the fat off every idea.
That night, by the fire in his home, he stared into the flame.
His mother asked gently if he was feeling okay. He nodded. Smiled.
But inside?
He was rewriting himself.
Upgrading.
Ashen Hellflame wasn't just growing.
He was evolving.
And somewhere, not far from the edge of the forest, something stirred in the spiritual currents — a presence large and familiar.
Hei Bai.
Still watching.
Still waiting.
Soon.