The first thing he remembered was pain.
Not the kind that bled in straight lines or screamed in broken bones—no, this was deeper. Like a furnace lit inside his marrow. A thousand needles pricked every inch of his skin while his organs twisted like ropes wrung dry.
Xu Yuren gasped, his lungs refusing the first breath of rebirth. His back arched off the cold obsidian slab beneath him, convulsing, limbs flailing. Sweat drenched his bare skin as his heart pounded against ribs that felt newly formed.
"Another one survives," a voice whispered in the shadows.
Not survives. Returns.
The memories didn't rush—they bled. Drip by chaotic drip, they slithered back: A bloodied sect. Screams in the snow. His spiritual core ripped out by the hands of someone he once called "Master." A woman's laughter like cracked jade as her kiss burned through his soul.
And then... the Demonheart Cauldron. The cursed treasure he'd unearthed in a ruin no sane man dared enter. It had offered him one thing.
Rebirth.
At a price.
A price he was now paying in sweat, agony, and a new body soaked in yin-scorched spiritual energy.
---
The chamber around him was dimly lit, the flickering crimson candles casting tall shadows on the bone-carved walls. It wasn't a room meant for the living. A forge for flesh. A furnace for the damned.
"Welcome back, Xu Yuren," the voice cooed again. It came from a woman seated atop a serpent-shaped throne of black jade. Elder Huanmei, Sect Matron of the forbidden Scarlet Ember Pavilion. She wore only crimson silks that clung to her curves like second skin, but her eyes were colder than death.
"You burned everything you were," she said. "Now we'll mold what's left."
He tried to sit up, only to feel chains tighten across his chest.
She smirked. "Your soul was sealed with an unholy brand. If not for the Cauldron's mercy... well, let's say no man returns from full soul destruction."
Mercy. The word tasted like ash.
Xu Yuren clenched his jaw. Not mercy. Opportunity.
System Message: ‣ Demonheart Sign-In System Activated ‣ Realm Bound: Scarlet Ember Pavilion ‣ Day 1 Sign-In Location: Inner Cauldron Furnace Room ‣ Reward: Infernal Flame Veins (Unstable – Mutated Variant)
The symbols burned into his vision and vanished. His body pulsed as power—not clean, righteous cultivation, but something darker—flowed into his meridians.
His fingers curled. The chains groaned.
Elder Huanmei stood, letting her silks slide off her shoulder with lazy grace. "You were chosen for a reason. The Cauldron wants heat. Passion. Desperation. You'll be tempered in flame and flesh both, Xu Yuren."
Her smile curved like a dagger. "Prove you can wield both."
---
He wasn't ready. He knew that.
But his rage was older than this body. His lust for revenge, hotter than the flames in his core. He would endure this shame, this rebirth. He would master the Cauldron. And then—
He'd burn those who wronged him into ash.