Chapter 18: From Heaven and Earth Qi to Asura
A heavy silence blanketed the land as Xiao Ning stepped into the valley.
The air reeked of rusted iron and rot, thick and cloying, as if the very earth remembered the slaughter that had taken place here. Mists clung low to the jagged terrain, and the sunlight, filtered through crimson haze, lent the rocks a sickly hue—like dried blood staining ancient bones.
Not a sound stirred.
Only the wind, thin and keening, whispered between the ravines like a mourner left behind.
Xiao Ning scanned the valley once, then walked to its heart and seated himself cross-legged upon a shattered stone platform. This was the place where the Yin Qi—the cold, deathly essence—was most dense. It coiled around him like an invisible fog, biting into his skin.
He inhaled deeply.
The energy surged into his lungs like needles, sharp and unrelenting but he did not flinch, this pain is nothing to him.
"Let’s begin," he murmured.
His fingers formed a seal, and he activated the Paradox Meridians.
At once, the spiritual energy in his body began to dissipate, draining away as if poured from a broken jar. The warm flow of cultivation vanished, leaving behind an eerie emptiness. In that moment, Xiao Ning was no longer a cultivator—just an ordinary mortal, emptied of power.
But that emptiness was exactly what he needed.