The Root That Devoured Heaven

In the empire of Nine Incense Skies, a cultivator’s fate is decided at thirteen, when the ancestral altar reveals their spiritual root. Shen Liang receives the worst verdict imaginable: no root, no future, no place in the world of immortals. Cast out by his clan and sold as a furnace attendant to the Azure Crucible Sect, he expects to spend his life breathing poison smoke beneath the feet of geniuses.

Then a forbidden pill explodes in his hands, burning a black seed into his dantian. It is not a spiritual root, but something older: a Devouring Root that feeds on failed breakthroughs, ruined pills, heavenly lightning, and the regrets of the dead. Every step forward makes Liang stronger, but also draws the gaze of sect elders, rival prodigies, and an ancient will sleeping beneath the mountain.

To rise, Liang must master alchemy, survive sect politics, steal inheritance from ghosts, and face tribulations meant to erase monsters. But the higher he climbs, the clearer the truth becomes: Heaven is not a law. Heaven is a predator.