The wind was a monster.
It tore at the thin, gray servant's robe I wore, a cold, clawed hand trying to rip the clothes from my body. Below me was nothing. A black, hungry mouth of rock and shadow that stretched down into the earth's guts. Above me was a sliver of sky, cold and blue, framed by the faces of the people I used to know.
Liang Wei. My ex-fiancé. He stood there, his perfect jaw tight, his eyes looking down at me not with love, not even with hate, but with the disgust a man gives a bug he's about to crush. Beside him, Mei Lian, the Saintess, covered her mouth with a delicate hand. But her eyes, her so-called holy eyes, were bright with triumph. She had won. She had taken everything.
And Elder Shen, the man who had arranged my marriage to Liang Wei, was the one who had pushed me. His hand was still slightly raised, as if blessing the world by throwing me into this pit.
Their laughter was a faint, high-pitched sound on the wind. It was the last sound I wanted to hear.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg.
My only thought was a promise. A cold, hard knot in my chest. *I will remember your faces. I will remember this feeling. When I am done, there will be no sky left for you to stand under.*
Then I hit the ledge.
It wasn't a clean landing. It was a crash. A sickening, wet snap echoed in my own ears as my left leg broke. The air was knocked from my lungs in a painful gasp. Pain, white-hot and sharp, shot up my body. I lay there, a broken doll on a shelf of rock, trying to remember how to breathe.
The Abyss smelled of death. Old death. The ground was a carpet of bleached-white bones. Some were human, others were from beasts I couldn't name. Strange, glowing mushrooms cast a ghostly blue light on the scene, turning the graveyard into a twisted garden. Somewhere in the deep dark, things were growling.
I tried to move. I tried to call on the spiritual energy every cultivator had. But there was nothing. My dantian, the core of my power, was a dry, empty desert. It had always been. That was why I was here. That was why I was a servant. That was why I was trash.
For a second, the despair I had fought for three years felt like it would win. It was a heavy, cold blanket, trying to smother the last bit of fire in my soul. I was going to die here. My bones would turn white just like the others. No one would even know.
Then I heard a sound.
A wet, scraping sound. Like a knife being dragged across a stone.
From the shadows beneath a glowing mushroom, it slithered out. A Shadow-Viper. Its scales were like black glass, its eyes glowed with the same sickly blue light as the mushrooms, and its fangs dripped with a clear, shiny venom.
It was a low-level monster. To a real disciple, it was a pest. To me, a crippled girl with a broken leg, it was an executioner.
The viper coiled its body, getting ready to strike.
And in that moment, something inside me broke. It wasn't my bones this time. It was something deeper. The despair, the pain, the humiliation—it all caught fire. A cold, clean rage burned it all away.
*They threw me here to be eaten?* I thought. *Fine. Let this be my last fight. I will not die crying.*
My hand scrabbled on the ground, searching. My fingers closed around a rock. It was sharp and heavy. The only weapon I had ever been given.
The viper struck.
It was a blur of black motion. I didn't have time to think, only to react. I swung the rock with my good arm. I missed. The viper was too fast. It lunged again, and this time, it didn't miss.
A fang sank deep into my right leg.
Pain and a strange, cold numbness spread through my body. The venom. My vision started to go blurry at the edges. The blue lights of the mushrooms began to swim. This was it. This was the end.
But as the darkness crept in, a voice spoke in my head. It wasn't a sound. It was a thought that wasn't mine. It was old, cold, and empty.
`[Symbiotic Overlord System Activated...]`
`[Host: Xia Lin. Spiritual Root: None. Potential: Infinite.]`
`[Analyzing viable target... Shadow-Viper. Skill: [Feral Instincts]. Core: [Shadow Affinity].]`
`[Initiate Devour?]`
Devour?
I didn't know what it meant. But I knew what it was offering. A choice. A chance to fight back. A way to not die as a victim.
With the last bit of strength in my body, I didn't try to push the viper away. I reached out, grabbed its head, and pulled its fanged mouth closer to my own.
I thought one word with everything I had.
*Yes.*
What happened next wasn't physical. It was a violation. A dark, cold stream of energy flowed from the viper into me. It was painful, like drinking ice. But it was also… good. It was power. I could feel the creature's life, its instincts, its very being, being sucked out of it and poured into my empty dantian.
The viper went limp. Its solid body turned to grey dust in my hands.
The venom in my veins vanished. The pain in my leg was gone. I stood up, testing my broken limb. It was perfect. It was stronger than it had ever been.
I opened my eyes.
The world was different. The darkness wasn't dark anymore. I could see every detail of the cave, every crack in the rock, every bone on the ground. I could smell the fear of small creatures hiding in the shadows. I could *feel* the life force of the glowing mushrooms around me, like tiny, warm candles.
I looked down at my hands. They were still my hands, but they felt different. They felt like weapons.
A slow, dangerous smile spread across my face. I had been thrown away like trash. I had been left to die.
But the Abyss had not killed me.
It had remade me.
I flexed my new, stolen power and whispered to the darkness, my voice filled with a hunger I had never known before.
"More."