The rain fell in crimson sheets.
Li Shen stumbled through the burning remains of Ashvale Village, the iron tang of blood thick on his tongue. Corpses lay strewn like broken dolls — his mother, his neighbors, even the old beggar by the temple steps.
He should have died too. But something beneath the old shrine had called to him — a whisper in the darkness. Now, clutching a battered scroll, he felt a warmth pulsing in his veins.
Consume… slaughter… become…
He heard them approaching — the bandits who called themselves cultivators. Laughing, drunk on killing. Li Shen's hands trembled as he unrolled the scroll. Symbols writhed like living worms across the parchment.
Do you wish to live, boy?
The voice was deep, inhuman — inside his skull.
"Yes…" he rasped. "I wish to kill."
The scroll dissolved into blood-red mist. It seeped into his pores, igniting his meridians with searing pain. His vision blurred — and when it cleared, he saw the bandits.
A sword lay in the dirt beside a corpse. Li Shen picked it up.
And when the first man lunged at him, Li Shen moved faster than thought. The blade screamed through flesh and bone. Warm blood splashed his face.
The pain fed him. The fear fueled him. The Codex sang.
And so, the slaughter began.