Ashes clung to Rin's skin like guilt. The fading remnants of his vision—of a world once filled with laughter, trust, and warmth—still shimmered behind his eyes, like dying embers in a dark void. But warmth no longer served him. He stood alone amidst the cold ruin of memory, where names had become tombstones and love a chain rusted with regret.
His hand, blood-crusted and trembling, gripped the hilt of the Death-Refinement Dagger. Its dark blade pulsed softly, as if sensing his hesitation—his final chain, still unbroken.
"To cultivate death, one must first bury love."
Master Li's words rang again, but they no longer felt like guidance. They felt like law—immutable, merciless. And now Rin understood. It wasn't just about sacrifice. It was about becoming something that could no longer be sacrificed.
He could not kill Xuan Lu while still clinging to the ghost of what they were.
That ghost had to die.
Rin retreated from the broken temple that had once been their master's meditation hall. He made his way deep beneath the ruins, into the catacombs that the sect had long forbidden—an ossuary of failed disciples, a resting place for those who had succumbed to inner demons, madness, or despair. The air here was thick with forgotten death, untouched for decades. This place would do.
In the dead center of the ossuary stood a broken altar made of obsidian and bone. Half-crushed skulls were fused into the black stone. A ritual circle had long ago been carved into the ground—faded, but intact. Rin knelt before it, spreading his blood across the grooves with deliberate reverence.
The Ritual of Severance—a forbidden rite, one that only the most fanatical death cultivators dared attempt. It was said to unmake the heart vein: the spiritual root that linked a cultivator to their capacity for compassion, love, and empathy. A final cut that allowed them to walk the Death Dao unbound.
There was no going back.
Rin opened the Death-Refinement Dagger, its blade splitting open with a sickening hiss, revealing runes carved inside the metal. They writhed with necrotic essence, ancient and hungry. He bit into his left hand, letting his blood drip onto the dagger, then pressed it into the center of the ritual.
The ground groaned. The bones surrounding the altar rattled. Death surged, responding not to a prayer, but to a sacrifice.
A spectral flame burst into life around him—pale gray, hollow, whispering.
"Who do you sever, child of ash?"
The voice was neither male nor female. It was not even sound—it was felt, like a pressure inside his chest that echoed with judgment.
Rin answered without flinching. "Myself."
The flame laughed. "Then speak their names. Speak of those you abandon."
Rin clenched his jaw. The ritual demanded truth. Lies would cause spiritual backlash.
He stared into the rising flame. "My master, Li Cheng, who taught me that discipline was not cruelty. Who fed me when I starved. Who died because he refused to abandon the innocent."
Pain lanced through his chest—not physical, but soul-deep. The flame flared, and his spiritual root trembled.
"Next," the voice urged.
"My senior sister, Yu Mei," Rin said, voice cracking, "who once sang to calm my nightmares. Who told me I deserved to live."
The fire grew taller.
"My brother—" Rin's voice caught. He closed his eyes. "Xuan Lu. Who trained beside me. Who swore blood oath with me. Who betrayed all of it."
The fire roared, consuming the names.
"Love binds. Burn the tether. Speak the final truth, Rin Xie."
Rin felt it—the core of his affection, the heart-vein that still connected his soul to the shattered things he clung to. All the moments he'd kept hidden—smiles shared under moonlight, victories celebrated, the embrace of comrades. They flashed before his eyes like dying stars.
His fingers trembled as he raised the dagger.
"I loved them," he whispered.
And with that, he stabbed into his chest—not the flesh, but the spirit.
The scream he released was not human. It was raw essence torn free from the body.
Inside his spiritual sea, the Heart Vein writhed—a silver-golden thread pulsing across a vast field of death qi. As the dagger plunged into it, the thread blackened. Snapped.
Rin's body arched backward, mouth open in a silent howl, as the emotional core of who he was unraveled. Visions surged through him—memories of his mother's lullabies, his master's kind eyes, Xuan's infectious laughter.
Then… silence.
When he opened his eyes, he no longer saw in color.
The world still moved, but it was... muted. Desaturated. Emotion had not vanished—it had been cauterized.
He rose slowly from the circle, breath steady, body shaking only faintly. He reached into his chest and felt the absence. Where once there was grief, guilt, longing—now only focus.
The Death-Refinement Core inside him pulsed in satisfaction. The ritual had succeeded. He had paid the price.
He walked from the catacombs with no tears, no hesitation.
The wind no longer smelled of ash or memories.
Above ground, the world had changed.
News of Rin's survival had begun to spread like plague. Rogue cultivators, curious scavengers, and vengeful survivors of the fallen sect began to gather around the periphery of the ruined Azure Echo Sect. Some hoped to kill him for the Death Core. Others to bind him as a weapon.
He would give them nothing.
He spent the next few days in disciplined silence, forging a battle pattern using near-death meditation. Each breath sharpened the edge of his will. Each motion was honed to kill.
His beast companion—the Soul-Tied Shadehound—kept silent vigil. It watched him with uncertain eyes. Rin no longer spoke to it in warmth. Their bond still held, but no affection colored it now. Only necessity.
The beast understood. Death had no room for sentiment.
One evening, as moonlight bathed the ruined temple, Rin stood atop the highest tower—now half-collapsed and hollow. He held the Death-Refinement Dagger at his side, now fully attuned to him.
He could feel Xuan Lu's presence on the horizon. His rogue faction was drawing nearer, arrogant, believing Rin still weak and emotional.
Let them come.
He no longer needed anger to kill Xuan.
He only needed resolve.
A single raven circled above—the sect's old omen of transformation.
Rin raised his hand, letting death qi trail upward. The raven landed on the edge of the tower, tilting its head, staring into his eyes. Where once there was conflict in him—grief and rage—now there was only stillness.
The bird cawed once.
Rin turned away.
Let Xuan bring an army.
Let the world tremble.
He had severed the heart vein.
He was ready.
To be continued…