The lightning ancestor’s flickering form leaned closer, the smell of ozone thick and suffocating. "You are the last spark of my bloodline on this rock," the entity vibrated, its voice fading into a whisper. "Take this final gift. You must find a way to survive, and when you are strong enough, tear the heart out of those bastards. I regret I cannot save you... my time has turned to ash."

With a final, brilliant flash, a tiny spark of pure, blinding white light shot from the ancestor’s fingertip and burrowed into Ethan’s chest, seating itself directly atop his newly formed Amethyst Core. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

[Master, attention!] Crul’s voice screamed inside his head with a level of urgency Ethan had never heard. [You have been gifted a Lightning Seed—one of the most coveted treasures in the higher realms. Wrap it in your Void power immediately! Do not absorb it; your body will explode. If Xuan Ni detects this, he will rip you in half just to harvest it. Hide it! We need this as our trump card to escape this hell!]

Gritting his teeth against the searing heat in his dantian, Ethan pulled the last dregs of his Void essence inward. He spun the violet energy like a silken cocoon, layering it over the white spark until its presence was completely masked beneath the cold, dark aura of the Void.

He finished the concealment just as the air in front of him distorted.

Elder Xuan Ni appeared in a flash of crimson light. He looked like a nightmare; his ornate robes were charred rags, his skin was blackened by lightning burns, and his hair was a wild, singed mess. But his aura—the suffocating weight of a Half-step Spiritual Sea expert—was absolute.

Xuan Ni looked down at Ethan, his eyes burning with a madness that surpassed simple anger. He looked at the smoking ruins of his ten-kilometer warship in the distance, then back at the broken man at his feet.

"You miserable, godless bastard," Xuan Ni hissed, the ground beneath his feet turning to dust from the sheer pressure of his killing intent. "Look at what you have caused. My fleet is ash, and my pride is shattered. I swear on the eternal name of the Crimson Sect, I will make you pay a price that death cannot even describe."

Xuan Ni reached down, his fingers curling like talons. "I will not kill you. I will refine your soul in my furnace for a thousand years until you beg for the mercy of non-existence."

Ethan looked up through the blood masking his face. He felt the Lightning Seed pulsing against his core—a silent, lethal promise of retribution. He couldn’t move his arms, but his amethyst eyes didn’t flicker.

"Then stop talking," Ethan spat, a crimson grin spreading across his face. "And show me what you’ve got, old man."

Xuan Ni raised a hand, his palm glowing with a concentrated crimson heat that threatened to liquefy the air. He was a split second away from obliterating the crater and everything in it, when a sharp, authoritative shout cut through the tension.

"Stop, you old goat!"

Venerable Open Sky landed nearby, his face pale and covered in soot. "The mission is to bring him back alive! If you squash him like a fly now, how will we answer to the Sect Leader about the loss of the Young Master? Do you forget the protocol?"

Xuan Ni’s face twisted in a mask of pure, frustrated agony. He diverted his strike at the last possible microsecond. The crimson blast shrieked past Ethan’s head, obliterating a three-block radius of buildings behind him. He didn’t care who was inside—civilian or soldier, they were all erased in a roar of fire and dust.

"Arrest him," Xuan Ni hissed, his voice trembling with the effort of not committing murder. "Before I lose my mind and end him anyway."

Two elite disciples stepped forward from the wreckage, their faces cold. They looked down at Ethan’s shattered form. "This is going to hurt, native," one whispered, reaching out with a pair of spirit-sealing shackles.

In that heartbeat, Ethan’s "useless" arms snapped upward.

His fingers, reinforced by the last desperate surge of Void energy, clamped around their throats like iron vices. Before they could even gasp, he twisted. Two sickening cracks echoed across the clearing. The disciples’ eyes bulged as their windpipes and vertebrae were crushed into splinters.

They slumped to the ground, lifeless.

"Two less," Ethan wheezed, a grotesque, bloody grin splitting his face. "Hey, old fart... come get me. If you don’t kill me now, I swear by everything I hold sacred: I will hunt you down. I will exterminate you, your family, and every single soul in your pathetic sect."

The air turned freezing.

The Vice-Captain, the man directly beneath the fallen Xuan Li, moved so fast it defied the eye. His fist buried itself in Ethan’s abdomen, folding him in half. Before Ethan could recoil, the Vice-Captain grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed his face into the thick, dark mud of the battlefield.

"You talk a lot of shit," the Vice-Captain growled, grinding Ethan’s face into the filth. "So I guess you must love the taste of it. Come on—eat. Eat! I’ll help you."

He ground Ethan’s face back and forth in the muck before yanking him up by his hair and slamming him down again, forcing Ethan to vomit a mixture of bile and blood.

"Enough games," Xuan Ni commanded from above. "Prepare the ’package’ for transport."

Without a shred of mercy, the Vice-Captain drew a jagged ritual dagger. In four swift movements, he sliced through the tendons of Ethan’s wrists and ankles. Then, with methodical brutality, he began to dislocate every major joint—knees, elbows, shoulders, and hips. The sound of popping cartilage and shifting bone was rhythmic and sickening.

Ethan clamped his teeth together so hard they began to crack. He refused to give them the satisfaction of a scream. He refused to beg.

The Vice-Captain leaned in, his breath smelling of copper and cold air, looking into Ethan’s defiant, amethyst eyes.

"You’re a tough one, aren’t you?" the Vice-Captain whispered, a cruel light in his eyes. "Let’s see how long that lasts in the cages of the Crimson Sect."

--------------------

From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion

Golden Core Realm

Prime Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction

Spiritual Sea Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Dao Manifestation Realm

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??

Spiritual Transcendence

Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??