The wildlands outside Blackspire were not silent.
They breathed.
Mist slithered across the stone paths like a living thing, carrying whispers of Qi that seemed half-conscious, like the dreams of beasts that had long since turned to bone. Ezra's boots sank into wet loam as he trudged through a world unfit for rest. The trees here were dark-barked and gnarled, their roots webbed with glowing fungi that pulsed faintly in time with his heartbeat. Even the insects sounded strange—like sparks crackling instead of wings buzzing.
He was alone now. No Rook, no Tamsin, no Maris.
Just the mark, and its quiet, rhythmic pulse.
Every few hours it would flare—hungry, restless, whispering like a parasite with ambitions. It wanted energy, wanted essence. But Ezra refused to feed it on impulse. He was done being a slave to what he didn't yet understand.
He stopped at the edge of a ruined outpost—collapsed towers and shattered sigils scorched into the stone, their shapes still humming faintly with power.
A faint shimmer of light flickered in the air—thin, sharp, scented like iron and storm.
"Residual energy," Ezra muttered, crouching low. His mind ticked, methodical and sharp. "This was a formation—defensive, but long dead."
He pressed a hand to the cracked sigil. The mark reacted instantly, black lines crawling up his wrist, reaching toward it like roots seeking water.
The surge of Qi was intoxicating.
Cold, electric.
The mark drank.
His breath hitched. His heart pounded. For a moment, he saw visions—not of his own memories, but of the ones that had died here. Warriors in sect robes, fire raining from the sky, the scream of a cultivator being unmade.
When the visions faded, he collapsed to one knee, gasping, smoke rising faintly from his hand.
The mark pulsed once, twice—then settled, forming a new ring on his forearm.
It was different this time—cleaner. Less parasitic, more controlled.
Ezra smiled faintly. "So it can learn too."
He gathered himself, breathing deep, steadying the pain that clawed beneath his ribs. That's when the wind changed. It carried a smell he recognized: corrupted Qi.
Something was coming.
The beast emerged from the mist in silence, its form shifting like molten shadow. It was shaped vaguely like a wolf, but too large—its back brushing the hanging branches, its eyes a pair of flickering blue fires.
Veins of light pulsed through its translucent skin, as though lightning was caged inside its flesh.
A Stormfang Revenant.
A mutated spirit-beast, born from failed cultivators who'd tried to transcend their mortal forms and failed spectacularly.
Ezra's hand went to his knife, though he knew it was useless. He needed strategy, not strength.
"Alright," he murmured, stepping sideways across the mud. "Let's test what you can really do."
The Revenant lunged.
Ezra ducked low, sliding across wet stone, the creature's claws missing him by inches. He could feel the static charge—every movement leaving trails of sparks in the air.
The mark pulsed again.
Energy flooded his limbs. His pupils dilated. The world slowed.
Every flicker of the Revenant's light became a data point—angles, pressure, timing.
Ezra countered, darting under its chest and slicing a tendon-thin streak of energy with his blade.
The wound bled light. The creature howled like a thunderclap.
The second strike wasn't his—it was instinct. The mark guided his muscles, weaving stolen power through motion. His veins glowed faintly black as he struck again, this time with precision that wasn't human.
Each motion fed the mark; each hit drew strength and knowledge.
But the beast didn't fall—it absorbed the ambient Qi around them, the mist crackling into lightning that arced into its body. Ezra's chest tightened. The mark hungered, and for once, he didn't deny it.
He drove his palm into the beast's wound. The mark flared wide open.
The world roared.
The Revenant's light collapsed inward—its essence drained in a spiral of smoke and thunder, drawn into the swirling vortex of Ezra's mark. His arm burned like a forge as veins of blue-white energy stitched through the black lines of his tattoos.
When it was over, the air smelled of ozone and scorched earth.
Ezra dropped to one knee, panting. His reflection shimmered faintly in the puddle before him—eyes faintly glowing, veins thrumming with unfamiliar energy.
He could feel it.
The essence wasn't foreign. It had become part of him.
The mark's whisper came again, clearer than ever before:
Assimilation complete.
Boundary strength increased.
Foundation forming.
Ezra exhaled slowly.
Foundation forming.
That was the first step of cultivation.
He'd done it—alone, with no sect, no master, no spirit stones, no elixirs. Just instinct, intellect, and the mark.
He sat beneath the ruins until dawn, letting the warmth of the absorbed energy spread through his body like embers under skin.
When the first light touched the mist, Ezra opened his eyes. His aura was faint—but real.
He could now sense the rhythm of the world, the quiet pulse of Qi flowing through stone, wind, and even decay.
He smiled slightly, leaning back against a cracked pillar. "I may not have a sect," he whispered, voice low and resolute, "but I'll build my own path. One scar, one kill, one breath at a time."
The mark pulsed in silent agreement.
And far away, in the depths of Blackspire, the Warden—Ashwarden Karr—opened his eyes from meditation. His Soulbind Globe flickered once.
"He's alive," Karr murmured.
"Good. It means I'll get to kill him myself."