All Chapters of The CopyCat Immortal : Chapter 31
- Chapter 40
109 chapters
Chapter 29: Silent and Afraid
Ren didn't just walk up the Thousand-Step Ascent; he distorted it. Every time his heel clicked against the pristine white marble of the high peak, the surrounding air gave a sharp, crystalline crack. It wasn't intentional. The *Shadow Domain’s Heart* he’d stolen from Zarkon was vibrating at a frequency the physical world didn't like. The silence on the mountain was no longer the serene quiet of a sanctuary. It was a suffocating, leaden shroud. Thousands of disciples—the geniuses in blue silk, the seniors in heavy armor, and the laborers in gray hemp—stood along the verges of the path. They didn't cheer. They didn't hiss. They moved away. Whenever Ren’s shadow—unnaturally long and flickering with purple-silver static—approached a spectator, that person would flinch as if splashed with ice water. Fear has a specific smell: sharp, metallic, and pungent. Right now, the entire mountain smelled like a slaughterhouse at da
Chapter 30: A Bitter Farewell
Ren stood in the center of a room that was exactly nine paces wide. After sixteen years, the shack was as much a part of him as the scarred tissue on his back. Rain-warped cedar planks, a thatched roof that leaked during the monsoon season, and a hard dirt floor packed tight by thousands of nights of exhaustion. It was a hellhole, but it was *his* hellhole. "Guess the five-star lifestyle was just a trial run, huh?" Ren muttered, tossing a single tattered blanket aside.The silk robes the Elders had given him felt like lead against his skin. They were too quiet, too smooth. He preferred the abrasive honesty of hemp. Ren reached under the loose floorboard beneath his cot and pulled out his original water-carrying yoke. The wood was grey and weathered, the rope frayed by salt and sweat."Planning on taking that museum piece with you?" The voice was light, a silver needle in the heavy atmosphere. Hua Ran was leaning against the doorway, the moonli
Chapter 31: Shadows from the Past
The mud of the North-Western roads didn't care about silver badges or silken robes. It sucked at Ren’s heels with the same hungry indifference it had when he was a seven-year-old orphan begging for a crust of moldy bread. Ren walked with a steady, hypnotic pace. His hand rested lightly on the rough, salt-worn wood of his old water-carrying yoke, which was strapped to a rucksack filled with expensive jade vials and the smell of ancient paper. He was a paradox in motion—a peasant’s soul wrapped in an initiate’s glory, carrying a god-tier disaster in his marrow."Left, right, pivot, breathe," Ren whispered to himself. The *Void-Seed* inside his chest was still a cold, pulsating mass. Since leaving the Azure Cloud Sect, the internal pressure hadn't decreased; it had stabilized into a low-frequency hum that made the local wildlife avoid him. The birds went silent as he passed, and the snakes stayed deep in their burrows. To the wor
Chapter 32. The City Ubdee Threat
The town of Oakhollow didn’t welcome Ren; it exhaled a collective, shivering sigh of dread as he stepped past its leaning spruce-wood gates. For a settlement on the fringe of the Iron-Mist road, Oakhollow should have been a raucous hub of timber merchants and frontier hunters. Instead, the streets were deserted, save for the bitter wind that rattled shutters closed tight with iron bars. Ren adjusted the old water-carrying yoke across his shoulders. It was a bizarre accessory for a man wearing the shimmering, battle-scarred silks of an Azure Cloud initiate, but the wood served as a physical anchor for his boiling spirit. Internally, the eleven techniques he’d "borrowed" were like caged beasts fighting for oxygen. The newly mastered *Sanguine Soul-Snare* hissed against the cold weight of the *Titanic Mantle*, while the *Void-Seed* at his core acted like a greedy black hole, barely held in check by the memory of the bronze ring he’d lost back at the mount
Chapter 33. Echoes and Imitators
The air in the Crossroads Tavern, famously known as "The Shattered Keg," was a thick slurry of roasted mutton fat, stale tobacco, and the sharp, electric scent of people talking about things they didn't understand. Ren sat in the furthest corner, tucked behind a pillar of knotty pine that had absorbed centuries of spilled ale. He kept his head low, the brim of his straw hat casting a sharp shadow over his mismatched eyes. His old water-carrying yoke sat leaned against the wall next to him—a piece of common trash that had somehow become the most feared silhouette in the Northern Reach."I’m telling you, I saw it with my own eyes," a man with a jagged scar across his nose boasted, slamming a pewter mug onto the table. He was a second-rank cultivator from a minor house, barely strong enough to light a candle with his Qi, but tonight, he spoke as if he held the mandate of heaven. "He didn’t just punch the Crimson Vulture leader. He breathed. Just a
Chapter 34, A Call from the North
The gates of Coldstone City hung like twin jaws, teeth chipped and scarred. Ren stepped through, the scent of stale fear and charcoal thick in the air. This wasn't the bustling hub he remembered from whispers in the Azure Cloud archives. This was a mausoleum. Banners of dark, shifting fabric, embroidered with the stylized fangs of a wolf, hung limply from every tower, blotting out the sun. The silence was heavier than the shadow itself. Merchants huddled behind their stalls, their faces etched with resignation. Children played in muted whispers, their laughter stolen by the oppressive quiet. Ren’s eyes, one a vibrant violet, the other a stark, ghostly white, scanned the faces. Fear was a universal language, and here, it screamed. He pulled the hood of his plain traveler’s cloak lower, a simple piece of cloth that still failed to fully hide the anomalous glow that sometimes flickered from his eyes. His Void-Meld Conduit hummed faintly within, a consta
Chapter 35. Ancient Traces and Forgotten Techniques
The air in the Ruins of the Twilight Hand hung heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and something ancient, something wrong. Ren, his traveler's cloak pulled low, moved with a predator’s silence, the Void-Meld Conduit within him humming a low, restless tune. Kael’s words echoed in his mind: Spirit-Bind Suppression. Preys on spiritual essence. An early form of Zarkon’s true power. Ren’s violet and white eyes scanned the crumbling stone, searching for the source of the oppressive energy. He followed a faint trail of distorted Qi, a ripple in the natural flow of the world that spoke of forced intervention. It led him deeper into the ruins, past fallen columns and walls choked with phosphorescent moss. The silence here was different from Coldstone City’s fearful hush; this was a void, a place where sound seemed to be actively absorbed. Then, he saw it. In the center of a collapsed chamber, bathed in an eerie, in
Chapter 36. Shadow Trap
Ren turned to leave the ruins, the spectral energy of the Guardian Spirit fading into a deep, heavy silence. The obsidian tablet, cool and smooth, settled in his pocket like a stone of prophecy. The Spirit-Bind Suppression technique pulsed within him, a chilling tendril of power that promised dominion over spiritual essence. Yet, with every new acquisition, his Void-Meld Conduit thrummed a more insistent warning. The chaotic vortex of stolen Qi churned, demanding discipline. He sensed it then, not a sound or a scent, but a ripple in the very air, a shift in the way the wind moved around him. He was no longer just a wanderer, but a quarry. Whispers of a bounty, subtle yet persistent, seemed to cling to the edges of his awareness, carried on unseen currents. Zarkon wanted him gone. Or perhaps, more accurately, Zarkon wanted to understand the anomaly that was Ren, the Copycat Immortal. The forest outside the ruins was dense, ancient trees casti
Chapter 37. The Underground Network
Ren pressed a shaking hand against the gash in his side, the warm blood a stark contrast to the icy burn of the Shadow-Stitch Suppression now thrumming within his Void-Meld Conduit. Kage and the others were gone, their fear a palpable thing, but the wound was real, and the Qi saturation threatened to tear him apart from the inside. 105%, his senses screamed, a cacophony of volatile energies swirling, threatening to erupt. He needed shelter, and he needed it now. The forest, once a dense cloak, now felt like a labyrinth designed to bleed him dry. Each step was agony, the new technique a delicate, explosive addition to his chaotic core. He leaned heavily on an ancient tree, breathing hard, his violet and white eyes darting through the deepening gloom. He couldn't risk a rest. Zarkon's hunters would be back, bolstered by numbers, and far less surprised. He needed to disappear, not just from their sight, but from their very ability to track. He
Chapter 38. Shadow Guardian
Ren pressed the rough obsidian tablet into his pocket, the chill of the Shadow-Stitch Suppression technique a constant, unwelcome companion within his core. His side throbbed, a raw testament to Kage's deadly artistry and Ren's own reckless ambition. The forest floor, normally a carpet of damp leaves and rich earth, now seemed to writhe with an unnatural stillness. He moved with a phantom’s grace, a borrowed Blink-Sever Reflex guiding his steps, a stark contrast to the searing pain that flared with every movement. His Qi, a volatile storm contained by the Void-Meld Conduit, screamed at 105% saturation. The elixir and herbs from the Night Broker had offered temporary respite, smoothing the jagged edges of his internal chaos, but the true test still awaited. He followed the map, a crude sketch of shadowed paths and treacherous terrain, towards Fell-Iron Redoubt. The fortress wasn't merely a stronghold; it was a scar on the land, a monument to Zarkon's insati