The morning light did not so much as greet Yin Shen as it did accuse him. As the first rays of the sun filtered through the intricate sandalwood screens of the Serpent's Nest Pavilion, they illuminated a figure that looked less like a rising supreme genius and more like a man who had spent three nights being trampled by a stampede of spirit-beasts.
Yin Shen lay sprawled across the silk-covered bed, his limbs arranged at awkward angles. His silver hair, usually a shimmering battle standard, was a chaotic bird's nest of tangles.
Dark circles hung heavily beneath his golden eyes, which were currently staring blankly at the ceiling with the vacant expression of someone whose soul had temporarily vacated the premises.
"Demons..." he rasped, his voice sounding like a rusted gate. "I've faced the Calamity of Nine Thunders... I've faced the killing intent of a Soul Transformation Matriarch... but nothing... absolutely nothing... is more taxing than a seventeen-year-old with pigtails."
The previous evening had been a whirlwind of high-pitched questions, bone-shattering hugs, and a relentless assault of "spirit-peach buns." Yin Yue had treated his new residence like a playground and his personal space like a suggestion.
By the time she had finally departed—dragged away by a maid who looked equally traumatized—Yin Shen felt as though his brain had been put through a meat grinder.
He slowly sat up, his spine emitting a series of pops that sounded like snapping dry kindling.
"I have reached a conclusion," he muttered to the empty room, his face deadpan and grim. "In all the realms of existence, from the lowest mortal plane to the highest ascended heavens, Lolis are the most dangerous thing in existence. They don't attack your body; they erode your sanity."
The Skipped Sovereign: A Matter of Birthright
As he dragged his now-corpse-like-body towards the washing basin, the weight of his family's bizarre hierarchy settled in his mind. It was a peculiar thing, the way the Yin Family handled its lineage.
To the outside world, Yin Yue was known as the Fifth Young Mistress. She held the title with pride, and the estate respected her as the youngest of the direct line's titled children. But the truth was hidden in the dusty ledgers of the birth records—records the Elders had tried to bury under the weight of nineteen years of neglect.
In an orderly world, the ages and titles of the Yin siblings should have looked like this:
| Sibling | Age | Official Title | Status |
| Yin Long | 30 | First Young Master | Heir Apparent / Army Commander |
| Yin Hua | 29 | Second Young Mistress | Alchemy Specialist |
| Yin Xue | 25 | Third Young Mistress | The Ice Queen of Destruction |
| Yin Jian | 22 | Fourth Young Master | Blazing Sun Cultivator |
| Yin Shen | 19 | Unranked | The Trash |
| Yin Yue | 17 | Fifth Young Mistress | The Hidden Genius |
Yin Shen was, by every law of nature and birth, the fifth child. He was two years older than Yin Yue. Yet, because he had failed to awaken his veins at the age of ten, the Council of Elders had performed a "Bureaucratic Eradication."
They stripped him of his rank, his title, and even his number. To preserve the "prestige" of the family, they simply moved the counter forward. Yin Yue was promoted to the position of "Fifth Mistress" to fill the gap, making it appear as though the direct line consisted only of successful cultivators.
"They deleted me from the count," Yin Shen mused, splashing cold water onto his face.
The chill helped clear the fog of Yin Yue's interrogation from his mind. "They were so ashamed of a 'trash' son that they rewrote the order of the stars just to pretend I didn't exist. Well... the Fifth Master has returned from the dead. I wonder how they'll explain the math when I'm standing atop the Major Stone."
After freshening up and donning a clean set of robes—midnight blue with silver trim that matched the starlight in his eyes—Yin Shen bypassed his breakfast and headed straight for the private training hall.
The chamber was silent, the racks of cold steel weapons standing like silent witnesses. He sat cross-legged in the center of the hall, the leather-bound scroll [Ruination's Edge] lying on the floor before him. The aura coming off the manual was different today—sharper, more aggressive.
Now that he had reached the Qi Condensation Realm, he could sense the "Destructive Intent" woven into the very ink of the parchment.
"System," he called out mentally. "Learn the skill: [Ruination's Edge]."
{Ding!}
{Scanning External Manual... High-Mortal Rank [Destructive Sword Type] detected.}
{Compatibility with Chaos Meridian: 98%.}
{System is now integrating [Ruination's Edge] into the Host's consciousness.}
A sudden, violent surge of information flooded his mind. It wasn't the gentle glow of the Star-King technique; it was a jagged, piercing sensation.
He saw visions of a single blade cleaving through mountains, a strike so absolute that it left nothing but a void in its wake. This was a martial art designed for one purpose: total annihilation.
{Ding!}
{Integration Successful.}
{Notification: Host has learned a High-Quality Martial Art from an external source for the first time.}
{Calculating 'Scholar's Insight' Bonus...}
{Reward: 40 System Points (SP) granted!}
Yin Shen's eyes snapped open. He looked at the blue system panel with a genuinely startled, confused expression. "Forty points? Just for reading a scroll?"
He blinked, a small, puzzled frown touching his lips. "I spent days fighting for points, and now I'm getting freebies? Is the System feeling pity for me after my encounter with Yue, or is it actually encouraging me to raid the family library?"
He didn't dwell on the confusion for long. In this world, a "freebie" was a weapon. He looked at his total SP. With the 40 bonus points and the 5 he had remaining from the breakthrough mission, he was sitting on 45 SP.
"I need power, and I need it to be absolute," he muttered. "The 'Ruination' type is notoriously difficult to master. Let's see if the System can bypass the 'meridian ache' Yue mentioned."
"System, spend 25 SP to level up [Ruination's Edge] to Unity Proficiency."
{Ding!}
{25 SP consumed.}
{Martial Art [Ruination's Edge] has reached: UNITY PROFICIENCY.}
{The Host and the Concept of Ruination are now one.}
A cold, heavy weight settled into his right arm. It felt as if his very bones had been reinforced with a dark, crushing gravity. He stood up, his silver hair swaying as a faint, destructive hum vibrated the air around him.
"Show me the Panels," he commanded.
[Status Panel]
* Name: Yin Shen
* Cultivation: Qi Condensation (Early 1st Stage)
* Meridian: Chaos Meridian (Supreme Grade - Evolvable)
* Breathing Technique: Star-King Breathing (Divine Rank)
* System Points: 20
[Skills Panel]
* Flash Step (Perfection): Near-instantaneous movement with presence concealment.
* Absolute Domination (Unity): Sovereign aura that suppresses all within the "Absolute Zone."
* Eye of Insight (Level 4): Perception of souls, Qi flow, and biological flaws up to Soul Transformation realm.
* Ruination's Edge (Unity): High-Mortal Destructive Sword Art. Can scale with the user's realm.
Yin Shen's gaze lingered on the final skill. "High-Mortal rank... yet it feels like it's screaming to be unleashed by the Gods themselves."
Yin Shen walked over to the weapon racks and picked up a standard practice sword. It was a decent blade, made of cold-forged iron, but in his hands, it felt like a fragile toy.
He moved to the center of the hall, where a testing dummy stood. This wasn't a standard wooden dummy; it was a Black-Steel Guardian, a training tool made of the strongest steel reinforced with defensive inscriptions.
It was designed to withstand the full-force strikes of Foundation Establishment experts.
"Let's see if Yue's 'birthday present' was as destructive as she claimed," he whispered.
He settled into a low stance. He didn't draw upon the vast, swirling starlight of his breathing technique. Instead, he reached into the very center of his Chaos Meridian and pulled out a single, thin thread of Qi—a thread that had been dyed the color of a void.
He channeled it into the blade.
The cold-forged metal began to vibrate tremendously by the second, the metal literally weeping as the "Concept of Ruination" saturated its molecular structure.
Yin Shen's golden eyes flashed with a terrifying, absolute light. He didn't execute a complex series of moves. He performed a single, vertical swing.
"Ruination's Edge: Heaven-Fall."
CRACK—!
The iron practice sword didn't just break; it vaporized. The metal couldn't even handle the release of the technique, turning into a cloud of fine, grey dust before the strike was even halfway through its arc.
However, the strike didn't stop simply because the weapon was gone. The Qi—compressed into a line thinner than a strand of silk—shot forward.
BOOM!
The Black-Steel Guardian was cleaved in two so cleanly that the two halves didn't even fall over immediately. The cut was perfect, bypassing the defensive inscriptions as if they were made of paper.
But the energy kept going.
The "Heaven-Fall" strike slammed into the ceiling of the pavilion. The reinforced jade tiles and the sandalwood beams were obliterated. The shockwave continued upward, piercing through the morning mist and splitting the clouds in the sky for miles, creating a clear, blue rift in the heavens.
Simultaneously, the ground beneath the dummy didn't just crack. It gave way. A jagged, bottomless fissure erupted from Yin Shen's feet, racing across the courtyard and splitting the ground of the Serpent's Nest Residence into two distinct halves. The spirit trees on either side of the rift toppled into the dark void.
Silence returned, but it was the silence of a tomb.
Yin Shen stood in the center of the wreckage, his right hand still held in the follow-through of the swing. He was covered in the dust of his vanished sword, his breathing calm, though his eyes were wide with shock.
"Destroy a nation... at the Nascent Soul realm?" he muttered, looking at the rift in the sky and the abyss at his feet. "Yue... I think you underplayed the 'High-Mortal' rank just a little bit."
He looked at his hand, which was trembling with residual, destructive energy. He was only at the 1st Stage of Qi Condensation.
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