Ash blanketed the ruins of the hut like snow after a fire.
Charred beams jutted from the ground at broken angles, and the crater left by Heaven's wrath still smoldered faintly, its center scorched black where divine lightning had struck down. Around the epicenter, the earth had been cracked and torn like a wounded beast. This place—once the quiet home of a forgotten elder—was now a scar carved into the Verdant Moon Sect.
And at its center, **Shadow** sat cross-legged, bloodied and still, barely clinging to life.
His body trembled. His skin was torn and blistered, laced with dark bruises and deep cuts that still oozed. His breathing was shallow, lips cracked, and one eye swollen shut. Every inch of his flesh screamed with pain. He had survived not through luck, nor protection—but through sheer, unforgiving force.
And yet, despite the agony, his expression was calm.
He sat in silence, unmoving, meditating beneath the pale moonlight.
> "This… is not the body I had yesterday."
His thoughts were slow but sharp. Like a blade tempered by suffering.
He turned his senses inward.
And there, for the first time in his life, he found it:
> A **dantian**.
Not imagined. Not theoretical. Not the empty void that had mocked him for years.
It pulsed within him—a sphere of chaotic energy, formed not by absorption, but by violence. It had not blossomed under the gentle touch of spiritual guidance.
> It had been *wrenched* into existence.
The space was unstable. Raw. Flickering like a wounded star. But it was real.
And within it, something moved.
Something violent. Something furious.
---
> "Thunder…"
The word left his mouth like a whisper to himself.
There, coiled within his newly-formed dantian, was a fragment of energy he immediately recognized.
It wasn't simply spiritual power.
It was the **residual force** of the heavenly punishment—the thunder that had nearly killed him.
It crackled and twisted within the core, not harmonizing like true Qi, but rebelling against containment.
> "It's trying to escape…"
But it couldn't.
Though unstable, his dantian had ensnared it. Not willingly. Not intelligently. But as a result of the chaos caused by his ritual and the explosive energy of the spirit stones.
What should have killed him had instead left behind a trace of divine fury.
And it was now his to command.
Or die trying.
---
Shadow observed it carefully.
Though the thunder was hostile, it didn't dissipate. His dantian, though primitive, held it like a cage.
More importantly… it wasn't **cultivating** energy in the normal sense.
It was doing something very different.
> "It's not absorbing... it's **stealing.**"
Where a normal cultivator would draw spiritual energy gently through meditation, allowing it to harmonize with the body and slowly build strength, Shadow's system was pulling it in by force.
**Unfiltered. Untamed. Reluctant.**
It ripped at the spiritual threads in the air and consumed them without regard for balance.
Even the residual Qi from the shattered spirit stones had been drained—emptied into the chaos within his dantian.
> "It doesn't refine energy. It claims it."
> "This… is theft. And yet it works."
He sat in stunned silence, breathing through the ache.
Years of reading discarded cultivation scrolls. Years of eavesdropping on lessons he was forbidden from attending. Years of watching from behind the curtain of mediocrity had taught him enough to understand:
> He had created something that should not exist.
---
> "With a steady supply of resources… this method could push me to the peak of the Foundation Realm."
Not in years.
In months.
Maybe even weeks.
If he was careful.
But therein lay the danger.
> "Too fast, and I'll attract suspicion. Too much, and they'll kill me for it."
The Verdant Moon Sect had little tolerance for anomalies—especially from the outer disciples, who were barely considered people in the eyes of the elders. Any sudden rise would be investigated. And if it was discovered that his cultivation system worked through **unregulated spiritual theft**, the consequences would be fatal.
He wasn't just defying cultivation theory.
He was defying **the natural order.**
He was breaking the laws of Heaven.
He was proving that a cursed body could force its way into power.
> "So I must move quietly."
> "Stay beneath their notice."
> "Act like I'm still struggling…"
He coughed violently, spitting blood into the dirt.
Then reached slowly for a stone tile buried beneath the rubble.
Hidden beneath it, in a tightly sealed pouch, were three small medicinal pills—simple wound-cleansing and body-repairing pills he had saved over the last year.
Not precious.
But enough to keep him alive.
He swallowed one, then laid back with a sigh as warmth began to spread through his limbs.
The ache dulled slightly.
> "First, I recover."
> "Then I grow."
He dragged himself to the stream nearby, leaving a trail of blood behind him, step by agonizing step.
The water was cold, but it calmed the heat burning through his skin.
As he knelt to wash away the ash, the blood, the ruin of what had once been a home…
He saw his reflection.
Eyes sunken. Face bruised. But behind the fatigue…
> There was life.
> There was fire.
He splashed water across his face and let the current carry the last three days away.
When he stood again, it was with a straight back.
He returned to the ruins of the hut with clean skin, fresh clothes, and a new resolve.
There was no roof anymore.
No walls.
But beneath the stars, where fire had once raged…
He sat again.
Cross-legged.
Silent.
And smiled.
> "This method…"
> "This defiance…"
> "This rebellion against fate…"
He looked to the heavens above, calm but resolute.
> "It shall be called…"
> **"The Heaven-Stealing Sutra."**
A name that held within it the pain of his birth, the rage of his past, and the promise of his rise.
It was not a system for those seeking balance or peace.
It was a path for those whom Heaven had tried to erase.
A sin carved into spirit and soul.
And it had just begun.