The gates of the Dawnyu Sect closed behind him with a sound that felt far too final.
Zhen Hu didn't look back.
Ahead stretched the Dark Forest, thick with ghostlight and crawling with whispers. The canopy overhead choked the sky, letting only slivers of twilight through. Mist laced with faint spirit traces curled at his feet. The scent was strange—metallic and wet, like old blood and blooming nightshade.
With each step deeper, the forest welcomed him not as a guest, but as prey.
He had no zen to shield him. No spiritual pressure to ward off lesser beasts. He carried only a basic satchel, a rusted short blade, and his determination—fierce and unyielding.
But what he didn't know was that he was being watched.
Shadow Guardians, elite cultivators hidden in spirit-veiled armor, trailed him in silence. Their orders from the Dawnyu elders were clear: protect from a distance, assess his weakness—and vanish when the forest bared its fangs.
By sundown, they were gone.
Left alone, Zhen Hu began to feel the weight of the Dark Forest.
Strange cries echoed between the trees. Shapes moved just beyond vision. His blade remained unsheathed, though his arms trembled—not from fear, but from readiness. Something primal had awakened in him since leaving the sect. A voice, quiet but steady, whispered that something waited ahead.
It didn't take long for the first pack of spirit beasts to find him.
They emerged from the underbrush like shadows given flesh—sleek, six-eyed creatures with fangs of stone and rotted zen dripping from their claws. Their growls vibrated the trees themselves. Zhen Hu slashed at one, barely cutting its hide. Another beast lunged, raking its claws across his side. Pain exploded in white-hot arcs.
He didn't scream. He ran.
Heart pounding, blood pouring, he pushed deeper into the forest, past ancient stones and spirit-marked trees. The beasts gave chase, their snarls echoing through the fog.
That was when he fell.
A vine wrapped around his ankle mid-step. The ground crumbled beneath him, revealing a jagged slope hidden beneath thick moss. He tumbled down a rocky incline, crashing through roots and rubble until he slammed into the ground below.
Darkness.
Silence.
Then—light.
Zhen Hu opened his eyes to find himself in a cavern.
But this was no ordinary cave. The walls shimmered faintly, veins of violet crystal glowing beneath the stone. Floating motes of silver drifted through the air, as if the cave were underwater. And at the center, resting atop a pedestal wrapped in flowering vines, was a crystalline heart—black as midnight, pulsing with pale luminescence.
An inscription glowed on the pedestal in a language older than cultivation:
"To the one who bears no zen, I grant the spark of Nytherion."
He didn't know why, but the name filled him with certainty.
The beasts above had stopped their chase. They wouldn't enter. The cave rejected zen. The air here was thick with something else entirely—power that twisted the natural order, that called not to the strong, but to the forgotten.
Zhen Hu stepped forward.
He reached for the heart.
And as his fingers touched it, the darkness exploded.
A scream—not of pain, but of becoming—filled the cave. Black tendrils of energy surged into his body, seeking meridians, searching for zen to destroy… and found nothing.
So they merged instead.
He convulsed as the energy—Nytherion—bonded with his very soul. Symbols of ancient power etched themselves across his skin, glowing briefly before fading. His blood shimmered. His senses stretched beyond the cave walls. He felt the trees breathing. The sky above stirring.
Then—another presence.
She emerged from the shadows of his mind, her form luminous, cloaked in starlight and moon-dyed silk. Eyes like twin galaxies. A soft smile touched her lips, though sorrow clung to it like morning frost.
"I am Aelira," she said, her voice a melody of winds and water. "The goddess they erased. The last of the Forbidden Path."
Zhen Hu fell to his knees. "What… what have you done to me?"
"Not I," she said, kneeling before him. "You were chosen long before your birth. The world cast you out, but Nytherion does not judge strength by zen alone. You… are perfect for it."
He clutched his chest. The power inside him twisted and surged, neither hot nor cold, but infinite.
"It will poison others," she warned, voice tinged with regret. "But not you. You are the hollow vessel I waited for."
Tears stung his eyes. "Why me?"
"Because the heavens turned their face from you. And only those abandoned can carry the burden of gods."
She reached out, touching his forehead.
A symbol blazed across his brow—an eye of obsidian flame ringed with silver thorns.
"Walk the path," she whispered. "I will guide you, Zhen Hu. But this gift has a price. The heavens will fear you. The sects will try to erase you. You will be hunted."
He stood, trembling.
"I don't care," he said. "Let them come. I will reach godhood—even if I must tear down the heavens to do it."
Aelira smiled.
The Nytherion spark pulsed within him, dark and radiant.
And deep in the forest, the beasts howled not in hunger—but in fear.