The void stretched, an endless, swirling tapestry of agony. Phainon’s consciousness, a mere flicker, clung to the raw edges of existence. He was nowhere, and yet, everywhere, fragments of what he once was, orbiting a central, searing memory. Amphoreus. The name itself was a raw wound, a guttural scream trapped in a throat that no longer existed.
He saw it again, not as a memory, but as a living, breathing nightmare. The battlefield, once a stage for his glorious power, now a tomb of his ambition. Below him, the shattered peaks of the celestial mountains wept molten rock. Above, the sky ripped open, not by his will, but by the relentless, cold fury of Hành Giả Trộm Lửa.
Phainon, the one who commanded storms, whose gaze could scorch worlds, felt a chill that pierced deeper than any ice. He had stood defiant, his divine aura blazing, a desperate challenge to the encroaching doom. He had unleashed the Phainon’s Wrath, a cataclysm of pure, destructive energy, enough to tear stars from their orbits. It had been magnificent. It had been futile.
Hành Giả Trộm Lửa had simply stepped through it. Not around. Not deflecting. Through. As if Phainon’s ultimate power was a mere wisp of smoke, a child’s tantrum. The entity had no face, only a presence that crushed the very air, a will that bent reality. It had moved with an impossible grace, a silent judgment descending upon him.
Then came the strike. Not a physical blow, but a rending of spirit, a cosmic violation. Phainon remembered the sensation, a thousand knives carving his soul, tearing the threads of his divinity one by one. His essence screamed, a sound only he could hear, echoing in the vast, indifferent cosmos. Power, infinite and absolute, had been ripped from him. He felt his connection to the primordial energies snap, each severance a universe collapsing within him.
The humiliation was worse than the pain. He, Phainon, the Destroyer, reduced to a trembling speck. He saw the cold, assessing gaze of Hành Giả Trộm Lửa, a gaze that conveyed not hatred, but utter disinterest. He was a broken toy, discarded. That disinterest, that casual dismissal of his millennia of power, burned hotter than any sun.
He tried to fight, to claw back a single spark of his former glory. His ethereal hands reached out, grasping at the dissipating echoes of his divine energy. There was nothing. Only the void. Only the memory of his own screams, and the quiet, terrible finality of his defeat. He was nothing. Weak. Utterly, irrevocably weak. The terror of that weakness was a new kind of pain, sharper than the tearing of his soul. He swore then, to whatever remained of his scattered consciousness, that he would never feel it again. He would rise. He would reclaim. He would make Hành Giả Trộm Lửa pay. The vow was a sliver of defiance in the vast emptiness, a desperate, burning ember.
---
The acrid stench of mildew and damp earth choked him. Phainon’s eyes snapped open, a jolt of raw sensation tearing him from the cosmic nightmare. Air scraped against a throat he didn’t recognize, dry and raw. His head throbbed, a dull, persistent ache that anchored him to something solid, something real.
He lay on his back, staring up at a ceiling of rough-hewn planks. Dust motes danced in a single shaft of weak sunlight piercing a crack in the wall. The planks were dark with age, some stained with what looked like water damage, spiderwebs draped like tattered banners from the corners. This was no celestial palace, no shimmering realm of gods. This was… a hovel.
A wave of nausea swept over him as he tried to shift. His body responded with agonizing slowness, limbs heavy and unfamiliar. Every muscle protested, a dull ache reverberating through him. He moved a hand, watching it with a detached sense of horror. It was small, slender, the skin pale and smooth. Not the calloused, powerful hand of a god, but the hand of a human. A child, perhaps.
Panic clawed at his chest, a cold, sharp dread. He tried to sit up, pushing against the flimsy mattress beneath him. It was stuffed with something coarse and prickly, probably straw, covered by a threadbare, patched sheet. The effort sent a dizzying rush through his skull, and he collapsed back with a grunt. The sound was thin, reedy, utterly alien. His voice.
He looked around the room, frantically searching for answers. It was tiny, barely larger than the bed he lay on. A small, rickety wooden table stood against one wall, holding a chipped earthenware bowl and a crude wooden spoon. A single stool sat beside it. Clothes, simple and coarse, hung from a peg. There was no window, only the crack in the wall, and a heavy wooden door that looked like it would splinter with a hard kick.
A low moan escaped his lips, a sound of profound distress. This was not a dream. This was reality. The memory of Hành Giả Trộm Lửa’s casual destruction flashed, bringing with it a renewed surge of the terror of weakness. Had he truly been reduced to this? A mortal, trapped in a body that felt as fragile as a bird’s bone? His divine form, his power, his very essence… all gone.
He could feel the frantic beat of a human heart in his chest, a pathetic, vulnerable rhythm. He reached for the vast reservoir of energy that had once been his, the cosmic fire, the swirling nebulae of power. There was nothing. An emptiness, a profound void where unimaginable power once resided. His breath hitched. This was worse than annihilation. This was a mockery.
---
The creak of the door shattered the suffocating silence. Phainon flinched, his new body stiffening, adrenaline a bitter taste in his mouth. An old woman shuffled into the room, her back bent, her movements slow and deliberate. She wore faded, patched grey robes, her silver hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her face was a roadmap of wrinkles, etched with a lifetime of hardship.
Her eyes, though, were sharp, and filled with a deep, worried concern. She carried a steaming bowl in her gnarled hands, its aroma faint but distinctly of something bland and watery. Congee. Phainon instantly recoiled. He, Phainon, who had dined on celestial ambrosia and the very essence of dying stars, was now offered gruel.
"Tiểu Thạch, con tỉnh rồi," she murmured, her voice raspy but gentle. She approached the bed, her gaze sweeping over him. "Tạ trời đất. Con đã mê man gần ba ngày rồi. Lão thân cứ tưởng..." Her voice trailed off, a tremor in her hands making the bowl clatter softly.
Phainon stared at her, his mind reeling. *Tiểu Thạch?* A common, peasant name. A stone. He, Phainon, the divine being, now reduced to "Little Stone"? The insult was a physical blow, stirring a furious tempest within his fragmented soul. He wanted to roar, to demand answers, to incinerate this hovel and everyone in it. But his throat felt too constricted, his voice still a pathetic stranger.
The woman sat on the small stool beside the bed, carefully setting the bowl on the table. She reached out a hand, calloused fingers gently touching his forehead. "Vẫn còn nóng." Her brow furrowed deeper. "Con sốt cao lắm. Uống chút cháo đi, lấy lại sức."
He watched her, a knot of revulsion twisting in his gut. Her kindness, her concern, felt like a cage. He was not her "Tiểu Thạch." He was Phainon. But the weakness of this body, the absolute lack of any familiar power, held his fury captive. He couldn't even summon a spark.
"Nào," she coaxed, picking up the bowl and spoon. She scooped a small amount of the watery cháo, holding it out to him. "Từ từ thôi. Dạ dày con còn yếu."
Phainon’s jaw tightened. He tried to speak, to form a single, coherent word of defiance. His tongue felt thick, clumsy. Only a dry cough escaped him, rattling in his chest. The woman's face softened further, mistaking his struggle for weakness.
"Đừng cố gắng nói," she said, her voice filled with pity. "Cứ nghỉ ngơi đi. Lão thân sẽ lo cho con."
He wanted to scream. He was not some helpless child to be "cared for." He was a god, albeit a shattered one. He was Phainon. But the smell of the cháo, however meager, was beginning to gnaw at an unfamiliar emptiness in his stomach. The foreign hunger was another affront, another sign of his terrifying new mortality. He hated it. He hated everything about this. But his body, this fragile vessel, yearned for sustenance. He opened his mouth, a reluctant, bitter acceptance.
---
The cháo was tasteless, a grainy paste that coated his tongue. Phainon forced himself to swallow, each mouthful a fresh wave of humiliation. The old woman, Bà Thạch, as she had introduced herself, watched him with unwavering solicitude. When the bowl was finally empty, she took it, her smile a faint, weary curve. "Tốt lắm. Cứ ngủ thêm chút đi." She rose, her bones creaking softly. "Lão thân đi hái thêm ít dược liệu."
The door creaked shut behind her, plunging the room back into a heavy quiet. Phainon lay there, the warmth of the bland food a faint comfort in his empty core. He closed his eyes, concentrating, trying to feel for the vestiges of his power. He reached inward, past the unfamiliar organs, past the weak, thrumming blood vessels, searching for the infinite wellspring that had once been his.
Nothing.
He tried again, more forcefully. He pictured the swirling cosmic energies, the destructive flames, the power to rip apart stars. He focused his will, pushing, willing a single spark, a faint tremor of divine energy to manifest. His brow furrowed with the effort, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out on his pale skin.
His entire being remained stubbornly, terrifyingly, utterly devoid of power. The emptiness was absolute, a black hole where a universe of energy once pulsed. He couldn't even sense the slightest resonance, the faintest echo of the fundamental forces he once commanded. It was as if he had never been Phainon, never wielded such might. He was a hollow shell, a mere vessel of flesh and bone.
Panic began to rise, a cold, suffocating wave. His chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. This wasn't just a temporary setback, a loss of connection. This was a complete erasure. His divine core, the very seat of his being, was gone. Dissipated. He was a common mortal, weaker than any of the lowest cultivators he had once disdained.
His hands, small and weak, clenched into futile fists on the rough blanket. He remembered Hành Giả Trộm Lửa's casual judgment, the feeling of his essence being torn away. Was this its ultimate victory? Not just annihilation, but rebirth as the lowest of the low? A slow, agonizing descent into oblivion, trapped in a fragile, dying form?
A fresh wave of terror, far more profound than any he had ever known, washed over him. The terror of weakness. He couldn't even lift himself without effort, let alone reshape reality. He was utterly vulnerable, a speck of dust in a vast, unknown world. The humiliation burned, twisting in his gut, feeding a nascent, ravenous hunger for power. He had to get it back. He had to surpass it. He had to ensure this never, ever happened again.
He would crawl out of this pit, no matter the cost.
He tried to move, to roll onto his side, to escape the suffocating feeling of helplessness. His muscles screamed in protest, but he pushed through it, a desperate, animalistic need to prove he wasn't completely broken.
As Phainon cố gắng cử động, một giọng nói lạnh lùng, máy móc vang lên trong tâm trí hắn: "Chào mừng, Thí Nghiệm 335503336 . Hệ thống đã kích hoạt."