Chapter 1
They said I was born empty. Powerless. Crippled.
But when they buried my father as a traitor and beat me like a dog, they forgot one thing…
A shadow doesn't need light. It just needs something to devour.
Snow lashed the mountaintop, a biting wind howling through the Bloodroot Clan's outer training yard. Slabs of ice cracked beneath boots. Breaths fogged the frigid air.
Bai Shen lay in the snow, his body curled in the dirt like refuse. Blood pooled beneath his cheek, staining the white in a growing smear.
"Stand up, trash," barked the instructor.
Around him, a half-circle of young disciples watched. Robes pristine. Qi pulsing in their veins. Every one of them had been born blessed.
Not Shen.
No core.
No energy.
No future.
The boot struck him again, slamming into his ribs and flipping him over.
Bai Liang sneered down at him. "The clan should've drowned you at birth. You're worse than useless."
The other disciples laughed. Even the instructor didn't stop them.
Shen didn't speak. He just pushed himself up again, slowly, breath ragged. His face was a map of bruises. A crack had split one knuckle down to the bone.
He knew better than to show pain.
That only fed them.
After training, they left him there.
The clan didn't provide him housing anymore, not since his father was declared a traitor and executed before the Elders. Shen had been twelve then.
He was seventeen now.
And still breathing.
Barely.
He limped along the frozen path behind the main hall, past torch-lit corridors and gardens he was never welcome to enter.
His "room" was a half-burnt storage shed built into the base of the cliff. Wind moaned through the gaps in the planks. His only possession was a tattered blanket and a dull training sword that hadn't held an edge in years.
He collapsed inside and leaned against the wall, letting the ache roll through him. His body was used to pain. He didn't cry. Not anymore.
But something tonight felt… different.
The wind outside died suddenly.
And in the silence, he heard it.
A whisper.
So faint, it was barely more than a feeling—like someone calling him from deep inside the mountain.
It wasn't words.
It was hunger.
The sound led him to the edge of the cliff.
Snow whipped around him as he stared into the darkness below. The voice—or whatever it was—pulled at something in his chest. He couldn't explain it.
All he knew was that he had to go.
He climbed.
Down the side of the frozen stone, barefoot and bleeding, fingers gripping jagged rock.
Halfway down, he found it.
A hidden tunnel, half-sealed behind dead roots and frostbitten vines.
It breathed.
He stepped inside.
The air was thick. Heavy with old blood and colder than the wind outside. The tunnel twisted, dropping deeper and deeper until the last light from the surface vanished completely.
And then, it opened into a cavern.
Massive.
Black stone pillars reached toward a ceiling lost in shadow.
And in the center…
A throne carved from bone.
A corpse sat atop it.
Eyes open.
Waiting.
"You came," the corpse said.
Its voice echoed like smoke—dry, ancient, and somehow still… aware.
Shen didn't scream.
He'd seen enough nightmares in his own clan to not fear a dead man.
"You're not surprised," Shen said.
"You were called."
"By what?"
"By your shadow."
The corpse leaned forward. Bones creaked.
"You were born empty, they said. But you weren't empty. You were full. Just… not with light."
Shen's heartbeat slowed. The air felt thick. Cold. Alive.
"I don't understand."
"You will. The world you know—Qi, Sects, Cores—it's a lie. A prison. Built to keep the old power buried."
The corpse opened its palm.
A black flame sparked to life, flickering without light.
"This is the Shadow Core. It feeds on pain, fear, blood, and silence. The purest truths of power."
Shen stepped closer.
"You want me to take it?"
"No. I want you to survive it."
The flame leapt from the corpse's hand and burrowed into his chest.
Shen collapsed.
He didn't scream.
His body locked up, veins bulging as black energy poured into him. It wasn't energy like the others described—it was sharp. Alive. Hungry.
His bones cracked.
His heart stopped.
For a moment, Bai Shen died.
And then he opened his eyes.
He wasn't the same.
He saw in layers now—the light, the dark, and the space in between. The cavern pulsed with a rhythm only he could hear.
The corpse had turned to ash.
And etched into the stone throne were three words.
Claim your shadow.
He climbed back to the clan the next morning.
No one saw him enter.
Not until he walked into the sparring yard, bare-chested, barefoot, blood still on his arms.
The disciples stopped.
Bai Liang's smirk faded. "You look worse than usual."
Shen looked up.
His eyes were black.
Not empty.
Endless.
"Say it again," he said.
Bai Liang blinked. "What—"
The shadow moved.
It rose from beneath Shen's feet and surged forward like a beast.
Bai Liang screamed as a skeletal hand ripped from the ground and clamped around his throat, lifting him into the air.
Gasps echoed.
Instructors rushed forward.
But Shen's shadow lashed out.
One was flung across the yard before he could even blink. Another slammed into a pillar with bone-snapping force.
Shen stepped forward, eyes fixed on his choking cousin.
"You called my father a traitor," he said, voice calm. Icy.
"Let me return the favor."
The skeletal hand clenched tighter.
Cliffhanger Ending:
A voice rang out, cutting through the chaos.
"Enough."
Shen turned.
An Elder stood at the edge of the courtyard, face pale.
Not with anger.
With fear.
"You've awakened it… The Shadow Core."
And every disciple in the yard took a step back.
From him.
From what he had become.