The stormlight had long faded, but its echo clung to Ezra like a second skin.
The rogue cultivators led him through a shattered corridor deep in the Black Spire's outer ruins — half collapsed halls and ancient murals eaten away by time and frost. The flicker of their torches painted the walls with restless shadows, like ghosts trapped mid-motion.
He could feel it: every person around him measured him in silence.
They spoke softly among themselves, but their qi signatures betrayed the tension — sparks of suspicion, awe, and envy all woven together.
The copper-eyed woman walked ahead, her steps unhurried yet deliberate. "Name's Serah," she said without turning. "Leader of the unaligned — or what's left of us. We were cultivators once, before the clans branded us traitors."
Ezra's gaze drifted to the faint scars that lined her hands — sigil marks, burnt clean where a clan's spiritual bond had been severed. So they really were outcasts.
"Why stay near the Spire?" he asked. "You could've fled north, beyond the sect borders."
Serah's tone held a bitter smile. "And leave the bones of gods behind? No, stranger. Everything worth dying for rots under this mountain. The Black Spire hides fragments of cultivation arts older than the Nine Dynasties. Even scraps can make you a legend."
She stopped, gesturing toward a chamber half-sunken into the earth. Inside, dozens of tents circled a flickering bonfire. Cultivators of all ranks moved among them — some sharpening weapons, others meditating beside strange relics scavenged from ruins.
The camp was a paradox — a gathering of the desperate and the gifted.
"This is your den of rogues?" Ezra said quietly.
Serah smirked. "Call it what you will. We survive here without banners or oaths. You seem the same type."
He didn't deny it.
A heavy silence stretched between them before Serah's voice dropped lower. "Still… the others will test you. They don't follow anyone they can't bleed."
Ezra met her gaze, calm and unreadable. "Then they'll learn fast."
That night, the test came.
A ring of stone had been cleared near the camp's center. Dozens gathered around as a man stepped forward — tall, broad-shouldered, his skin tattooed with crimson runes that flared like embers.
"Ravel," Serah said simply. "Second-in-command. Don't kill him unless you must."
Ravel's lips curled into a sneer. "If the boy's as heaven-touched as the whispers claim, he'll survive a little pressure."
Ezra exhaled once, steady. "I don't need your mercy."
The moment his words left his mouth, Ravel's fist cracked the air — a burst of flame roaring toward him. Ezra slid backward, heat searing the stone underfoot. His qi stirred instinctively, drawing from the lightning that coiled within his veins.
When Ravel lunged again, Ezra met him head-on.
Lightning collided with fire.
The ring exploded with blinding light. Sparks showered the camp as rogue cultivators shouted and shielded their faces. Ezra moved like a current — unpredictable, relentless. Every strike he parried sent blue arcs leaping between them, the air hissing with storm energy.
Ravel's eyes widened as the lightning crawled up his arm, freezing the fire qi in his channels. He barely managed to break contact, stumbling back.
Ezra straightened, breath calm despite the burn marks across his clothes. "You call that pressure?"
Ravel spat blood, anger flaring. "You—"
But Serah raised her hand. "Enough."
The silence that followed was heavy, electric. All eyes turned toward Ezra. Some were fearful, some reverent.
Serah stepped closer, her copper eyes glinting. "You fight like someone who's not afraid to die. That's rare here."
Ezra looked past her, toward the storm-shadowed horizon. "I'm not afraid of dying," he said softly. "Only of stopping halfway."
The words carried through the camp, simple but heavy.
That night, whispers spread among the unaligned — of the storm-eyed wanderer who defeated Ravel with a half-mastered power. Of the boy who carried the mark of the Black Spire and lived.
They called him Heaven's Defector.
A name born of both reverence and fear.
Later, alone by the dying fire, Ezra stared at the brand on his chest. It pulsed faintly with azure light, drawing in traces of ambient qi. The absorption mark had changed — no longer wild, but steady, hungry in rhythm.
Power doesn't sleep, he thought. And neither can I.
Above, thunder rumbled faintly in a cloudless sky.
The Black Spire was watching.
And somewhere in its depths, something else stirred — ancient, waiting for him to descend.