Callum woke to the taste of ash in his mouth and pain in his ribs.
The ash lion hadn't broken anything—Flesh Covenant had seen to that, knitting bone and tissue back together while he slept. But the bruising was spectacular. Purple and black spread across his left side like ink spilled on paper, a testament to just how hard a Stage Two beast could hit.
Could have been worse, he thought, prodding gently at his ribs. Could be dead.
He sat up slowly, wincing with every movement, and checked his surroundings. The Ashen Wastes stretched in all directions—empty, hostile, utterly indifferent to his suffering. No sign of the ash lion. No sign of the mortals he'd saved. No sign of anyone.
Good. Alone was safe. Alone meant no one was trying to kill him.
For now.
"You look like shit," Morrigan observed. She was already standing, looking northeast toward The Scar like she could see through three days' worth of wasteland to their destination.
"Feel worse," Callum admitted.
"Then get moving. The Scar won't come to you."
Callum stood, every muscle protesting the motion. He started walking northeast, the death-touched sword heavy at his hip. The sun was barely up—or what passed for up in the perpetually gray sky. The air was cold enough to make his breath mist.
By noon it'll be scorching, he thought. The Wastes can't decide if they want to freeze me or cook me. So they do both.
He'd walked maybe an hour when he smelled it.
Blood. Fresh blood.
The scent cut through the ever-present reek of sulfur and ash like a knife through silk. Sharp. Metallic. Recent.
Morrigan noticed it too. "Northeast. Close."
Callum moved cautiously, hand on the death-touched sword. The smell grew stronger as he approached a rocky outcropping—black volcanic stone jutting from the ash like broken teeth gnawing at the sky.
Behind the rocks, he found the bodies.
Three of them.
All human. All cultivators, judging by the quality of their gear—well-made leather armor, decent weapons, pouches that probably held spirit stones. Two men and a woman, wearing matching armor with a symbol burned into the shoulder: a red flame over crossed swords.
Mercenaries. Same company. Same contract, probably.
Same mistake.
They'd been dead maybe two hours. Killed by something with claws—deep gouges across throats and chests, the kind of wounds that killed fast and messy. A beast attack. But the bodies were still here, undisturbed. Whatever had killed them hadn't stayed to feed.
Just killed them and moved on, Callum thought. Like it was hunting for sport, not food.
"Stage One cultivators," Morrigan said, studying the corpses with clinical detachment. "All of them. Recently promoted, from the look of their cultivation bases. Probably thought they were ready for the Wastes."
"They weren't," Callum said quietly.
"No. They weren't."
Callum knelt beside the nearest body. A young man, maybe twenty-two. His eyes were still open, locked in an expression of surprise. Like death had come so fast he hadn't had time to process it.
Three at once, Callum thought, studying the bodies' positions. They were standing together when it hit them. Whatever killed them was fast. Stage Two at least. Maybe higher.
"Consume them," Morrigan said.
Callum hesitated.
Three at once was a lot. Morrigan had warned him about soul contamination—consume too many too fast and you'd lose yourself in their memories, drown in their deaths until you couldn't remember which life was yours.
But he needed the power. And they were already dead. Already gone. Their spiritual remnants would dissipate soon, fade into nothing, wasted.
Better me than nothing, he thought. At least this way, they'll matter. They'll make me stronger.
Was that rationalization? Probably. Did it matter? Not really.
"One at a time," he said. "Slowly."
He placed his hands on the young man's chest—still warm, the flesh not yet fully cooled—and channeled his death qi into the corpse.
The spiritual remnant came loose easier than Toren's had. Young cultivator. Not much experience. Not much resistance. The power flowed into Callum like cold water, and the memories came with it.
Name: Garrett.
Fire cultivator. Joined the Crimson Blade mercenary company three months ago. Was excited about his first real contract—hunting beasts in the Wastes for their cores. Beast cores sold well in Ember's Rest. Easy money, the recruiters had said. Adventure and profit.
They'd lied.
Something had come out of the dark. Fast and vicious and utterly silent. He'd died before he could scream, before he could warn the others, before he could do anything but feel surprise and pain and regret.
Callum moved to the second body. The woman.
Her name was Sera. Wind cultivator. Garrett's girlfriend. They'd joined the company together—young love thinking it could conquer the world. She'd died trying to protect him, throwing herself between Garrett and the beast.
It hadn't mattered.
The third body. The older man. Squad leader.
Marcus. Earth cultivator. Had tried to fight. Had managed to raise his weapon before the claws took his throat. Had failed to save anyone, including himself.
Three more ghosts. Ten total now.
Callum stood up, breathing hard. His cultivation base had deepened significantly—the power from three Stage One cultivators settling into his meridians like water finding cracks in stone. Not quite halfway to solid, but close. So close.
The power felt good. Warm and cold at once. Right.
But the memories were heavy. Three deaths. Three sets of fear and pain and regret and dreams cut short. Three people who'd thought they had time, thought they had futures, thought wrong.
I'm carrying a graveyard in my head, Callum thought. Not for the first time. Every person I consume becomes part of me. Their deaths become mine. I'll carry them until I reach my own ending.
"Better," Morrigan said, approval clear in her voice. "You're almost halfway there. A few more Stage Ones and you'll be ready for Stage Two."
Callum looked at the bodies. Then at his hands—grayer now, the ash color spreading from his fingernails up his fingers. The transformation was accelerating.
"What killed them?" he asked.
"Does it matter?"
"If it's still around, yes."
Morrigan studied the claw marks with those ancient, knowing eyes. "Stage Two beast. Probably an ash stalker—they hunt in the early morning, ambush prey from above, kill fast. It's already moved on. They don't stay near their kills."
"How do you know?"
"Because if it was still here," Morrigan said simply, "you'd be dead."
Fair point.
Callum looted the bodies. It felt less wrong each time—more practical, less like grave robbery. More dried food. Two waterskins. A better knife. And a small pouch of low-grade spirit stones.
One of them—Marcus, the squad leader—had a map. Crude, hand-drawn on leather, but it showed the major landmarks between here and The Scar. According to the map, Callum was maybe a day and a half out.
Closer than I thought, he realized. The Scar is almost within reach.
"Let's move," Morrigan said. "Before something else shows up to investigate the blood."
By midday, the temperature had climbed to brutal.
Callum's stolen cloak was soaked with sweat. His throat burned with every breath of ash-laden air. He'd been walking for hours, following the landmarks on Marcus's map. A distinctive lava flow here—a river of molten stone that never cooled. A cluster of stone pillars there—ancient, pre-dating the Covenant System probably.
The Scar was close now. He could feel it—a pressure in the air, like the world was holding its breath. Like reality itself was waiting for something.
That's when he saw the smoke.
Thin and gray, rising from behind a ridge maybe half a mile ahead. Too controlled to be natural. Too deliberate. Someone had made a fire.
"Cultivators," Morrigan said. "Two of them. Stage One, probably. Resting."
Callum crouched behind a boulder, studying the ridge. He could avoid them. Circle around, keep moving. Safer that way. Smarter.
But they might have supplies. Information. And if they were death cultivators heading to The Scar...
They might know things, he thought. Might be able to teach me. Or they might kill me on sight. Coin flip.
"Don't," Morrigan warned. "You're thinking about approaching them. That would be monumentally stupid."
"Why?"
"Because cultivators in the Wastes don't make friends. They make corpses." Her ember eyes glowed faintly. "Especially death cultivators. You're all competing for the same limited resources. You approach them, they'll assume you're a threat. Or prey. Either way, you'll end up dead."
"I could be careful. Talk first."
"You could also get your throat cut for being naive."
Callum thought about it. Thought about the ten ghosts whispering in his head. Thought about what Morrigan had said about death cultivators and trust.
There is no trust, he realized. Just hunger and survival and the space between them.
He was about to turn away—about to choose the smart option for once—when he heard the scream.
High-pitched. Terrified. Cut off abruptly like someone had slammed a door on sound itself.
Then laughter. Male voices, cruel and casual. The kind of laughter that came easy to people who'd stopped seeing other humans as anything more than objects.
"Not cultivators," Morrigan said quietly. "Bandits. Mortals, probably. And they just found someone."
Callum hesitated.
Not his problem. Not his fight. He had enough problems without looking for more.
The scream came again. Younger this time. Desperate. A child.
Fuck.
"Don't," Morrigan said, and there was something almost pleading in her voice. "You're weak. You need to conserve your strength. Whatever's happening over there—"
"I know," Callum cut her off. "But I'm going anyway."
"Idiot."
"Probably."
But he was already moving.
He circled the ridge quietly, using every trick the mines had taught him about moving unseen. The Ash Cloak wrapped tight around his death qi, disguising it as weak fire qi. To anyone sensing him, he'd seem harmless. Unremarkable.
Prey, not predator.
He crested the ridge and looked down.
Four men. Mortals—he could tell by the absence of qi in their bodies, the way they moved without the fluid grace cultivation granted. They wore leather armor scavenged from corpses, mismatched and patched. Carried rusty swords that had probably killed more people than Callum wanted to count.
Bandits. The Wastes were full of them.
They'd surrounded a merchant's wagon. One wheel was broken, the whole thing tilted at an angle. Someone had tried to cross the Wastes with goods to sell—betting their life against profit margins.
They'd lost the bet.
The merchant lay in the ash twenty feet away, throat cut, blood soaking into the black stone like an offering to a hungry god.
His daughter was still alive.
Maybe twelve years old. Dark hair pulled back in a braid. Wide eyes. She was backed against the wagon, holding a knife with hands that shook so badly Callum was surprised she hadn't dropped it.
One of the bandits was toying with her, grinning, while the others looted the wagon with practiced efficiency.
Callum watched from the ridge. His mind worked through the variables with cold precision.
Four mortals. No cultivation. He was Stage One—not much, but enough. He could probably take them.
Probably.
You don't owe them anything, part of him whispered. You're not a hero. You're a death cultivator. A monster in the making. Let them die and walk away. Stay focused on your own survival.
But the girl's face...
It reminded him of his mother. That same desperate hope. That same belief that someone—anyone—would help. Would care.
Hope had gotten his mother killed.
But maybe, just this once, Callum could afford to be stupid.
He stood up, death-touched sword in hand, and walked down the ridge like he was heading to an execution.
His own, probably.
The bandits didn't notice him until he was twenty feet away. Too focused on the girl and the loot, confident in their numbers, in their violence.
"Hey," Callum called out.
Four heads turned. Four sets of eyes locked onto him—calculating, predatory, already mentally dividing his gear among themselves.
The leader was a scarred man with a missing ear and eyes like broken glass. He grinned, and it was not a pleasant expression.
"Well, well. Another traveler." His gaze swept over Callum, assessing. "And a cultivator, from the look of you." He gestured with his sword, casual and confident. "Hand over your gear and we'll let you walk away. Simple transaction."
"No," Callum said.
The grin widened. "Stupid and brave. My favorite combination."
The leader gestured, and the other three spread out with practiced ease. Classic bandit tactics. Surround. Outnumber. Overwhelm. Loot the corpse.
They'd done this before.
Callum raised the death-touched sword and let his death qi leak out—just a fraction, just enough to make the air around him turn cold and wrong.
The bandits hesitated. Good. Fear was useful.
"Cultivator," one of them muttered, taking a half-step back.
"Just Stage One," the leader said, though his confidence had cracked slightly around the edges. "Four of us, one of him. We've killed cultivators before."
That was probably true. Weak cultivators died in the Wastes all the time—fresh and overconfident and too stupid to understand that numbers mattered, that experience mattered, that cultivation didn't make you invincible.
But Callum wasn't overconfident.
He was just angry.
The first bandit lunged, and Callum moved.
Twenty years in the mines had taught him things. How to read a fight. How to see an opening. How to kill fast when you couldn't afford to kill slow.
He sidestepped the rusty sword—let it pass inches from his chest—and slashed across the man's throat in one fluid motion. The death-touched blade cut through flesh and cartilage like they were paper. The bandit dropped, hands scrabbling at the ruin of his neck, choking on blood and surprise.
One.
The second bandit came from his left, trying to use his companion's death as a distraction. Smart. Wouldn't save him.
Callum channeled death qi into the ground beneath the man's feet. The ash turned cold and sticky, unnatural, wrong. The bandit stumbled, his balance breaking.
Callum drove the sword through his chest. The blade punched through leather and ribs and lung. When he pulled it free, the man fell without a sound.
Two.
The third bandit looked at his dead companions. Looked at Callum—really looked, seeing the gray skin and the red-ringed eyes.
And ran.
Smart man.
The leader didn't run. He was too scarred, too experienced, too proud. Men like him didn't flee. They won or they died, and nothing in between.
He came at Callum fast, sword raised high in an overhead strike meant to split skulls. It was a good attack. Strong. Committed.
It didn't matter.
Callum met him head-on. Their blades clashed, and the leader's rusty sword—weakened by years of use and poor maintenance—shattered against the death-touched steel like glass against stone.
The man's eyes went wide. Understanding dawning too late.
Callum drove the sword into his chest and channeled death qi directly into the wound. Not controlled. Not refined. Just raw and hungry and cold, flooding into living flesh.
The leader screamed.
His skin turned gray where the death qi touched it. His veins went black, spreading like cracks in ice. The corruption moved fast, eating through him from the inside, turning living tissue into something that had forgotten how to be alive.
He collapsed, convulsing, and was dead before he hit the ground.
Three.
Callum stood over the bodies, breathing hard. His hands didn't shake. They should have—he'd just killed three men in less than a minute—but they were steady as stone.
I'm getting used to this, he thought. Getting good at it. That should terrify me more than it does.
Three corpses. Mortals. Fresh kills. Their spiritual remnants were weak, almost worthless, but they'd add up. Power was power.
He could consume them right now. Add their deaths to his collection.
But first—
He turned to the girl.
She was still backed against the wagon, knife raised, but her hands had stopped shaking. She wasn't looking at the bodies anymore.
She was looking at him.
At his gray skin, pale and wrong in the harsh light. At his eyes, ringed with red like dying embers. At the shadows that clung to him like smoke, like they recognized something in him that wasn't quite human anymore. At the death qi radiating from his blade, cold and hungry and utterly wrong.
Their eyes met, and Callum saw the exact moment she understood.
"Monster," she whispered.
The word hit harder than the ash lion's paw had. Harder than any blade.
Callum's chest tightened. He opened his mouth to say something—what, he didn't know. That he'd saved her? That he wasn't a monster? That he'd just killed three men to keep her alive?
But the words died in his throat.
Because maybe she was right.
Maybe that's all he was now. A monster that happened to kill other monsters. The shadows weren't wrong. The death qi wasn't a mistake. This was what he'd chosen. What he was becoming.
What he'd always been destined to become, the moment he'd placed his hands on Morrigan's prison and said yes.
He turned away without a word. Sheathed the sword. Started walking.
The girl didn't follow. Didn't thank him. Didn't say anything at all.
She just stood there, trembling, staring at the thing that had saved her life and wondering if that made it better or worse.
"That went well," Morrigan said, and her voice was dry as the ash beneath their feet.
"Shut up."
"You saved her. She's alive because of you."
"She thinks I'm a monster."
"You are a monster." Morrigan floated beside him, her ancient face unreadable. "You just happen to be the kind that kills other monsters. There's a difference, though I'm not sure she's old enough to understand it."
Callum didn't answer. What could he say? That she was wrong? That he was still human, still good, still salvageable?
He'd just killed three men and felt nothing. His hands were steady. His conscience was quiet.
The ghosts in his head whispered, and he couldn't tell which were his thoughts and which were theirs.
He just kept walking, leaving the girl and the corpses behind, and tried not to think about what it meant that he didn't feel worse about it.
Tried not to think about how easy it had been.
He'd walked maybe fifty yards when Morrigan spoke again.
"You're not going back to consume them?"
"No."
"Why not? They're fresh. You killed them. The power is yours by right."
"Because she's watching." The words came out quiet. Tired. "And I'm not going to prove her right."
Morrigan was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer than usual. Almost gentle.
"You're a strange death cultivator, Callum Voss."
"Good," Callum said.
And meant it.
He made camp that night in another cluster of ruins.
Barely more than a half-collapsed wall and some broken pillars. But it blocked the wind and hid the firelight, and that was enough.
Callum sat with his back against the cold stone, eating the last of the dried food he'd looted from the Crimson Blade mercenaries. The fight with the bandits replayed in his mind—each movement, each decision, each kill.
It had been easier than it should have been. The leader had said they'd killed cultivators before, and Callum believed it. Four mortals with weapons and numbers could overwhelm a weak, inexperienced Stage One if they caught them off guard.
But Callum wasn't inexperienced.
Twenty years in the mines had taught him how to fight dirty. How to read an opponent. How to find the opening and exploit it without hesitation. How to survive when survival seemed impossible.
The bandits had expected an easy target.
They'd been wrong.
"You're brooding," Morrigan observed.
"I'm thinking."
"About the girl?"
"About what I'm becoming."
"A death cultivator," Morrigan said. "We've established this."
"A monster," Callum corrected. "You said it yourself. People will run from me. Fear me. Even when I'm trying to help."
"Yes."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
Morrigan settled across from him, cross-legged in the air, her tattered robes shifting in a wind that didn't exist.
"I've been alive fifteen thousand years," she said. "I've been called every name you can imagine. Monster. Demon. Abomination. Goddess. Savior. Tyrant. Liberator. Destroyer." She shrugged, the gesture carrying the weight of eons. "Words are just noise. What matters is what you do, not what people call you."
"What if what I do makes them right?" Callum asked quietly.
"Then they're right. But you'll be alive and powerful, which is more than they'll be."
Callum stared into the fire. Thought about the girl's face. The fear in her eyes. The way she'd looked at him like he was something from a nightmare.
Monster.
"Get some sleep," Morrigan said. "The Scar is close. Tomorrow, you'll need to be ready."
Callum lay down, wrapped the Ash Cloak tight around his death qi, and closed his eyes.
He dreamed of ghosts.
Ten of them now, whispering in the dark. Telling him their stories. Showing him their deaths. Their fears, their regrets, their final moments playing on repeat like a performance he couldn't stop watching.
And in the dream, he couldn't tell which memories were theirs and which were his.
Couldn't tell where they ended and he began.
He woke to the sound of footsteps.
Multiple people. Moving quietly but not quietly enough. Callum's hand went to his sword, and he rolled to a crouch in one smooth motion, every sense suddenly, violently alert.
"Four of them," Morrigan whispered. "Cultivators. Stage One. Coming from the northeast."
Callum pressed against the ruined wall, peering through a crack in the stone.
Four figures moved through the pre-dawn darkness. They wore dark clothing—practical, nondescript. Faces wrapped in cloth. Moving with the practiced ease of people who knew how to hunt. How to kill.
Professionals.
And they were heading straight for his camp.
One of them stopped suddenly, raising a hand. The others halted immediately, perfectly synchronized.
"Ash qi," the leader said quietly. Female voice. Cold. Professional. "Weak. Stage One, maybe fresh Stage Two. Trying to hide it."
Shit.
"Death cultivator?" one of the others asked.
"Probably. The concealment's too crude to be anything else."
They knew. Somehow, they'd seen through his Ash Cloak. Detected what he was despite his best efforts to hide it.
"Orders?" another asked.
The leader was silent for a moment. Then: "Kill him. Take whatever he's carrying. Blackvein Consortium's offering five hundred spirit stones for confirmed death cultivator kills."
Five hundred spirit stones.
A fortune. Enough money to live comfortably for years. Enough to make murder worthwhile.
And Callum was their target.
The four cultivators spread out, surrounding the ruins with practiced efficiency. Professional hunters who'd done this before. Who knew how to corner prey. How to leave no escape.
Callum's heart hammered against his ribs. Four Stage Ones. He'd killed three mortals easily enough, but this was different. These were cultivators. Trained. Armed. Working together with the kind of coordination that came from years of practice.
He was outnumbered. Outmatched. Out of options.
"Run," Morrigan said quietly. "You can't win this fight."
Callum looked at the four figures closing in. Looked at the death-touched sword in his hand—a good weapon, but not good enough to overcome these odds. Looked at the narrow gap in the ruins behind him—barely wide enough for one person, leading into the darkness beyond.
He could run. Squeeze through the gap, use the ruins as cover, disappear into the Wastes.
Probably survive.
Or he could fight. Make a stand. Try to take at least one of them with him.
Probably die.
The leader stepped into view twenty feet away, a curved blade gleaming in her hand. Her eyes were cold above the cloth wrapping her face.
"Come out, death cultivator," she called. "Make this easy, and we'll make it quick."
Callum's grip tightened on his sword.
Then, from somewhere behind the hunters, a voice cut through the darkness.
"Well, well. What do we have here?"
Everyone froze.
Callum's blood went cold.
Because that voice—deep, amused, dangerous—carried the weight of real power. The kind that made the air itself feel heavier. The kind that meant Stage Two at minimum.
Maybe Stage Three.
And it was coming closer.