Novels by Abel

The stone door slid another inch, and the energy inside me answered with a hard pulse that ran from my wrist to my shoulder. The markings around the entrance lit up one after another, as if something below had been waiting for that signal.“Get away from it!” Han shouted.Zhao Lei grabbed the injured guard and dragged him toward the yard. The pressure struck before they reached the doorway, forcing all of us down. Dust burst from the walls, and a crack split the floor beneath my hand.I tried to suppress the energy, but it pushed against my control. The entity inside me remained silent, leaving me to fight a force I barely understood.The stone door stopped moving. Beyond the narrow opening, darkness covered a chamber cut into the earth. I could make out a low platform and the broken ends of metal restraints, but no sign of the person who had called my name.Then the pressure rose again.“Ryan, move!” Zhao Lei yelled.I rolled away as a slab fell where I had been kneeling. It struck t

“Don't let them open the door. If they do, none of you will leave this place alive.”The warning still hung over us when Zhao Lei raised his weapon and stepped toward the sealed entrance. Han immediately ordered him to stop, but the younger cultivator barely glanced at him. His attention remained fixed on the stone stairs, where the missing caretaker might still be trapped.“If someone is alive down there, we're leaving him to die,” Zhao Lei said. “I'm not returning to the family with nothing but a frightening voice and a broken instrument.”Han blocked his path. “We have an injured guard and a formation we don't understand. We report what happened and bring someone qualified to deal with it.”“And what if the caretaker is still alive when they arrive?”“Then we rescue him properly.”Their argument was reasonable, but neither man understood what troubled me most. The voice had called me by name before anyone could have told it who I was, and the primordial entity inside me had gone si

The first warning came before we reached the property.I was sitting in the back of the Zhao family's vehicle when the primordial entity stirred inside me, interrupting my attempt to control the energy moving through my body.“Pay attention,” it warned.I looked through the window at the buildings passing along the eastern outskirts of the city. “What is it?”“The energy beneath this property is stronger than I expected. Do not approach it carelessly.”That was all it said before falling silent.I tightened my grip on Grandfather Zhao's sealed order. He had sent me here to prove whether my survival had changed anything, but the entity's warning suggested that the assignment carried a danger even the patriarch might not understand.The vehicle turned onto a narrow road and stopped beside a neglected compound surrounded by a rusted fence. A faded sign identified it as Zhao Property Seven, an old cultivation resource station that had been abandoned several years earlier.Zhao Lei climbed

By the time I entered the Zhao family hall, the elders had already taken their seats, and Zhao Ming was telling everyone that my survival had insulted the family.He stopped when he saw me, his mouth twisting into a familiar sneer. “Look at him. He survived the ancestral ritual, yet he still looks like the same useless cripple.”I ignored him and walked to the place reserved for me near the back. For three years, the Zhao family had made sure I understood where I belonged. Today, I had no intention of giving them a reason to discover how much had changed.Grandfather Zhao sat at the head of the hall, watching me with a calm expression that concealed nothing of his suspicion. Two guards stood behind him, their hands resting near their weapons. He had not gathered the family to discuss my health. He wanted to know whether the man who had survived the sacrifice had become dangerous.“The ritual failed,” he announced. “Ryan survived, and until we understand why, this matter remains unreso

Master Shen’s warning followed me back to my room.The man had looked at my damaged roots and found something that the Zhao elders could not explain, yet he had left without accusing me or offering help. Outside my door, the guards changed shifts and reported every movement to someone higher in the family. Even the smallest sound reminded me that I was being watched.I sat on the floor and turned my attention inward. The current beneath my ribs felt quieter than it had during the examination, but when I tried to guide it toward my palm, it tightened and pushed back. I remembered how I had redirected the altar’s energy and stopped the tunnel from collapsing. Both times, I had acted before I could think, and both times I had paid for it afterward.“You knew Shen would notice,” I said to the entity.“I knew the energy might respond to his test.”“That’s not the same as warning me.”“You were already being examined. A warning would not have changed the risk.”I pressed my fingers against

I spent the night listening to the guards outside my door and trying to make the current inside me disappear.Every time I slowed my breathing, the energy settled beneath my ribs; every time a footstep crossed the corridor, it stirred again, responding to my unease like a creature that could smell fear. By dawn, I understood that hiding my power would take more than pretending to be weak.The primordial entity guided me through the same exercise until my legs ached from sitting still. It offered no secret technique, only a warning that I had not yet learned to separate my feelings from the energy feeding on them.“Then teach me something useful before Shen arrives,” I muttered.“Your impatience is useful to me,” it replied. “It makes the current stronger.”“That isn’t the same as helping.”I stopped the exercise before anger could pull the energy upward. Master Shen had been summoned to examine me, not to fight me, and I would gain nothing by letting an unknown power make decisions on