The ring lit up in red.
The blood of the dead beast did not flow across the ground. It rose. It rose through the air like liquid smoke, like an inverted river that defied gravity. Song Yi watched, mesmerized, as the blood entered the black ring with red veins.
In three seconds, the beast was dry.
The body of the black wolf shriveled. Its dull fur turned gray. The bony spikes on its back fragmented and fell like ash.
And then the blood returned from the ring to Song Yi.
Purified, warm, and alive.
The blood entered through Song Yi's wounds. It entered through the cuts on his left arm, through the punctures in his palms, and through the tear in his chest and shoulder. It entered through his pores, through his half-open mouth, and through his nostrils.
Song Yi gasped. His body arched like a bow.
The first thing that blood did was heal.
The beast's teeth had destroyed his left arm. He had seen the white bone through the torn flesh. Now the flesh came together as if time had reversed. The muscles reconnected. The skin closed. Not even scars appeared.
The cuts on his chest and shoulder vanished. The ribs that had cracked from the impact against the tree snapped back into place.
Song Yi took a deep breath. Without pain. The second thing was strengthening.
It wasn't much. A small amount. But he felt it. His muscles, once thin and weak from years of malnutrition, became a little denser. A little firmer. His bones felt heavier. His blood flowed stronger.
He was still thin. Still looked sick. But there was something different there. Something that hadn't existed before.
The third thing was memories.
Images exploded behind his eyes.
He saw the forest from the beast's perspective. He saw the ground rushing beneath four paws. He smelled prey from miles away. He felt hunger. Loneliness. Rage.
He saw the pack. Black wolves like that one, but bigger. Much bigger. An entire pack hunting in the depths of the forest. And he saw defeat. The struggle for dominance. The bites. The blood. The exile.
The beast had been expelled. Forced to live alone at the edges of the forest, where prey was scarce.
The memories intensified. He saw the beast hunting deer. Fighting bears. Surviving. Always surviving.
And then he saw the ability.
Inside the beast's mind, something pulsed. A core. An innate technique. The power to grow bones out of the body. To use them as weapons. As armor.
Song Yi felt it as if it were his.
Suddenly, an instinctive feeling took over him.
It was not a thought. It was an impulse. His body knew what to do before his mind processed it.
The bones in his forehead moved.
Song Yi screamed. Not from pain. From surprise. A black horn broke through the skin of his forehead. Small. Curved. Sharp.
He looked at his own arms. From his elbows, smaller horns sprouted. From his knees as well. The bones grew out of his body as if they had always been there, just waiting for permission to emerge.
A tremendous strength filled his muscles. His senses sharpened. The smell of the dead beast's blood became stronger. The sunlight filtering through the branches seemed clearer.
And, along with the strength, came a euphoria. A sensation of raw, animalistic power. As if he could break trees with his bare hands. As if he could run faster than any deer.
The name emerged from the depths of his mind.
"Beast Mode."
Song Yi looked at his own hands. The horns on his elbows. The horn on his forehead. He touched the horn with his fingers. It was hard, sharp, and real.
"So the name is Beast Mode," he said out loud. His voice sounded different. Deeper.
He closed his eyes and focused. The horns receded. They returned into his body as if they had never existed. The strength diminished. The euphoria faded.
Song Yi opened his eyes.
He was standing. Alone. The shriveled body of the beast at his feet.
The information from the ring began to organize in his mind. Not all of it. Most of it was still an incomprehensible blur of images and symbols too ancient to decipher.
But the basics, he understood. The ring was called the Bloodline Ring.
He did not know its origin. He did not know if more rings like it existed. But he knew one thing. It was certainly a rare treasure. Very rare. The kind of treasure that entire sects would kill to possess.
The basic function was simple. It controlled blood. It absorbed bloodlines.
Every living creature possessed a bloodline. Blood. An essence that defined its talents, powers, and abilities. The ring could extract that essence, purify it, and transfer it to the bearer.
Song Yi thought of the beast. The black wolf. Its ability to grow bones.
'That ability is mine now.' Song Yi smiled. Then, the smile faded.
He tried to connect more deeply with the ring. To understand its limits. Its weaknesses.
The answer came immediately.
Hunger. The ring was hungry. Not like a starving man. Like a bottomless pit. A dormant beast that had tasted blood for the first time in a very long time.
Song Yi felt it. A tiny fraction of his own blood had been consumed by the ring during the awakening. Not enough to kill him. But enough for him to notice.
'If I don't feed the ring, it will eat me.'
The ring needed blood. Not just any blood. Powerful blood. Pure blood. The blood of beasts. The blood of cultivators. The blood of any living being strong enough to satisfy that ancestral hunger.
If Song Yi did not find sources of blood to feed the ring, the ring would begin to consume him. Slowly. Until nothing remained.
A double-edged blade.
He looked at the ring on his finger. Black. Red veins pulsing like a slow heart.
The expectation would be that he felt fear. Or regret.
Song Yi smiled.
"No. This is not a bad thing." His voice came out firm.
"I finally have a way to become strong in this dangerous world. And I won't waste it."
He remembered one year ago.
A deacon from a nearby sect had appeared in the village. A small sect. Weak. The weakest in the entire region, they said. But still a sect.
He tested all the youths. Song Yi was sixteen at the time. He took the test with hope for the first time in years.
But he was a mortal without a spiritual root.
The deacon didn't even look at him. He simply pushed him aside and called the next one.
Song Yi watched as other youths from the village, people he knew, whom he had grown up with, were approved. Taken away. To a world of power and adventure he would never know.
That night, he cried alone in the rotten wooden shack. It was the last time he cried.
And now?
Song Yi looked at his hands. The hands that had killed a beast. The hands that wore a ring that could absorb bloodlines.
"Even if I can't grow strong by cultivating like the others," he said out loud.
"If I absorb more blood, I can strengthen my body with these distinct bloodlines. Right?"
The question was for no one. But the answer came from within the ring. A red pulse. Like a confirmation.
Song Yi's smile spread. Slow. Determined.
The ring would use his blood. He would use the ring to grow stronger. To rise in life. To never starve again.
To never be looked down on by anyone again.
He stood up. The shriveled body of the beast was at his feet. The rusted knife was on the ground, covered in dried blood.
Song Yi picked up the knife. Placed it at his waist. Then, he crouched in front of the carcass of the dead beast, lifted it with relative ease after the slight increase in strength he had received from the ring, and then turned toward the direction of the village.