A searing agony gnawed at Li Mao. His chest throbbed to the rhythm of a frantic, alien beat, each pulse echoing like a hammer blow against his ribs. The Demonic Heart, a parasitic entity, had grafted itself onto his very being, its tendrils burrowing deep, twisting, and fusing with his own life force. He gasped, his breath cut short by a brutal choking sensation. His vision blurred with red and black, the world transforming into a kaleidoscope of torment.
He clawed at his chest, in vain, desperately. The skin was intact, unmarked, but beneath it, something monstrous writhed. A gnawing hunger, deeper than any physical starvation, was eating away at him from within. It wasn’t simply for food; it was for life, for essence, for souls.
The hours merged into a single, agonizing eternity within the hidden cave. His body was weakening; tremors shook his limbs. The hunger was a constant, screaming void. He curled up into a ball, trying to ignore it, to fight against the insidious whispers creeping into his mind, promising him power, promising him relief, demanding food.
After a long agony, he heard something scurrying through the darkness. Li Mao jerked his head up; his eyes, once dull with despair, now shone with a wild, desperate gleam. A rat, small and oblivious to the danger, was darting across the cave floor. A primitive, irresistible instinct took hold of him.
He pounced. His movements were clumsy, those of a starving man, but his prey was slow. He caught the creature, its tiny heart pounding against his palm. A sickening shiver ran through him as the Demonic Heart flared to life. Deep in his soul, he knew what to do. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and felt a pull, a siphoning.
The rat collapsed. A faint, ethereal stream of energy flowed from its body, not into his mouth, but directly into the beating heart in his chest. A wave of cool relief, brief but deep, washed over him. The howling hunger subsided into a persistent throb. He felt a surge of vitality, a glimmer of its timid little soul merging with his own.
Over the course of the following week, Li Mao survived on the meager wildlife of the cave. Other rats, a frightened bat, even a few insects. Each time, the process was the same: the Demonic Heart flared up, a vital essence was absorbed, and a fragment of the creature’s characteristics imprinted itself upon him. First a keener sense of smell, then better night vision, a sharper perception of his surroundings...
When he wasn’t eating, he spent his days poring over the ancient demonic scriptures found alongside the Heart. The words, once indecipherable, now resonated, guided by the artifact within him. He learned the “demon god’s soul-absorption technique,” and quickly realized that having to feed on souls was a very small price to pay compared to the benefits it brought.
He trained meticulously. His body, frail from low-level arts, slowly hardened. A faint dark energy circulated within him, cold and powerful. The Demonic Heart hummed, emitting a low, constant vibration. But little by little, the rats became unable to feed him. He needed better souls—more human ones.
His stomach knotted, not from physical hunger, but from the emptiness deep within his chest. He was thirsty; he yearned for something more, something powerful enough to truly sate the beast slumbering within him. The cave, once a sanctuary, now felt like a prison to him; his confined life a mockery in the face of his growing needs.
He stood up, his gaze fixed on the cave’s entrance, on the glimmer of light that promised the outside world. He knew that the path he had chosen was irreversible. To survive, he had to accept the monster he was becoming. The thought sent shivers down his spine, but the hunger gnawing at him was colder, more terrifying.
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It took Li Mao two hours to climb out of the crevice, one step at a time, cutting his hands on the jagged rock. Despite his body being strengthened by demonic arts, he was wounded and starving.
But after all those years on the streets, a few cuts on his hands were nothing. After all, he finally had the strength to fight against the miserable fate that awaited him; dying now was out of the question.
After a terribly long climb, he finally placed his hand on the edge of the crevasse that had trapped him for so long. Upon arriving, he could do nothing but drop to his knees and breathe in the cool, pure mountain air with all his might, a far cry from the sticky dampness of his cave.
With his newly developed sense of smell and his ability to perceive souls, it was easy for him to find his way toward the city. He walked painfully for most of the day. He finally reached the outskirts of Stone Rampart City, its immense gray walls blending into the mountains bordering the city’s northern and eastern sides.
When a peasant whom he occasionally helped in exchange for food recognized him, he rushed over to assist him. Li Mao’s appearance was alarming: his black hair, already dirty at the roots, was now gray and reddish; his lavender eyes were even paler than usual; and his muscular, tanned body was covered in cuts and looked sickly pale.
“My boy, what happened to you? We thought you’d died in a crevasse—how did you manage to survive?”
“It’s nothing. I was careless and fell, hurting myself badly. I was lucky to recover a bit and manage to climb back up as best I could.”
“Su Lidong warned us, but knowing him, I was convinced he’d pushed you himself. Come, rest at my place for the night; you can’t go into town looking like that.”
Li Mao followed the farmer without protest to rest, but as they passed through the village near the town, the dense crowd brought out his latent hunger. He didn’t know himself if he could hold out much longer like this. He followed the farmer to his small cottage, where he was welcomed by his wife and daughter.
Following his benefactor’s instructions, he took a bath, put on some slightly worn clothes, and went to rest. The daughter stayed by his bedside for a while to tend to his wounds, staying as long as possible before finally going to bed relatively late.
Her departure was a real relief for Li Mao. He had been holding back from devouring her soul for several hours. Although he had sworn revenge at any cost, he still had enough moral restraint not to devour his benefactors to strengthen his cultivation.
As soon as he was sure that everyone in the house was asleep, he slipped outside, ready to pounce on his first victim. He was looking to see if any of the residents had any particular traits or talent for cultivation, but that wasn’t something ordinary mortals could possess. Even his average 1st-rank talent was already possessed by only about one person in a thousand. Cultivation is an unjust world where luck is one of the main factors for success.
Finding no suitable target, he settled on an old man who had once beaten him for stealing food when he was younger. He skillfully unlocked the latch on the house, slipped into the room, then precisely severed the man’s carotid artery before devouring his soul.
As he devoured his soul, he felt perfectly fulfilled, like a beggar tasting meat for the first time after spending years filling his stomach with scraps and dirt. This wonderful sensation left him satisfied.
He did not, however, take the time to savor it for hours on end. He quickly hid all evidence against him and slipped into the bed provided by the farmer who had helped him. He cultivated quietly, refining the recently consumed soul and gently healing himself before falling asleep
The next morning, the farmer’s daughter quietly entered his room. “Brother Li, we called the doctor yesterday. Despite his busy schedule, he was able to make time for you. He’s coming to examine you.”
While the news seemed to delight everyone, young Li was seized with dread: between his injuries, his cultivation, and the demonic heart, how was he going to get through this meticulous examination?