Kaelen woke to a steel-toed boot slamming into his ribs.[1]
He tried to open his eyes, but they were crusted shut with dried mud and blood. He scraped the filth away, blinking as watery grey light stabbed his retinas.
He wasn't in the ditch anymore. He was in The Pit[2]. Around thirty bodies were crammed into the space, curling themselves like discarded rags. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the sweet, sickly rot of infected wounds. This was where the recruited SaoYu were kept.
"First time in the pit, huh?"
He turned. Sitting against the earthen wall was a young man, maybe seventeen. He was lean with scars crisscrossing his bare arms like badly written code. But his most distinguishing feature was the empty, puckered socket where his left eye used to be.
"I'm Gu Tian," the one-eyed boy said pointing to Kaelen. "You're the Ashveil runt. The one who cut his wrists last week."
Kaelen's throat tightened. He nodded.
"Welcome back to the land of the living. Or whatever this is." He gestured vaguely at the misery around them. "Short version: Don't steal food. Don't fight unless you want the guards to toss you in the 'Deep Pit' and never volunteer for dungeon duty."
"Why?" he croaked.
Gu Tian's single eye fixed on him, dark and humorless. "I've been on four runs. Started with twenty SaoYu each time. Only half of us made it back from the first. Eight from the second." He tapped his empty socket. "Lost this on number four. Do the math."
Before Kaelen could respond, a small blur darted between them.
"Tian ! Tian, they're c-calling us again!"
It was a little girl, no older than twelve. Her eyes were enormous in a gaunt face, and she clutched a broken porcelain doll to her chest.
"Easy, Chan 'er," Gu Tian said, his voice softening. "How many?"
"Th-thirty. They want thirty this t-time." Chan'er twisted the doll's dress, her stutter worsening. "They s-said Floor Three. The R-Rotwood."
Gu Tian's face went carefully blank. "Shit."
"What's the Rotwood?" Kaelen asked.
"What's the Rotwood? Oh, fresh meat doesn't even know what's about to eat him!"
A massive figure loomed over them. He was built like a bull, wearing his Collector rags like a uniform he was proud of. He flashed a smile that showed too many teeth.
''Ling Yi...''Gu Tian whispered.
"The Rotwood Catacombs, little man," Ling Yi laughed, a wet, ugly sound. "Beginner dungeon. Easy pickings for Silver-ranks. Except it's been... glitching lately. Last group? Only one came back. Missing his legs."
Chan'er whimpered. Gu Tian put a protective hand on her shoulder.
Ling Yi leaned in close to Kaelen, smelling of stale sweat. "Stick close to me, runt. Maybe you will only lose a hand instead of your head."
He sauntered off, laughing.
"Stay away from him," Gu Tian muttered. "Ling Yi has gotten three people killed by 'accidentally' using them as shields."
Kaelen nodded, but Shen Yue's mind was already categorizing the data. Underneath the cold logic, the original Kaelen stirred with a pang of guilt.
They're just kids. Chan'er is a baby. They're going to die.
Not if I can help it. Shen Yue thought back. But I need to evaluate the outcome first. But I can't do it now if this restless boy can't control his emotions! Kaelen's mind was still in confusion of an entity inside to his already "dead'' body. She wished she could kill his soul and claim the body fully but that would result to their deaths both. But what if she could control this dumb boy? She had to do something!
Inside the mindscape, the shared mental space where two souls coexisted in uncomfortable proximity, Shen Yue and Kaelen stood on opposite sides of a glass wall.
The body's movements were controlled by whoever sat in the "pilot seat," a metaphorical throne of consciousness that only one could occupy at a time. Currently, Shen Yue was driving. She could feel him there, a constant weight at the back of her awareness. Sometimes his emotions bled through, hitting her with spikes of fear and waves of grief.
But when she deliberately stepped back, relinquishing control, the dynamic shifted. Kaelen, Shen Yue thought into their shared space. Your turn, I need you to explain the grimoire system to me properly. The memories are too fragmented.
There was a pause. Then hesitantly, the boy's consciousness shifted forward. The transition was disorienting, a sudden shift in gravity as she yielded the floor. Kaelen moved the body to a secluded edge of The Pit, far away from the other Sao Yu who were gossiping about tomorrow's dungeon run. Only when they were hidden in the shadows did he withdraw the grimoire from his tattered robes.
His hands, their hands, trembled as they opened the book.
"Alright," Kaelen's voice spoke aloud, though Shen Yue knew he was really talking to her. "The verbal component helps me focus. You... you really don't know?"
Me? Shen Yue's mental voice carried genuine surprise. Are you insane? I don't even know how a grimoire works. This world's physics are nonsense to me.
She stopped herself. Explaining technology, computers and programming to someone who had lived their entire life in a quasi-medieval cultivation world was futile.
I don't know what to do, she admitted. I was hoping your memories would fill in the gaps, but they're too scattered.
Kaelen's despair tasted like copper in their shared mouth. "Then we're both useless. I don't have cultivation talent. My qi meridians are shattered."
The grimoire lay open across their lap. The pages had changed since that first night in the mud. Back then, they had been blank. Now, they displayed a complex diagram.
It was a three-dimensional wireframe schematic of their shared body, rendered in faintly glowing ink. Seven pathways traced through the limbs. They were silver cracked, and dim. Then there were three additional pathways rendered in dark purple twisted and coiling around the silver ones like parasitic vines.
And finally, five more pathways flickered in and out of existence. They were rendered in a color that didn't quite match reality's palette, a jarring neon blue.
"Fifteen cultivation lines," Kaelen whispered, his voice mixing awe with terror. "I had zero. Now I have fifteen. Seven normal, three forbidden..."
They're mine, Shen Yue realized suddenly. Those five lines appeared when I merged with you. They're not cultivation meridians. They're code.
"What does that mean?" Kaelen asked aloud.
I have no idea. But look at the silver lines, your original seven. They're damaged, yes, but not destroyed. What if we can patch them?
The boy's laugh was bitter. "With what? Meridian damage is permanent. Once qi channels fracture, they don't heal. That's why I'm a cripple."
Then we fix both, Shen Yue said with more confidence than she actually felt. We're already defying the rules. Foreign soul in a stolen body, blank grimoire manifesting lines. Why assume the damage is permanent?
She felt Kaelen's hope spark like a match in darkness. It was desperate and fragile.
"How?" he asked.
I don't know yet.But I'm good at solving impossible problems. It's what I did in my old life. I take broken systems, debug and make them run.
Kaelen didn't know what "debugging" meant but he grasped the intent. For the first time since their merger, she felt something other than fear radiating from him, Careful optimism. Dangerous in a place like this but necessary for survival.
"You good, kid?"
Gu Tian stood there, his single eye locked on Kaelen.
"Yes. Just reminiscence over my first expedition." He lied.
Gu Tian stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then he crouched down.
"Listen. I don't know why you hate yourself so much that you almost killed yourself. And I don't want to know," he whispered. "But here, you have to be tough to survive. Some artifacts help to awaken grimoire if you are lucky to find one. Though artifact-awakened grimoires are weaker compared to real ones, they can get you out of this shitty jobs. "
Kaelen met his gaze. "I don't know what you are talking about."
Gu Tian nodded and walked away. Kaelen stared at his hand. Then the SaoYu calling bell rang.
********************************************************************
Thirty SaoYu stood in a loose formation behind a plump short battle-scarred woman. Her heavy leather armor is etched with glowing protective runes. She radiated power like heat from a forge. Her blackened steel armor was engraved with runes that Kaelen notified Shen Yue that she was Silver-ranked warrior.
"Listen up," Dui barked. "Your mission is simple. We're clearing the Rotwood Catacombs. Don't touch anything you aren't supposed to. I got enough amputated casualties. Anything unusual should be reported but normally the SaoDang[3] would have exterminated all. Move in!"
She gestured to the portal behind her. It hung in the air like a vertical pool of mercury, rippling with oily colors.
As the SaoYu shuffled forward, Kaelen felt the Shen Yue soul surge again. Kaelen stumbled, gripping his head. In the mind space, a powerful force pulled him into the darkness.
I don't know what happened. Why have we switched command? It's like a pilot and...Never mind, you won't relate considering your world. Shen Yue mind-voiced Kaelen. She felt the urge to check at the throbbing thing against the thighs but was embarrassed. It's too early now for that.
They walked and entered the portal that smelled of wet copper and burnt hair. And from somewhere deep inside the rippling light, a mechanical voice, one that only Shen Yue could hear - whispered:
"You don't belong here in this world"
[1] Kaelen's POV. It's more of Pilot and passenger in their mind space. He can communicate with Shen Yue
[2] Its the SaoYu camp
[3] Cultivators who kill dungeon beasts