The Road Through Ruin
Two days.
That was how far the energy signature was.
With no spiritual energy, Luo Fan had to rely on sheer willpower and his battered body. Every step over shattered stone and broken landscapes felt like walking through a graveyard of the old world.
This was the price of his defiance.
He had no regrets.
But that didn't mean he wasn't cursing under his breath with every aching step.
> "Remind me again why we're doing this the hard way?"
EchoStar flickered beside him, floating just above his shoulder. Its surface still cracked, system functions barely holding together.
Luo Fan exhaled. "Because sitting here won't fix anything."
> "Sure, sure. But have you considered a more rational approach? Like, I don't know, waiting for some kind of plot armor to kick in?"
Luo Fan scoffed. "That's not how my life works."
> "Exactly! That's why I'm worried."
He ignored the system's sarcasm and kept moving. The terrain was a nightmare—cracked earth, floating debris from collapsed realms, and twisted remnants of laws that no longer functioned properly. In the distance, fragments of old sect strongholds hovered mid-air, suspended in the ruins of a world that had been rewritten.
It was a dead land.
And yet… something stirred beneath the silence.
A flicker of movement. A whisper of energy.
Luo Fan's body tensed. He wasn't alone.
First Encounter in the New World
His instincts screamed at him, honed from countless battles. Luo Fan stopped, eyes narrowing as he scanned the ruins ahead.
Nothing.
The world was still.
Then—
Crunch.
A faint sound, like a footstep on loose gravel.
Luo Fan turned sharply. Behind a collapsed temple archway, something moved. A figure, hidden in the shadows.
> "Oh great. We're either about to make a new friend, or become monster food."
Luo Fan took a cautious step forward, his body still weak but his mind sharp. "Who's there?"
Silence.
Then—
A sudden rush of air.
A clawed hand burst from the rubble, lunging for his throat.
Luo Fan barely dodged, his body moving on instinct. The strike missed by inches, but his weakened frame couldn't react fast enough to counter.
He staggered back, eyes locking onto his attacker.
A twisted humanoid figure emerged, its skin cracked like burnt stone, pulsing with unnatural energy. Its eyes glowed dimly, a remnant of something… once human.
A Broken One.
> "Oh. Oh, that's bad."
Luo Fan recognized it instantly. In the old multiverse, these were people who had suffered corrupted cultivation deviations. But here, they had become something worse—warped remnants of beings who didn't survive the Reset properly.
It wasn't just a mindless beast. It still remembered something.
And that made it dangerous.
The Fight Without Cultivation
The Broken One let out a distorted snarl, lunging at him again.
Luo Fan twisted his body, barely avoiding the attack, but the creature was fast. His old reflexes were still there, but his body? Weak. Too slow.
He needed a plan.
"EchoStar," he muttered. "Give me options."
> "Options? How about 'Run for your damn life'?"
Luo Fan grimaced. He didn't disagree. But his pride wouldn't let him flee just yet.
> "Alright, alright! You do have one advantage."
"Which is?"
> "You still have the Devourer's traces inside you."
Luo Fan's eyes widened.
He had forgotten—when he absorbed the Devourer's power, it rewrote him on a fundamental level. Even if his cultivation was gone, something still lingered.
A faint pulse stirred in his body.
Not cultivation. Not qi.
Something… different.
The Broken One lunged again. This time, Luo Fan didn't dodge.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the creature's arm—
SHRRRK!
A violent surge of energy erupted. Not from him—but from the Broken One itself.
Its body convulsed as a ripple of distorted force drained from its limbs, sucked toward Luo Fan's palm like a dying ember being pulled into the dark.
The creature howled.
> "Uh. Boss? What did you just do?"
Luo Fan didn't answer. He was absorbing something. Not energy, not spiritual qi—something more primal.
Something from the fragments of the old multiverse.
> [Partial Absorption Successful.]
A new holographic screen flickered in front of him, glitching but readable.
[Devouring Echo: Activated]
[Absorbed Remnant Data: Fading Soul (Incomplete)]
[Effect: Allows brief perception of past memories from consumed targets.]
Luo Fan's vision blurred.
For a split second, he saw something—
A memory.
The Broken One's past life.
A young disciple. A proud sect. A battle that never should have happened.
And then—Reset.
All erased.
Luo Fan's mind snapped back as the creature collapsed, its body crumbling into dust.
Silence returned.
His hands trembled. His breath was ragged.
He had absorbed a piece of something lost.
And for the first time, he understood—
The Reset hadn't just erased the multiverse.
It had left ghosts behind.
The Journey Continues
Luo Fan exhaled, steadying himself.
The Devouring Echo was still new, unpredictable. But it was proof—he wasn't powerless. Not completely.
> "Okay, that was… something."
EchoStar buzzed beside him, flickering erratically.
> "So, uh. I hate to be the one to say it, but what the hell was that?"
Luo Fan flexed his fingers. "A remnant of the old world."
> "Right. And you just… ate a part of it?"
"More like… absorbed it."
> "Oh, fantastic! You're a walking existential crisis now. Love that for us."
Luo Fan smirked despite himself. EchoStar's sarcasm was oddly comforting.
But this encounter had confirmed one thing—
Even in this ruined world, there were fragments of the past left behind.
And if he could collect them—
He might just find a way back to power.
A faint pulse of energy flickered in the distance. The signal they had detected earlier.
A real lead.
Luo Fan took a deep breath and stepped forward.
He wasn't done yet.
The road ahead was long. Dangerous.
But that had never stopped him before.
> "Alright, Boss. Let's go see what nightmare we're walking into next."
Luo Fan smirked.
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
---
[Chapter End.]