Chapter Two — The First Hunger

  Smoke still drifted over the ruins of the village.

  What once stood as wooden homes and terraced fields had become blackened skeletons beneath a pale dawn. Ash fell like snow, settling over broken rooftops and shattered spirit formations. The screams of the night had faded, replaced by an unnatural silence.

  Shen Yu opened his eyes.

  For a moment, he did not move.

  His body lay half-buried beneath collapsed beams from the ancestral hall. Pain spread through his limbs, dull but distant, as if it belonged to someone else. The air smelled of blood and burnt qi.

  He remembered the mist.

  The wild Gu.

  And the elder’s final expression — not fear of death, but fear of him.

  Shen Yu pushed the debris aside and slowly stood.

  Around him lay bodies. Cultivators and villagers alike, their skin pale and shriveled. Some bore torn flesh where Gu had escaped their masters after death. Others looked untouched, yet their eyes were hollow — their essence completely drained.

  A low sound echoed nearby.

  Click… click…

  Shen Yu turned.

  A small worm crawled across a corpse toward him. Its body was translucent green, veins glowing faintly with spiritual light. It paused inches from his foot, raising its head as though sniffing.

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  Normally, wild Gu attacked anything alive.

  This one did not.

  Instead, it trembled.

  Then it lowered itself to the ground.

  Submission.

  Shen Yu frowned. “...Why?”

  The moment he spoke, a sharp pain pierced his chest.

  He staggered.

  Heat spread beneath his ribs — not burning, not freezing, but hungry. His stomach twisted violently, yet it was not ordinary hunger. Something deeper gnawed at him, clawing from within his flesh.

  Images flashed through his mind.

  Writhing worms.

  Endless darkness.

  A vast hollow space waiting to be filled.

  The green Gu suddenly shrieked.

  Before Shen Yu could react, it leapt forward, dissolving into strands of light that sank directly into his chest.

  He froze.

  Silence followed.

  Then—

  Thump.

  His heart beat once, heavy as a war drum.

  A flood of warmth surged through his body. Cuts closed. Bruises faded. His exhaustion vanished as if devoured by an unseen mouth.

  Shen Yu gasped, collapsing to his knees.

  Inside him, something moved.

  Not under his skin.

  Deeper.

  As though an invisible creature had awakened and swallowed the Gu whole.

  A faint whisper echoed in his mind — wordless, ancient, satisfied.

  “…It ate it,” he murmured.

  Cultivators refined Gu carefully, nurturing them for years. Even Rank One Gu required rituals, formations, and spiritual roots.

  Yet the worm had entered him willingly.

  And been consumed instantly.

  Footsteps crunched across broken stone.

  Shen Yu looked up sharply.

  Three figures approached through the smoke, robes marked with crimson cloud patterns. Each carried a faint aura of authority, their eyes sharp as blades.

  Sect cultivators.

  The man in front surveyed the devastation calmly. “A wild Gu tide… unusual for such a remote place.”

  A woman beside him noticed Shen Yu and narrowed her eyes. “Survivor.”

  Their spiritual senses swept over him.

  Shen Yu felt nothing — but their expressions changed instantly.

  “…No spiritual roots,” the woman said, surprised.

  The leader stepped closer, gaze lingering on Shen Yu’s chest.

  “And yet,” he murmured, “the surrounding Gu aura is converging toward him.”

  As if summoned, faint rustling sounds echoed from the ruins. Tiny shapes emerged — beetle Gu, moth Gu, centipede Gu — crawling from corpses and rubble.

  None attacked.

  They gathered around Shen Yu in a loose circle.

  Waiting.

  The sect cultivators stiffened.

  One whispered, “Gu… acknowledging a master?”

  Impossible.

  Even Rank Five experts could not command wild Gu so naturally.

  The leader’s eyes gleamed with sudden interest.

  “Boy,” he said calmly, “come with us. From today onward, you will enter the Black River Sect.”

  Shen Yu hesitated.

  Behind him lay only ashes.

  Ahead lay strangers whose smiles did not reach their eyes.

  Inside his chest, the unseen hunger stirred again — slow, patient, inevitable.

  He nodded.

  Not out of trust.

  But because instinct told him one thing clearly:

  If he wished to understand what lived within him…

  He needed more Gu.

  Far above, hidden beyond mortal sight, the heavens rumbled softly — as though something ancient had noticed a change in fate.

  And for the first time in countless eras…

  It felt threatened.