2025-06-05 19:42:49The stillness of dawn pressed against the bamboo walls of Lucien’s secluded quarters, broken only by the faint rhythm of his breath. He sat cross-legged on the worn meditation mat, back straight, the soft glow of spirit energy cycling silently through his meridians. It moved like whispered vengeance, cool and relentless, igniting the dull ache in his bones that had become all too familiar. The scent of pine incense curled in the air, curling like ghosts above the censer, yet peace refused to settle in his heart.
Then, a cold chime echoed in his mind.
[Hidden Trial Unlocked: "Purification Begins"]Objective: Eliminate 3 corrupt sect members within 3 days.Reward: 1 Verdict Slot, Unlock Tier 2 Skill Tree, +200 EPFailure Penalty: System Lockout for 30 days (no EP gain)
Lucien’s eyes opened slowly, golden irises glowing faintly beneath long, black lashes. The faintest smirk curved his lips.
"Three days. Three sinners," he murmured. "If the heavens demand it, then so be it."
Elder Thorne’s execution had only been the prologue. The System didn’t reward idleness; it demanded reaping. And it had now sharpened its blade for a more deliberate slaughter.
The first trial had begun.
The clang of steel and the roar of voices filled the inner court arena. It was a sacred tradition of the Radiant Lotus Temple—sunrise duels to showcase promise, posture strength, and impress the ever-watchful elders. A sea of disciples, clad in silken robes bearing house crests, stood under the morning sun, breath steaming in the early chill.
Lucien lingered in the shadow of a maple tree near the arena’s edge, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. His outer disciple robes were humble, stained with wear, their dullness contrasting with the crisp whites and radiant silvers of those gathered for the duel. He wasn't here to compete.
He was here to watch.
Across the field, the final duel commenced. The crowd hushed.
A tall young man stepped onto the stone platform. His robes were pristine, snow-white with faint blue frost patterns. His silver hair fell to his shoulders, shimmering like steel under light. His sword gleamed with a cold aura, tiny flakes of frost condensing near its hilt.
“Rein Aldric,” someone whispered beside Lucien. “They say he mastered Frostheart Sword Style at seventeen. Defeated a Core Formation spirit beast with a single strike.”
Lucien narrowed his gaze. A flick of intent activated the Eye of Judgment.
Karma: +10
Clean. Suspiciously so.
Rein’s opponent charged across the arena, shouting as his flaming blade cleaved the air.
But it was over before it began.
Rein moved like falling snow. Silent, precise.
Shhk.
A single line of frost cut the space between them.
The challenger’s blade shattered. A deep slice appeared across his shoulder before he even knew he’d been struck. He collapsed to one knee, weaponless.
Gasps. Then polite applause.
Admiration tinged with fear.
Rein's gaze swept over the disciples—and stopped. On Lucien.
Their eyes locked.
For a heartbeat, the world froze. Two predators stared across a sea of lambs. One forged of ice, the other of judgment.
Rein stepped down, his sword returning to its sheath without sound. He walked straight toward Lucien.
“You don’t belong here,” he said, voice low and even, like a winter breeze. “Your presence feels… like a storm waiting to break.”
Lucien tilted his head. “Then pray the temple’s foundations are strong.”
No threat. No flinch. Only a quiet, mutual recognition.
Lucien turned first, vanishing into the crowd like ink in water.
A rival.
Not a villain.
But a hunter of another kind.
By midday, Lucien had cast off the shadow of ambition and dressed himself in frailty. He wore threadbare robes now, dust in his hair, his aura suppressed to that of a struggling outer disciple barely clinging to Qi Condensation.
He wandered with uncertain steps, shoulders hunched, gaze lowered.
Perfect bait.
The system pulsed in his mind again.
[Skill Acquired: Mark of Condemnation]Effect: Tag a target with hidden spiritual mark. Tracks their karma over time and prevents disguise or suppression of sin.Limit: 5 active marks.
Lucien smiled faintly.
The hunt began.
Target 1: Disciple Venn.
Charismatic. Popular. Dangerous.
Lucien trailed him through the Alchemy Hall corridors. The boy had slick black hair and a face sculpted for admiration. Female disciples giggled behind their sleeves when he passed.
But Lucien saw deeper.
In a narrow hall, Venn cornered a new initiate. The girl clutched her robes, eyes wide with discomfort.
“Call me senior brother,” Venn whispered. “Or I won’t be there next time the furnace blows. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
Lucien’s gaze hardened.
Karma: -240
Dark tendrils pulsed around Venn’s soul.
Lucien brushed the stone wall beside him.
[Mark of Condemnation: Applied]
Target 2: Elder Wren.
Kind eyes. Soft voice.
A liar.
Late that night, Lucien entered Wren’s office. Silent as mist. Hidden in the rafters, he watched.
Scrolls lay in neat stacks—exam scores, promotion orders, test results. Yet Lucien saw the pattern. Dozens of names scored higher than they earned.
Then Wren laughed.
Another disciple bowed before him, slipping a pouch of spirit stones under the desk.
“Your talents deserve recognition,” the elder said smoothly.
Karma: -520
A crimson mist clung to him like rot.
Lucien whispered a symbol into the wooden beam.
[Mark of Condemnation: Applied]
Target 3: Instructor Bail.
Keeper of herbs. Quiet man. Efficient.
Lucien followed him through the gardens, then to the northern storage shed.
There, hidden under bundles of fresh ingredients, were bundles of rot. Spoiled spirit herbs. Muddied pills. Broken vials of tincture.
A cloaked figure arrived.
They exchanged goods. Bail walked away richer.
Karma: -350
Lucien knelt on the floorboards, drawing a silent glyph with a fragment of charcoal.
[Mark of Condemnation: Applied]
Three sinners. All marked. All watched.
Now, he waited.
But Lucien was not the only hunter.
Above, in the high balcony of the main temple, Rein Aldric stood with arms crossed, staring at the outer court like a sovereign watching over ants.
Lucien’s movements—too smooth. Too rehearsed.
His conversations were sparse. His paths exact.
He had seen the old Lucien before: average. Forgettable.
This Lucien moved like a blade being drawn.
Rein approached Elder Taran, the temple’s rule-keeper.
“Something is off about Lucien Graves,” Rein said.
Taran laughed, waving a dismissive hand. “That boy? He couldn’t cultivate wind from an open window.”
Rein didn’t press.
But his eyes darkened with thought.
“He’s hiding something,” he thought. “And it’s sharp enough to kill.”
That night, Lucien returned to his quarters. He lit no candles. The moonlight bathed the room in pale silver, flickering through the bamboo slats like blade slashes.
The System Interface hovered in the air before him.
Execution Points: 100Marks Active: 3/5
One mark pulsed.
[Sin Activity Detected: Target Venn – Karma Surge to -270]Verdict Potential Increased.
Lucien opened the skill tree.
A new branch shimmered faintly:
[Verdict Chains – Locked]
Soon.
He drew his blade from its sheath, the polished edge catching the moonlight. He took out a whetstone and began to sharpen it slowly, methodically.
Not for preparation.
For ritual.
A killer’s meditation.
“One down,” he whispered, recalling the scorched bones of Elder Thorne vanishing into smoke. “Three more condemned.”
He paused, the blade gleaming in his lap.
“Let the trial begin.”
Outside, the wind stirred. Clouds swallowed the moon.
Somewhere in the high tower, Rein Aldric shivered. The birds fled the trees, and the frost in his veins whispered a warning.
Something was coming.
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Chapter 16: Gathering Storms
The winds over the borderlands had changed. Once gentle and silent, they now whispered of blood and judgment, of legends born beneath burning skies and names carried by karmic thunder. And among them, none stirred more fear or reverence than Lucien Graves.From the distant ruin of the Dawnsworn Sect to the smoldering ashes of the Burning Orchid, word of the Wandering Executioner’s passage had spread like spiritual wildfire. Mid-tier sects—once complicit in hidden karmic theft—scrambled to purge their leadership. Some issued false proclamations of renewal, others burned scrolls and severed pacts in fear of divine reprisal. But it was too late. Justice had already moved, and its echo was reshaping the realm.In the mountains between the Eastern Lotus Alliance and the Jade Sky Confederacy, tension coiled tighter than a drawn bowstring. Flags rose. Camps formed. Armies amassed, cloaked in righteousness and heresy alike.Lucien stood beneath the rustling leaves of a windworn pine, overlook
Chapter 15: Mark of the Tribunal
Dawn had not yet broken, but the forest surrounding the ruined Burning Orchid Sect lay bathed in a haunting haze of residual karma. The air shimmered faintly, twisted by unseen threads of divine backlash that crackled through the soil and leaves. Where once the sect had stood proudly, now only fractured spires and collapsing towers remained, their foundations crumbling beneath the judgment of a righteous storm.Lucien stood alone at the edge of a cliff overlooking the scorched grounds. Below, where karma storms howled like grieving ghosts, the last embers of corruption were still being devoured. It should have brought him peace, but there was none. Victory had come with silence, not celebration.Behind him, deep within the forest, thirteen children slept in a sacred warding circle, tucked away in a mossy grove of spiritroot trees. Each child had once been bound by soul-branding and karmic suppression arrays. Now, they breathed freely. Safe. For now.Lucien turned to leave—when fire er
Chapter 14: Burning Orchid Sect
The forest at the base of the Burning Orchid Sect bloomed with silent lies.Petals shimmered in the breeze, each one etched with spiritual glyphs that pulsed like soft heartbeat sigils. Disciples in white and crimson robes moved through the flower-laced courtyards, their faces placid, their footsteps light. Children laughed beneath the shade of ancient spirit trees, and monks chanted beside clear pools of water.It was paradise. On the surface.Lucien moved through the outer training grounds in a humble traveler's garb, his divine presence veiled, his karmic thread compressed to near invisibility. The System’s interface blinked softly in his peripheral vision.System Observation:Sealed Karma Signatures Detected.Technique: Celestial Suppression Array — Modified Form.Host Condition: Passive Extraction Status.His eyes narrowed. The children he passed had faint smiles, but their karmic threads were unnatural—not broken, but bound, compressed deep within their spiritual cores.Not stol
Chapter 13: Oracle Sight
The cave above the ridge was little more than a hollow in the cliff, carved by wind and time and the bones of long-dead beasts. The scent of ash still lingered from the fight with the Karma Hunter. Outside, the wind clawed at the mouth of the cave, howling as if to remind Lucien that survival, for him, would never again be quiet.He sat cross-legged near a circle of cold embers, his cloak discarded, his shirt bloodied and torn where the guandao had struck. The wound ached with a deeper kind of pain—not just physical, but spiritual. The cursed relic had left a trace.Lucien exhaled slowly."Begin purification," he whispered.System Response:Minor Purification Trial: Completed.Karmic Thread Stabilized.Warmth washed through his veins, divine in origin, but fading quickly. He could not rely on purification forever. The fights ahead would only get worse.The System flickered in his vision, but something was different.Gold light. Not harsh like judgment, but ancient and solemn, like a d
Chapter 12: The Karma Hunters
The wind howled through the narrow gorge like a beast that had forgotten its name. Lucien Graves stood at its edge, the jagged peaks of the borderlands silhouetted against a blood-orange dusk. The remnants of broken shrines littered the path before him, cracked tablets whispering forgotten prayers as his boots crunched over frostbitten stone.He walked alone. He had to.Every step he took away from the ruins of Dawnsworn Sect was a step into hostile silence. He avoided major roads. Stayed off ley lines. Traveled only when the sun bled or the moon watched.And yet, he felt it.Something followed.Not in footfalls or rustling leaves, but in karma. Threads of it—twisted, stuttering, vile—brushed at the edges of his spiritual senses. It was wrong. Where true karma ran like silk, these strands were coarse, polluted, frayed at the edges like rope left to rot in blood.System Notification:Alert: Divine Residue Detected.Origin: Corrupted Relic.Approaching Hostile Source: Unknown.Lucien na
Chapter 11: The Bounty
The world did not tremble when Myra Langley died.But the winds changed.They carried whispers — not of rumor, but of reckoning.From the spirit-swept cliffs of the Northern Sky Temple to the sun-scorched outposts of the Scorched Expanse, the tale bled into the air like a karmic contagion.In the northern borderlands, disciples gathered around dwindling campfires, their voices hushed, afraid that even the flame might eavesdrop.“Did you hear? Dawnsworn’s Sect Master... dead. Executed.”A younger disciple, his robes tattered from training, leaned forward. “By whom?”No one spoke at first. Then, an older cultivator, his eyes heavy with things seen, whispered, “They call him... The Wandering Executioner.”Across the war-torn fields of the East, amidst charred banners and broken spears, a battlefield cleric unrolled a scroll, the ink still drying with blood-scented qi. He read it once and dropped it as though it burned his hands.“Impossible,” he muttered, backing away. “She was... eterna
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