The moment the lion stepped out of the bushes, the forest changed.
Its presence warped the mist. The trees around it bent, ever so slightly, as if bowing—or recoiling. The creature stood tall, fur white as bone, and its golden eyes glowed with an unnatural light that pulsed… not with qi, but something deeper.
Soulforce.
A searing pressure struck his spirit—not his body.
He staggered, only slightly, but enough to know the difference.
Then, like a whisper remembered from someone else's dream, knowledge poured into his mind.
Soul Lion.
Spiritual beast. Second Claw Fourth Realm. Specializes in flame born from soul energy.
Soulflame: Not fire of flesh, but fire that burns essence. Pain bypasses the body. Devours willpower. Rare. Not supreme, but dangerous.
He smirked.
"Useful," he whispered.
Then he saw it—the bloodline. Ancient, barely diluted. A direct descendant of a lion king from some lost spiritual battlefield. Stronger than anything he'd devoured before.
And it had blood worth taking.
The lion growled—a low, steady sound that shook the stones beneath them. A blue flame began to rise from its mane, licking the air without heat but with intent.
It wanted his soul.
But he wanted more.
The fight began with silence.
He lunged first—vanishing in a blur of dark energy, wings unfurling behind his back. Crimson, batlike, veined with shadows and symbols that pulsed with ancient demonic might.
The lion was fast.
Claws met claws in mid-air, and the impact shattered a boulder nearby. Qi surged, and the trees ignited in soulfire. The lion roared, releasing a blast of blue-white flame straight at his chest.
He twisted.
The flame passed—missing—but he felt its edges scrape his soul. Not his skin. Not his qi. His very being.
He grinned despite the pain.
"Let's see how well you burn something born in the abyss."
He gathered demonic qi into his muscles, and his body thickened with power. The air warped around him. His skin, pale and laced with dark runes, hardened. His fangs lengthened.
The lion pounced.
They met mid-air again. This time, he didn't dodge.
He caught the beast by the throat.
Its teeth sank into his shoulder—burned into his blood—but he held it down.
With a roar that cracked the trees, he slammed the lion into the earth. Stone split. The air howled.
The lion released another burst of soulflame from its mouth.
It engulfed them both.
His flesh screamed—but the demon qi surged. The corrupted bloodline of the Void Emperor surged inside him like molten metal. Pain became fuel.
He screamed back, and the flame faltered.
He tore his shoulder free—bleeding smoke—and wrapped his clawed hand around the lion's heart.
"Burn me all you want," he hissed, "but I devour everything."
His wings snapped wide, casting a vast shadow—and the Devouring Dragon Art activated.
The lion's soul resisted. It clawed at the edges of his consciousness, howled in spiritual agony, but it was dragged inward.
This time, he did not stop at the qi.
He devoured the bloodline.
He felt it enter him—raging, noble, proud. It screamed in defiance, roaring through his veins like a second heart. It tried to overwrite him.
He crushed it.
His own will—shaped by pain, by hunger, by war—slammed the lion's soul into submission.
Then silence.
A heartbeat passed.
And a new power bloomed.
Soulflame. His fingers ignited—not in fire, but in something colder, deeper, flickering with blue-white essence.
He closed his eyes.
And breathed.
When he opened them again, the lion was dust. A corpse of flesh, nothing more.
He stood atop the battlefield, blood soaking his chest, his wings folded but twitching. His body ached. His soul shivered. But his core…
His core pulsed like thunder.
Second Claw. First. Second. Third Realm.
Three steps forward in one leap.
He exhaled slowly.
"This is why I don't take blood often," he muttered.
Even now, he could feel the subtle tension building in his essence. The Soul Lion's bloodline had been pure, but not his. If he kept devouring random beast bloodlines, his own would turn into a muddy swamp of contradictions—strength diluted by chaos.
"Better to refine what's mine than collect what's not."
But for this one… it had been worth it.
He sat for two days beneath the shattered stone trees and began the next task: mastery.
The soulflame was unstable in his hands. Too wild. It flickered unpredictably, sometimes burning through illusions, sometimes licking at his own thoughts. Once, it nearly consumed a fragment of his memory before he locked it down.
He practiced controlling it—channeling it through his breath, his claws, his eyes. Eventually, he could ignite a stone without touching it—burn it from the inside, shattering its spiritual structure rather than its surface.
More than an attack, it was a tool. One that would help him deal with soul cultivators, phantoms, and mental traps.
Once it obeyed him, he turned inward.
He sat in stillness, letting the storm of progress settle. His core throbbed with power now—far richer than when he was First Claw. The lines of energy in his body had expanded, his bones darker, denser. His eyes clearer.
He activated a deeper aspect of the bloodline inherited from the demon prince.
His body shifted.
The wings vanished. The runes faded. His skin lightened. His eyes turned to a dull crimson—not glowing, not monstrous. He looked…
Human.
With effort, he could toggle the change. The demon form burned brighter, faster. But the human guise…
That would let him walk among people.
"Time to leave the forest," he said aloud for the first time in weeks.
He stood, wrapped his shadow-forged robe around his body, and turned toward the eastern horizon.
"Let's find out what the human world has to offer."