The Storm Lantern Pavilion’s fourth patrol unit had been annihilated.
Their glowing palace in the sky no longer floated over the Hollow. Instead, fragments of shattered lanterns, fan-glyphs, and broken talismans now fed the soil.
Aduin sat barefoot, half-naked, beneath the Root-Spine Tree that had grown from Han Chao’s heartwood.
The tree's bark twitched.
Moyao had mutated.
It now bloomed with pale spore-lotus pods, each holding a fragment of Aduin’s spiritual Qi.
Each pod: a seed of infection.
One trembled.
Aduin’s eyes opened.
-The first one bloomed.-
His voice held no joy.
Only acceptance.
Inside the Windjade Meridian Hall, a thousand miles east of the Hollow, three Pavilion elders stood before the ceremonial mirror.
In it, Han Chao’s death replayed — not once, but thirteen times, from captured talismans and spirit mirrors.
A silver-robed elder with black tattoos on his temples clenched his jaw.
_He turned a root into a soul weapon. He defiled core techniques. This is not some mere alchemist — this is... a blight cultivator._
The woman beside him, Elder Mei Qingsi, narrowed her eyes. Her sleeves bore silk-glyphs of cerulean frost.
-His Qi has no elemental affinity. But it consumes. It mutates. He creates things that shouldn’t exist.-
The third elder said nothing.
Lu Wenshou — the Pavilion’s oldest war tactician — closed the mirror and raised his staff.
“Burn the Hollow. Salt its memory. I want this ‘Aduin’ skinned and his spirit chained. Not killed. Broken.”
They turned.
Three streaks of light tore across the sky, flying toward the west.
The war had begun.
Beneath the soil of Yanling Village, a merchant bent down to pluck a silver lotus bloom.
It shimmered strangely in the moonlight.
As he touched it—
His fingers darkened.
His pupils dilated.
And deep within his lungs, a root curled around his breath.
Inside the Hollow, Aduin knelt in meditation.
Behind his eyelids, he could see the man.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Hear his heartbeat.
Smell the rot beginning inside his ribcage.
Moyao whispered.
“One seed, one witness. Plant enough, and the world becomes your garden.”
Aduin opened his eyes.
-No. Not yet. Let them rot slowly. Let them think it’s plague.-
The sky split.
A hundred talismans descended like flaming paper cranes — each burning with spirit fire.
Lu Wenshou stood atop them, staff raised.
Beside him, Elder Mei Qingsi floated on a frost lotus. Her breath turned the air to crystals.
And the third, Zhao Niansheng, floated upside-down in the air, reading a scroll, ignoring everything else.
[Alchemist,] Mei Qingsi called out, -the Pavilion offers you a single breath of surrender.-
Aduin did not reply.
Instead, he raised his left arm.
A thousand silver spores rose like mist.
Lu Wenshou’s staff crackled.
-Then burn.-
Aduin’s body convulsed.
Moyao pulsed with blinding mycelial light.
“Stage Three: Marrow Rebirth.”
Roots twisted around his spine. His eyes turned slate-black. Skin along his forearms cracked open to reveal shimmering vein-filaments, each dancing with corrosive Qi.
Aduin growled.
-Moyao… don’t kill me with your gifts.-
The Hollow obeyed him now. Trees split themselves to form barricades. Vines coiled to deflect talismans. Spore-beasts, born from dead Pavilion disciples, clawed upward from compost graves.
The Hollow came alive.
Mei Qingsi dropped.
Her lotus blade shimmered, carving three arcs of freezing light through the spore-cloud. Everything it touched hardened into crystal.
-I’ve frozen volcanoes. You are but a weed.-
She pointed her jade finger.
Aduin lifted his rootblade.
The two clashed.
Each time her frost touched him, his body decayed slightly. But with every decay, Moyao fed him new spiritual threads — like roots burrowing into hollow bones.
The fight was beautifully cruel.
Aduin gasped.
-You cut me… but I bloom.-
Zhao Niansheng finally closed his scroll.
-I’ve read your soul imprint.-
His voice was quiet, calm, distant.
-You are not human anymore.-
He stepped forward once.
The air around Aduin froze — not from cold, but from halted time.
Zhao had read his past, his regrets, his ambitions — and carved a seal of stagnation.
Aduin couldn’t move.
Zhao continued:
_Your name will not survive this place. You will become a cautionary tale for apprentices. Nothing more._
Aduin whispered.
-Moyao…-
And then, deep in his marrow, the last gate opened.
The forest went silent.
Even Mei Qingsi paused.
Zhao stopped walking.
From Aduin’s skin, crimson roots burst out, forming six spiraling petals around him.
Each petal held a soul imprint.
-
One from the dead merchant.
-
One from Han Chao.
-
One from a spore-beast.
-
One from Aduin’s discarded fear.
-
One from his original body.
-
One… from Moyao itself.
-
-Bloom,- Aduin said.
Each petal ignited.
The six-soul lotus bloomed above his head.
The entire Hollow trembled.
Moyao’s voice rang out—no longer whispering, but thunderous.
-I am not your tool. I am your legacy.-
Aduin rose.
The spore-lotus hovered behind him, spinning faster.
And with it, he shattered Zhao Niansheng’s seal.
In Yanling Village, the infected merchant dropped to his knees.
His body split open.
From his chest, a spore-lotus tree burst forth, releasing fifty thousand spores.
Villagers ran.
Too late.
In every infected, Aduin’s breath had lingered.
Now, it spread.
Not as plague.
As remote cultivation anchors.
Each bloomed spore fed him back Qi — subtly, quietly.
From afar, Aduin smiled.
Lu Wenshou brought down his war-staff.
The ground cracked.
Stone turned to vapor. The Hollow’s canopy broke.
He charged Aduin directly.
Staff met rootblade.
Staff crushed Aduin’s shoulder.
Bone snapped.
Aduin coughed blood.
But didn’t retreat.
Instead, he slammed his palm into Lu’s chest — and injected a seed of rot.
Lu’s body held firm.
For now.
Aduin whispered:
-You’ll die in ten days. Slowly. From within. Don’t waste your time chasing me.-
He vanished in spore mist.
The Hollow burned.
Three elders stood in the ash.
But Aduin was gone.
And across a dozen villages, spores whispered his name through wind and dream.
He was no longer man.
No longer mere cultivator.
He had become something else.
Something planted.
Something growing.
-I bloom where you rot.-
[TO BE CONTINUED…]