Prologue — The World Beneath the Skin
In the beginning, Heaven did not grant immortality.
It granted hunger.
The first cultivators learned this truth when they tore open the mountains searching for spiritual veins and instead found writhing life beneath the stone — creatures neither beast nor insect, neither spirit nor flesh. They fed on essence, drank fate, and whispered to the Dao through instinct alone.
They were called Gu.
And the world was never pure again.
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The sky above the Southern Wilderness burned crimson, as though sunset had forgotten to end.
A lone mountain village clung to the cliffs like a frightened animal. Smoke rose from crooked chimneys, thin and trembling in the evening wind. Below the terraces, mist coiled through ravines where unseen things moved and watched.
Inside a dim ancestral hall, oil lamps flickered before tablets carved with hundreds of names — cultivators who had chased eternity and failed.
At the center knelt an old man.
His robes were patched with silk and blood alike. One sleeve hung empty, and faint bulges crawled beneath the skin of his remaining arm, shifting slowly as if alive.
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The gathered villagers did not dare breathe.
“Remember this,” the elder said, voice dry as fallen leaves. “Cultivation is not strength. Cultivation is survival.”
He raised his hand.
The skin split open without pain.
From the wound emerged a pale worm no longer than a finger. Its body shimmered with faint runes, and tiny mandibles clicked as it tasted the air. The temperature in the hall dropped instantly; frost spread across the floorboards.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
“Ice Heart Gu,” someone whispered.
The elder smiled faintly. “Rank Three. Fed with twenty years of lifespan… and my eldest son.”
Silence fell like a blade.
In this world, power was never free. Every Gu demanded nourishment — blood, memories, emotions, years of life, or something worse. To refine one was to gamble with destiny; to fail was to become food.
Outside, thunder rolled though no clouds gathered.
The elder’s eyes drifted toward the doorway, where a thin boy stood unnoticed among the villagers. Dirt stained his face, but his gaze remained steady, unafraid of the crawling worm.
Most children recoiled from Gu.
This one watched with curiosity.
Dangerous curiosity.
The Ice Heart Gu suddenly twisted, its body trembling. A shrill sound escaped it — not fear, but recognition. For a fleeting instant, the lamps dimmed as if something deeper than night had passed overhead.
The elder stiffened.
His spiritual sense brushed the boy — and recoiled.
Empty.
No spiritual roots. No aura. No destiny thread he could perceive.
And yet every Gu in the hall stirred uneasily.
“…What is your name?” the elder asked.
The boy hesitated, as if unused to being addressed.
“Shen Yu,” he said softly.
Before the elder could speak again, a distant scream echoed from beyond the village walls.
Then another.
The mountain mist surged upward like a living tide. Shapes moved within it — countless thin silhouettes wriggling together, devouring sound itself.
Wild Gu.
Uncontrolled. Starving.
The protective formation surrounding the village flickered once… twice… and shattered like glass.
Panic erupted.
Cultivators rushed forward, summoning flame beetles, iron-shell centipedes, and wind moths from their bodies. Light and poison filled the air as Gu answered their masters’ calls.
But the mist swallowed everything.
The elder looked back at the boy one last time.
In Shen Yu’s dark pupils, the writhing tide reflected clearly — not with fear, but with understanding.
As though he recognized them.
As though something beneath his own skin listened when they screamed.
The elder felt a chill colder than death.
“Heaven preserve us…” he murmured.
For in that moment, he realized a terrifying possibility:
Some people cultivated Gu.
And some people…
Were meant to be cultivated by them.
The lamps went out.
And the age of worms began.
