That was the first thing he felt, cold rain on torn skin, cold blood pooling beneath his back, cold iron scent thick enough to choke on.
Alex opened his eyes to a sky split by violet lightning. The body he inhabited was not his own: thinner, younger, ribs cracked like dry branches, a gaping wound where his lower abdomen should have been whole. Pain flared, white-hot, then dulled almost instantly, as though someone had turned down a dial inside his nerves.
A mechanical voice, genderless and ancient, rang directly inside his skull.
Ding.
[Soul Fusion Complete.] [Host: Ling Xiao (Transmigrated Soul: Alex Reid)] [Bloodline: Severed Mythical Root of Eternal Devouring (0.0001% remaining fragment detected)] [System Binding: Soul Devouring Sovereign System] [Initial Gift: One free devour. Emergency restoration in progress…]
The wound in his stomach began to close by itself. Flesh knitted together with wet, tearing sounds. Black threads of energy crawled out of the corpses around him and burrowed into his chest like hungry leeches. Each thread carried memories, screams, regrets, final thoughts.
A dying elder's grief for his granddaughter.
A disciple's terror as a sword pierced his heart.
A traitor's smug satisfaction, paid in spirit stones by the Blood Shadow Cult.
All of it poured into Alex's mind like molten iron.
He sat up slowly, rain washing blood from his face. The boy whose body this had been, Ling Xiao, was truly dead. What moved now was something colder, sharper, wearing the boy's skin like a perfectly tailored suit.
"...So this is isekai with a body count," he muttered in English, voice hoarse. Then, switching to the local tongue without thinking, "And they took her."
A memory that belonged to the original Ling Xiao surfaced unbidden: a girl with twin braids, sixteen years old, screaming his name as black-robed cultivators dragged her through a spatial rift. Ling Mei. His little sister in this life.
Alex, no, Ling Xiao, clenched fists until the knuckles cracked.
He had been a corporate predator on Earth. Hostile takeovers, psychological profiling, turning board members against each other with nothing more than a well-placed rumor and a smile. Death had been a knife in the dark from jealous rivals.
Death here had been worse. But it had also been a door.
He stood among the ruins of Azure Peak Sect. Once-white marble was scorched black. Protective arrays flickered and died like guttering candles. Hundreds of corpses lay where they fell: elders, disciples, even the mortals who cooked rice and tended herb gardens. All dead for one thing.
The Mythical Root that had just been torn out of him.
Ling Xiao looked down at the crater in his stomach, now only a faint red scar. The system's interface floated translucent in his vision.
[Emergency Restoration Complete] [Current Cultivation: Qi Condensation Layer 1 (Fragment Reconstruction)] [Devoured Souls: 37 (Low-quality, auto-absorbed during fusion)] [New Skill Unlocked – Soul Scan (Lv.1): Peer into surface thoughts, fears, desires, and recent memories of the recently deceased or the weak-willed.]
Convenient.
He walked through the carnage until he found what he was looking for: the sect's grand elder, half his torso missing, one hand still clutching a transmission talisman that had failed to activate.
Ling Xiao crouched, pressed two fingers to the elder's cooling forehead.
"Soul Scan."
Images flooded in.
A secret meeting three months ago.
Representatives of the "righteous" Heavenly Sword Sect shaking hands with elders of the demonic Blood Shadow Cult under a blood moon.
A single sentence that decided the fate of Azure Peak:
"The root awakens this year. We take it together, or someone else will."
They had agreed to split the root. One half for the righteous path's chosen genius, one half for the demonic path's young master. Azure Peak had been nothing more than packaging to be torn open.
Ling Xiao's lips curved into a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"United enemies are the easiest to divide."
He stood, rain plastering black hair to his face, and spoke aloud to the empty night.
"System. Can I devour a living person?"
[Yes. Direct contact and killing intent required. Stronger the target, higher the risk of backlash.]
"Good."
A weak groan came from the treeline. One of the attackers had lingered too long, wounded, hiding, hoping to scavenge valuables once the slaughter ended.
Ling Xiao walked toward the sound, footsteps silent on wet stone.
The man wore the black-and-red robes of the Blood Shadow Cult, Foundation Establishment cultivation, left arm severed at the elbow, face pale from blood loss. When he saw the "dead" boy walking toward him, his eyes widened in animal terror.
"Y-you were gutted! I saw Elder Gu take the root himself!"
Ling Xiao tilted his head, voice gentle, almost kind.
"Tell me where they took my sister."
The cultivator tried to stand, failed, scrambled backward until his back hit a tree. "I-I don't know! Only the elders, only the portal masters—"
"Soul Scan."
The man's pupils dilated as invisible tendrils pierced his mind. Fear of death. Greed for merit. Hatred for his cruel senior brother. A name repeated like a prayer: Crimson Palace of the Nine Shadows, Upper Realm.
And one image, burned into memory: Ling Mei, bound in blood chains, thrown through a crimson portal gate while she screamed her brother's name.
Ling Xiao's smile widened.
"Thank you."
He placed a hand on the man's forehead. Black mist exploded from his palm, wrapping around the cultivator's face. The man thrashed once, twice, then went limp as his soul was ripped out like a weed from soft earth.
[Devoured Soul: Blood Shadow Outer Disciple (Foundation Establishment Layer 4)] [Cultivation +312%] [Obtained Memory Fragments] [Obtained Skill: Blood Shadow Step (Beginner)] [Current Cultivation: Qi Condensation Layer 9 → Foundation Establishment Layer 1]
Power surged through his meridians, sweet and addictive. Bones cracked and realigned stronger. The scar on his stomach vanished completely.
Ling Xiao exhaled, watching his breath mist in the cold rain.
"First blood," he whispered. "First of thousands."
He looked once more at the ruined sect, at the home this body had known since birth, then turned his back on it forever.
The path of revenge began tonight.
And it would be paved with the screaming souls of everyone who had ever looked at Ling Mei and seen only a tool.
He stepped over corpses and into the storm, a lone figure swallowed quickly by darkness.
Behind him, lightning illuminated the broken signboard of Azure Peak Sect for the last time before it crumbled into ash.
Ahead of him lay an entire world that had declared war on the only family he had left in this life.
Ling Xiao smiled into the rain.
"Let the game begin."