The edge of the Abyss of Despair was not marked by a warning fence or a stone monument, but by a jagged, apocalyptic scar in the earth that constantly wept a freezing, grayish mist.
Three bodies lay near the precipice. Or rather, what was left of them.
"Monster..." the last surviving Azure Cloud Sect scout choked out, his boots scrambling wildly against the loose gravel as he crawled backward. His lower half was simply *gone*. There was no blood, no ragged flesh, no grotesque display of gore. There was only a smooth, terrifying nothingness where Lu Chen's Void Sword Intent had passed.
Lu Chen stood over him, bathed in the sickly twilight of the abyss. He did not hold a physical blade. He merely raised two fingers, his dark hair whipping in the updraft.
"You... your spiritual energy!" the scout shrieked, his eyes wide with a madness born of absolute incomprehension. "It's completely empty! What are you?!"
"I am the consequence of your Sect's greed," Lu Chen whispered, his voice devoid of any human warmth. "You took my luck. I am simply taking yours."
The scout desperately ignited a life-burning talisman, hurling a roaring sphere of Foundation-level spiritual fire at Lu Chen's face. Lu Chen didn't blink. He swung his two fingers in a casual arc. A silent, invisible ripple distorted the air. The moment the raging fireball touched the ripple, it didn't explode—it simply ceased to exist, swallowed by the void.
The ripple continued its path. The scout's terrified face dissolved into gray ash before he could even draw breath to scream.
Lu Chen watched the ash scatter into the endless chasm below. Within his sea of consciousness, the ancient, bronze Luck-Binding Mirror spun with a greedy, metallic hum. Three streams of watery-blue Qi Yun—the mediocre, standardized providence of Foundation Establishment grunts—were pulled from the dispersing ashes and sucked into the mirror's polished surface.
It wasn't a feast, certainly nothing compared to the Imperial Providence he had consumed at the bottom of the Abyss, but it was enough. The blue luck flowed down into Lu Chen's hollow Dantian, reinforcing the dark, predatory Void Root that now sat where his Innate Spirit Root used to be. His aura surged, then settled firmly. He was now thoroughly stabilized at the peak of the 9th Stage of Qi Refinement. A half-step from Foundation Establishment.
He turned his back to the Abyss and looked up. The Great Azure Realm stretched out before him, a breathtaking tapestry of emerald floating mountains and rivers of shimmering spiritual mist. The morning sun was blindingly bright. For a moment, Lu Chen closed his eyes, the warmth on his skin sharply contrasting with the memory of the cold stone altar on the Azure Cloud Peak, where Fang Tianyou had carved his chest open to steal his future.
I am back.
With a mere thought, Lu Chen withdrew the spatial ring he had plundered from the chained jade skeleton in the depths below. He poured a sliver of Qi into it. A set of robes materialized in his hands—woven from midnight-silk, heavy, and completely resistant to spiritual probing. He donned the dark garments and placed a wide-brimmed bamboo hat over his head, a veil of black gauze obscuring his face.
Lu Chen died in the Abyss. From today onward, there was only Chen Lu, a wandering rogue of the void.
***
Two days later, the bustling streets of Cloud Edge City assaulted his senses.
Situated at the base of the Azure Cloud Sect's mountain range, the city was the undisputed jewel of the Eastern Province. Today, however, it looked less like a city and more like a fever dream of desperate opulence.
Crimson silk lanterns the size of boulders floated above the streets, held aloft by anti-gravity talismans. The scent of roasted spirit-beasts and high-grade spiritual incense thickened the air, nearly choking the lungs. Every building, from the highest pavilion to the lowest tavern, was draped in banners of gold and azure.
Yet, beneath the veneer of celebration, Lu Chen's Luck-Binding Mirror revealed a sickening truth.
As he walked the crowded streets, he saw a crippled, low-level cultivator trip over a loose cobblestone, shattering a vial of precious medicinal liquid. The man wept bitterly in the dirt. Through his third eye, Lu Chen saw a faint wisp of the man's meager white luck detach from his body, pulled invisibly through the air toward the center of the city.
The Age of Fading Providence. Spiritual energy was drying up across the Nine Provinces. There was not enough fortune for everyone to ascend. So, the Azure Cloud Sect had built a massive array over the city, acting as a parasitic web. They were subtly draining the ambient luck of the common people to feed their own peaks.
Lu Chen stepped into an open-air teahouse, taking a seat in a shadowed corner.
"Did you hear?" a fat merchant yelled over the din of the street, handing a skewer of spirit-meat to a passing mercenary. "When Young Master Fang awakened his Supreme Innate Spirit Root, the Heavens literally wept golden rain over the main peak!"
"A true Chosen One!" the mercenary replied, his eyes filled with fanatical reverence. "They say a phantom of a True Dragon coiled around him. The Imperial Bureau of Heaven has even sent an envoy to bear witness. He is the Heaven-Blessed Son of our era!"
Beneath his black veil, Lu Chen's eyes were pools of frozen ink.
The Heavens wept golden rain.
That was the phenomenon of his Innate Spirit Root. The root that had taken him sixteen years of blood, sweat, and agonizing cultivation to nourish. And Fang Tianyou was wearing it like a stolen crown, parading it before the world.
Lu Chen's fingers tightened around his porcelain teacup. He didn't crush it. He merely let a microscopic fraction of his Void Sword Intent leak into his fingertips. The teacup didn't break; it silently disintegrated, turning into a fine, invisible dust that drifted onto the wooden table.
A sudden, ground-shaking blast of a bronze horn rattled the teahouse windows.
"The decree is starting! To the central plaza!" someone shouted, causing a stampede of patrons.
Lu Chen stood, dropping a low-grade spirit stone onto the table, and melted into the surging crowd.
The central plaza of Cloud Edge City was vast enough to hold ten thousand people, yet it was packed shoulder-to-shoulder. At the center stood a colossal jade platform. Atop it, a massive three-legged bronze cauldron burned with a smokeless, aromatic fire—the Providence Cauldron.
Standing before the cauldron was Elder Zhao of the Azure Cloud Sect, a Golden Core cultivator whose aura pressed down on the crowd like a physical weight, commanding absolute, terrified silence.
"By the mandate of the Heavens and the decree of Sect Master Fang!" Elder Zhao's voice boomed, amplified by his Golden Core Qi to echo across the city like rolling thunder. "Fang Tianyou has successfully integrated the Supreme Innate Spirit Root, aligning his flesh with the Great Dao! He is officially anointed as the Heaven-Blessed Son, the future Sovereign of the Azure Cloud!"
Cheers erupted, shaking the very foundations of the buildings.
Elder Zhao raised a hand with a smug smile, and the cheers died instantly. "Let the tributes commence. May the providence of the Nine Provinces gather at the Azure Cloud!"
A line of gorgeously dressed representatives from minor sects approached the platform, each carrying boxes of unspeakable wealth.
An elderly man from the Ironwood Clan stepped forward, his hands trembling as he offered a glowing, century-old spirit herb.
Elder Zhao sneered, flicking his sleeve dismissively. "A mere century-old root? Is this all the Ironwood Clan can muster for the Heaven-Blessed Son? Your clan's territory will not receive the Sect's rain-blessing this decade. Begone."
The clan leader paled, bowing profusely in humiliation as he scurried away.
Lu Chen closed his eyes and looked inward. He fed a stream of Qi to the Luck-Binding Mirror. When he opened his eyes beneath the veil, the physical world faded into a monochrome gray, replaced by the blazing, colorful currents of Qi Yun.
He saw it. It was a masterpiece of corruption.
Every tribute, every forced cheer, every ounce of fear from the minor sects produced a thick thread of golden destiny. These threads twisted together, forming a roaring river of pure luck that flowed directly into the Providence Cauldron. From the cauldron, a massive pillar of blinding golden light shot into the sky, arcing toward the distant, mist-shrouded peaks of the Azure Cloud Sect.
They were artificially funneling the luck of an entire region to feed Fang Tianyou.
With my foundation, Lu Chen thought, the dark Void Root in his Dantian pulsing furiously in rhythm with his heartbeat. With my blood.
He stared at the flowing river of golden luck. For a second, the Luck-Binding Mirror trembled violently, emitting a ravenous hunger that threatened to consume Lu Chen's sanity. It begged him to reach out, to sever the stream, to devour the providence of ten thousand people in one massive bite.
Lu Chen reined in the ancient artifact with brutal, agonizing willpower. Not yet. He was only at the Qi Refinement stage. If he acted now, Elder Zhao would swat him out of existence before he could digest the meal.
Enjoy the feast, Fang Tianyou, Lu Chen vowed silently, the chaotic noise of the plaza washing over him. Gorge yourself on the world's adoration. Hoard their treasures and steal their futures. Because every gift they give you today is a debt. And when I finally stand before you, I will extract every ounce of it in blood.
Suddenly, the ambient temperature in the plaza plummeted.
The deafening cheers of the crowd seemed to muffle, as if the world itself were suddenly holding its breath. A shadow fell over the sunlit jade platform.
Lu Chen looked up.
Gliding through the sky above the cheering masses was an aerial carriage drawn by four ethereal, snow-white spirit stags. Wherever their hooves touched the air, pale frost bloomed. The carriage was carved from ancient frost-wood and bore the unmistakable crest of a crescent moon.
The Fallen Moon Palace.
Lu Chen frowned beneath his veil. They were a reclusive sanctuary of female cultivators, famous for practicing the profound 'Heart of the Sword' technique. They sought internal harmony and rarely involved themselves in the violent politics of the Eastern Province. Why were they attending a celebration for the Azure Cloud Sect?
Inside the carriage, Ye Xiyue sat in lotus position, her hands resting gracefully on her knees. As the Saintess of the Fallen Moon Palace, her mind was constantly attuned to the 'Heart of the Sword'. To her, the world was a symphony of spiritual resonance.
Today, Cloud Edge City was playing a sickeningly loud, harmonious melody directed entirely at the Azure Cloud peaks. It was an overwhelming chorus of destiny.
But as the carriage passed directly over the central plaza, the symphony broke.
Ye Xiyue's serene brow furrowed. Amidst the blinding, overflowing golden destiny of ten thousand people... she heard a rest note. A beat of absolute, unnatural silence. A dissonance so profound it made her soul ache.
A sudden gust of wind caught the silk curtains of her carriage, parting them for a fraction of a second.
Ye Xiyue opened her eyes—cool, tranquil, and piercing as the surface of an undisturbed winter lake.
She didn't look at the Providence Cauldron. She didn't look at the majestic flow of golden luck, or at the pompous Elder Zhao.
Her eyes snapped downward, cutting through the dense sea of cheering cultivators, and locked directly onto a solitary figure wearing a midnight-black robe and a veiled bamboo hat.
Through the eyes of her Heart of the Sword, Ye Xiyue did not see a person.
She saw an absolute, terrifying Void. A gaping, ravenous tear in the fabric of providence itself. A place where the rules of the Heavens simply ceased to exist.
Down in the plaza, the Luck-Binding Mirror in Lu Chen's mind let out a shrill, warning shriek, vibrating so hard it felt like his skull might fracture.
Beneath his black veil, Lu Chen's breath hitched. He froze.
Through the parted curtains, the Saintess of the Fallen Moon Palace stared down at him.
Their eyes met.
The hunter of providence had just been seen.