Merin pushes through the crowd until he reaches the gathering.
Thousands of miners are already clustered around a low hill, their faces lit with a mixture of fear and anticipation.
At the hill's peak stands the inner elder, his form veiled in a rolling mist of black energy.
Merin's soul quivers as he gazes at it—faces press outward from the fog, screaming, then vanish as though dragged back into the abyss.
For a heartbeat, he feels his own soul slipping from his body, drawn toward the mist.
Doubt strikes him—should he have come?
Yet he cannot afford to miss such a sermon, even if every word drips poison.
Without warning, a black barrier surges from the ground, sealing the hill in a dome.
The miners jolt, but before panic rises, a calm, neutral voice threads into their ears and minds alike.
All attention fixes on the voice, even Merin's, as though the elder has gripped their souls.
For a moment, they forget the dome, forget the sect's cruelty, forget the trap they've walked into.
Danger coils unseen, but Merin does not resist.
His understanding of nether energy unfolds at a terrifying speed, and he clings to that progress despite the chains tightening around him.
The voice rolls through the crowd like a tide, calm but vast, filling every ear and every heart.
"You dig, you bleed, you suffer, yet still you do not understand the gift of the Nether."
"The Nether is not death, but the womb of power."
"Each stone you mine is a fragment of law, a shard of the abyss, waiting for hands strong enough to claim it."
"Your bodies rot, your lifespans crumble, because you resist its truth."
"But those who embrace it, those who carve the Nether into their marrow and soul, shall live beyond death."
"Do you think you hate the Nine Nether Sect?"
"You hate because you are weak, because you are slaves to fear, because you cling to the illusions of life."
"We are not your captors—we are the path that strips your chains."
"Look at the mist above me, the souls you see."
"They are not tormented—they are eternal."
"Those who falter become nourishment, and those who succeed ascend."
"This is the law of the Nether."
"Hatred, pain, despair—all dissolve into power for those willing to sacrifice."
"And sacrifice is the only truth of cultivation."
The voice fades, but the mist churns heavily, and the pressure on every soul deepens.
Merin's breath grows ragged, yet inside his chest, comprehension of the law sparks like fire striking flint.
Merin listens, the elder's words clawing at his soul, yet he does not bend.
He knows truth can be spoken in many voices, but it is never whole in just one.
The elder speaks of sacrifice, of dissolving into power, but Merin feels the flaw.
The sect may call itself Nine Nether, yet the number is only a symbol, not a limit.
Nine is the final digit before countless, a reminder that the Nether has infinite paths.
To claim there is only one law, one meaning, is to chain the boundless abyss.
Every cultivator's comprehension is a mirror—different angles reflecting the same darkness.
Those who follow another's reflection may walk faster, but they will never see deeper.
They will never step beyond the shadow of the founder's gaze.
Merin refuses that path, even if it means walking slower, bleeding more, and risking death.
His understanding is not the elder's.
To him, the Nether is not torment, not salvation, but the threshold between two states.
It is the stillness where breath lingers yet life is gone, where death claims yet cannot close.
Neither alive nor dead—this is the Nether as Merin sees it.
And in that fragile boundary, he senses the true shape of power.
Merin's chest tightens as the elder's voice drills deeper, but his own realisation cuts sharper.
The law marks he once saw etched faintly on Nether energy now fracture into countless smaller runes.
They multiply like veins branching in flesh, each mark no longer a whole, but a piece of something deeper.
He understands—what he touched before was only the skin of the law, not its marrow.
Now he steps closer, maybe into its depth, or maybe still standing outside a gate he cannot yet open.
The boundary blurs, and his soul trembles at the shift, as if something vast watches back from the abyss.
This awakening drags memory forward—his defeat, his capture, the storm law he once trusted.
He sees now why he fell.
His storm comprehension was shallow, a surface swept by wind while the depths lay untouched.
No wonder he was crushed.
Only now, under the venom of Nether energy, does he glimpse what true depth means.
The elder's sermon fades, yet Merin's mind rages louder, worlds cracking open in silence.
Around him, miners groan in protest, throats raw, unwilling for the lesson to end.
But their voices falter as fear seizes them, for who dares protest against a Nine Nether elder?
Merin too falls silent, but his silence is not fear—it is the weight of revelation anchoring him still.
The elder's voice coils in their ears again, soft yet venomous.
"Now that you have listened to my sermon, how about you all do something for me?"
A chill gnaws Merin's stomach, heavier than the Nether stones ever were.
Here it comes.
The elder's tone drifts on, unhurried.
"Nothing much. I only need help to make the Golden Blood Tree bear fruit."
Beside him, a tree manifests—its trunk black as night, its leaves shimmering like molten gold.
Each golden leaf drips faint radiance, but beneath the beauty lies hunger.
"The Golden Blood Tree feeds on blood and souls," the elder says, almost amused.
"Do I need to explain further, or shall I take action?"
The crowd shudders.
Silence cracks.
Then chaos erupts like a dam breaking.
Miners hurl themselves at one another, weapons and fists tearing through flesh.
Screams drown the air, blood soaks the ground, and the tree sways as if tasting what is to come.
Merin has no time to hesitate—someone rushes him, face twisted in desperation.
He meets the strike with Nether energy, his fingers lengthening into black claws.
With one savage swipe, he rips open the man's chest, tearing out his still-beating heart.
The blood steams against his skin, but Merin doesn't falter.
Survival demands blood.
Another shadow closes in behind him.
He spins, claws raised, body coiled, ready to shred again before death can claim his back.
Blood splashes across his face as he whirls, claws tearing into the attacker's throat before the blade in their hand can land.
The body crumples, twitching, and Merin steps over it without pause.
Everywhere he turns, men and women rip into each other like beasts, the elder's dome trapping their screams under its weight.
The Golden Blood Tree sways, its golden leaves gleaming brighter with each death, its roots crawling outward to drink.
A pickaxe whistles past his head—Merin ducks, drives his claws into the wielder's gut, and pulls upward, spilling entrails onto the dirt.
He doesn't flinch.
He can't.
The difference between life and death now lies in how fast he strikes.
Behind him, two men grapple, one sinking teeth into the other's face; both fall, convulsing, as the tree's roots pierce their bodies and suck them hollow.
Merin's chest burns with the pressure of the elder's presence, forcing him to move faster, strike harder.
A woman's scream cuts through the chaos as she lunges at him with a jagged stone.
He catches her wrist, crushes it in his grip, and slams his claws through her heart before her mouth can finish the curse on her lips.
Her soul flickers from her body, drawn screaming into the mist, and the Golden Blood Tree trembles in delight.
Merin pants, blood dripping from his claws, dread gnawing deeper even as instinct keeps him killing.
Every strike keeps him alive another heartbeat.
Every corpse feeds the tree.
The elder's cold laughter echoes through the dome as the golden fruit ripens, shining like a beacon against the black mist.
The dome shatters with a violent crack, and from the storm of fragments steps a young man draped in black robes, the sect's insignia etched across his chest.
Boundless black blood mist coils around him, thick with killing intent, but not yet openly murderous.
"Elder Fang Yue," his voice cuts like steel, "your sermon has ended. The fruit belongs to me."
Her eyes harden.
"You dare," she says softly, "but you will regret."
The souls within her mist howl as they rush upward, clawing at the young man, but his black blood mist surges forth, devouring the weaker spirits in a frenzy.
The mountain shakes under their clash, a storm of shrieking phantoms and tearing black qi consuming the sky.
Merin does not hesitate.
He bolts with the other miners, terror crushing his chest, knowing that to linger is to be ground to dust between giants.
He races past his own cave, every step echoing the thunder of battle behind him, until wilderness swallows him whole.
Hours later, silence falls, and Merin dares to return.
His cave is gone—reduced to shattered stone and scorched earth, the lingering taste of blood mist heavy in the air.
He stares into the ruins, his heart trembling.
Here, survival depends not on laws or justice, but only on strength.
Merin clenches his fists, the faint trembling of his soul whispering one truth—if he cannot master the nether, he will one day become food for another's fruit.
The battlefield falls silent, but Merin does not look back.
The winner between Elder Fang Yue and the attacker is not something he should even consider.
He is not part of the Nine Nether Sect.
At best, he is only a worker beneath them; at worst, nothing more than a slave.
The sect's victories or losses will never belong to him—only their orders and punishments.
That thought cuts deeper than the rubble before him.
It hardens his resolve to cultivate.
For now, Merin can do nothing.
He throws away his fear and begins practising the fourth stage of the Nine Nether Body Technique.
He does not go to the mine, having received notice that it had caved in.
A week later, he learns it will open again.