The Empty Root Sutra

In the empire of Ten Thousand Peaks, every child is judged by the resonance of their spiritual roots. Those with heavenly roots enter immortal sects. Those with crippled roots serve them. Shen Vale is worse than crippled: his soul contains an Empty Root, a void that devours spiritual energy and brands him useless before the world. When his village is destroyed by a righteous sect hunting a forbidden inheritance, Vale survives by swallowing the dying breath of an ancient demon-sage who claims the heavens themselves are a prison.

Gifted a sutra that cultivates absence rather than power, Vale learns to refine pills from curses, steal insight from tribulation lightning, and turn rejection into a path no immortal has ever walked. But every stage of cultivation draws the attention of sect elders, imperial princes, abyssal beasts, and heavenly wardens who fear what an Empty Root may become.

To avenge the dead and uncover why the heavens erase certain truths, Vale must rise through tournaments, sect wars, ancient ruins, and his own devouring hunger—before his path consumes him too.