Vessel of the Hungry Gate

Shen Yao was born with damaged meridians, considered useless by every sect except as a sacrifice. When the Celestial Orthodoxy calls for five child Vessels, he volunteers to be emptied out so a god can borrow his body for a year, in exchange for divine residue and a future in cultivation. During the ritual, an older, buried deity seizes the god meant to inhabit him. The battle within his soul leaves no clean victor, only a ravenous hunger that consumes cultivators' energy, memories, and fate. Hunted by the sect that wanted a puppet and cared for by a healer who still believes a human soul remains worth saving, Shen Yao begins to understand the truth: the gods never blessed this world. They harvest it.