Chapter 7: The Shadow Congregation
The first disciple to kneel voluntarily was a boy named Ren, from Fire Peak. He was fourteen, had two spirit roots, and had been passed over for promotion three times because he refused to steal from the dead. Alex found him weeping in the Carrion Pits, not over the corpses, but over his own failure to become "strong enough" to survive without becoming a monster.
Alex didn't offer him strength. He offered him truth.
"The monster is the point," Alex said, his voice carrying the weight of three souls but masked by the system's Social Cloaking. "The sect wants you to think you must become a beast to survive. I'm telling you that you can become a god instead."
Ren looked up, his eyes red. "What's the difference?"
"A beast serves its hunger. A god serves its purpose." Alex knelt beside him, the gesture shockingly humble. "My purpose is to break the wheel that grinds us into dust. What's yours?"
The boy stared at him. Then he looked at the corpses, at the acid lake, at the endless cycle of fear. "I want... I want to protect the next ones. The ones who haven't had to choose yet."
Purpose, Alex thought. Found.
He taught Ren the first exercise of the Dao Source Codex. The boy's two spirit roots unraveled, then rewove themselves into a single, perfect thread. When Ren stood, he was at Foundation Building Perfection, his aura unlike any the sect had seen—clear, untainted, true.
Word spread like a slow poison. Not shouted in halls, but whispered in shadows, passed from desperate disciple to broken disciple. The Shadow Path. A way to cultivate without losing yourself. A promise that the weak could become strong without becoming cruel.
Meng Hao's Illusion Peak became its temple. She didn't teach her disciples illusions anymore; she taught them rejection—how to reject the world's false narratives about power. Her peak's population swelled. Outer disciples from neutral peaks begged for transfer. Inner disciples who'd stalled for decades came asking for "rehabilitation."
Alex gave them all the same first lesson: "The first lie you must unlearn is that you are unworthy."
It wasn't kindness. It was strategy. Unworthy disciples served out of fear. Worthy ones served out of belief. And belief was a weapon sharper than any sword.
[Religious Faction Forming: Shadow Path Cult]
[Current Followers: 89 disciples]
[Devotion Level: Curious (23%) / Desperate (67%) / Fanatic (10%)]
[System Recommendation: Formalize structure and provide tangible miracles]
Miracles. Alex considered this as he walked through Illusion Peak's training grounds. Ren—now wearing simple white robes instead of Fire Peak's crimson—was teaching five other disciples the Codex exercise. Their breakthroughs were minor, but real. Tangible.
The problem was scale. At this rate, it would take years to convert enough disciples to matter.
Unless I stop thinking like a cultivator and start thinking like a god.
The system offered a new option, unlocked by his rising devotion metrics:
[Divine Authority: Avatar Projection (800 DP)]
[Description: Project Host's consciousness to up to 100 followers simultaneously. Allows mass teaching, mass empowerment, and mass indoctrination.]
[Warning: High spiritual energy cost. Risk of soul strain.]
Expensive. But Alex now had 867 Destiny Points from the Failure Vault's treasures and the daily accumulation from his Shadow Garden's successes.
He purchased it.
That night, while the sect slept, Alex initiated the Avatar Projection. His consciousness split a hundredfold, appearing in the dreams of every disciple who'd sworn even a tentative oath to the Shadow Path. Not as a demanding god. As a teacher. A presence that whispered, "You are not broken. You are becoming."
In the morning, forty-three disciples broke through to the next minor realm. Three advanced entire major realms. One girl—a cripple with no spirit roots, whom the sect had kept as a slave—manifested a root of pure shadow, something that hadn't been seen since the Primordial Era.
They called it the Shadow God's Blessing.
Meng Hao reported to Alex with awe in her voice. "They think you're a god. They believe it."
"Let them." Alex was exhausted, his golden core depleted to 40%, but his eyes burned with triumph. "Belief is the first step toward making it true."
The Patriarch's observers noticed. Not the Patriarch himself—Elder Tian's misdirection held—but his stewards. Reports flowed to Oracle Peak about "unauthorized cult activity," "unsanctioned breakthroughs," and "disciples refusing standard assignments."
Alex countered. Through Feng Du, he leaked stories of "Death Peak's secret training methods." Through Meng Hao, he spread rumors that Illusion Peak had discovered a "Primordial Shadow Manual" in the vaults. He made his religion look like a sect-approved power play.
Thunder Peak made the first move.
Elder Lei—a Golden Core Perfection cultivator with a temper like lightning—stormed Illusion Peak with fifteen of his disciples. "Meng Hao! You're stealing my outer disciples!"
"They came willingly," Meng Hao replied, her voice calm.
"I don't care if they came on their knees! They're mine!" Lei's spiritual pressure cracked the tiles.
Alex stepped from the crowd. He still wore his outer disciple robes. He still looked like a boy. But when he spoke, it was with the weight of a hundred voices, the echo of last night's dream-projection.
"Elder Lei." He didn't raise his voice. It carried anyway. "Your disciples come to me because you offer them power. I offer them purpose. Which do you think is stronger?"
Lei struck without warning, a lightning palm meant to cripple. Alex caught it. Not with his hand—with his presence. The Dao Source Codex's first chapter unfolded behind his eyes, and for a heartbeat, Alex wasn't in the Crimson Sky Realm. He was in the space between moments, where cause and effect were suggestions.
Lei's attack unraveled. He stared at his hand, now smoking and empty. "What... what are you?"
"The future." Alex released him. "Choose, Elder Lei. Cling to your dying peak, or ascend with me."
The old man stared at his hand, at his disciples—who were now looking at Alex with hunger in their eyes—at the world that had stopped making sense. Then he did something Alex hadn't expected.
He knelt.
"Thunder Peak is yours, Shadow God."
The title rippled through the onlookers like a stone in water. Alex didn't correct it. He accepted it.
[Religion Established: Shadow Path Cult]
[New Title Acquired: Primordial Shadow God (Unofficial)]
[Devotion Level: Curious (12%) / Desperate (31%) / Fanatic (57%)]
[Peak Allegiance: 3/36 Secured, 1/36 Conquered]
That evening, the Patriarch's summons arrived. Not for Alex—for Elder Tian. "Explain the cult growing in my sect."
Tian found Alex in the Shadow Pavilion. The old man looked tired. "You've been named a god. That's not subtle."
"Subtlety was taking too long." Alex poured him tea. "The Patriarch. Is he angry, or curious?"
"Both. He wants to meet you. Officially."
Perfect. Alex had expected this in three days, not three hours. The belief was spreading faster than calculated. The system's projections flickered with new data: Sect Conversion Rate: Accelerating.
"Tell him the Primordial Shadow God will attend him at the Hunt's Conclusion." Alex stood. "Make it sound like a demand, not a request."
Tian's eyes widened. "You'll get us all killed."
"Or saved." Alex's smile was pure Xaelinth. "Which would you prefer?"
The elder left, carrying a message that would either solidify Alex's divinity or sign his death warrant. Alex didn't worry. He had a sect to convert, a Codex to master, and a wyrmling to feed.
The door opened. Xianling entered without knocking. "You're insane."
" observant."
"You'll be dead in a week."
"Then help me live." For the first time, Alex let his vulnerability show—not his weakness, but his need. "Seraphine, I'm building something that can challenge the Heavenly Dao itself. But I can't do it alone. Not even with a system."
She looked at him—really looked—and saw not the Void Emperor, not the software engineer, but something new. A synthesis. A paradox that had learned humility without losing its teeth.
"Oracle Peak will be yours," she said softly. "Not through force. Through choice. The Patriarch's direct vassals... we remember what it was like before he stagnated. We remember hope."
She left him with a jade slip. It contained Oracle Peak's loyalty oath, unsigned by every single disciple and elder. They were waiting. For him. For a god who remembered being human.
Alex activated the Avatar Projection again. This time, not to teach. To accept worship. A hundred dreams, a hundred disciples, all seeing him clearly for the first time. Not a boy. Not a monster.
A god in shadow, promising light.
[Chapter 7 Complete]
[System Evolution Progress: 10/10 - EVOLUTION IMMINENT]
[Religion: Shadow Path Cult (Established)]
[Peaks Secured: 4/36 (Illusion, Death, Thunder, Oracle)]
[Peak Conquest Imminent: Fire Peak (Elder is Ren's uncle, vulnerable via familial debt)]
[Devotion: 1,247 disciples (Fanatic: 234)]
[Threat Level: PATRIARCH AWARENESS (47%)]
[Next Evolution: ????]
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[END OF CHAPTER 7]
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