Lin Mo descended again.
Pain arrived before awareness.
His lungs burned. Not sharp—old pain. The kind that had settled in long before he arrived. He lay face-down on stone, cheek pressed against grit, iron thick on his tongue.
He didn't move.
He listened.
Wind, scraping through rock. Shouting, distant but urgent. Metal striking metal. Too many echoes for a small fight.
A battlefield.
That was good.
[Descent Successful]
Host Body: Assigned
Identity Synchronization: 47%
Warning: Critical Compatibility
Critical meant brief.
That was fine.
Memories seeped in unevenly, like water through cracked earth.
Han Yu.
No sect. No family. No fixed territory.
Qi Refining, fifth layer. Barely.
Lived off scavenging, ambushes, and luck that had already started to run out.
No one would come looking.
Lin Mo pushed himself onto one elbow, then sat up.
The battlefield was already quieting. Bodies littered the slope, some twisted unnaturally, others burned or split open by techniques Han Yu half-recognized. Two groups had collided here and torn each other apart.
What remained was opportunity.
Lin Mo moved quickly.
The first corpse had three low-grade spirit stones and a chipped saber. He took both without ceremony. The saber's balance was off, but it would cut.
The second corpse had a storage pouch. Inside—one jade slip.
Movement technique.
Incomplete. Poorly refined.
Good enough.
Lin Mo tied the pouch to his belt and kept moving.
He was careful now.
Anything on him could matter later.
Voices rose behind him.
Survivors.
"Check the dead. Fast."
Lin Mo slipped behind a fractured boulder and waited.
Three cultivators came into view, arguing, distracted. None of them were fully alert. They thought the danger had passed.
It hadn't.
Lin Mo stepped out.
The first man died without sound. Saber across the throat, clean and practiced.
The second reacted faster. Qi surged. Steel flashed.
Lin Mo let the blade sink into his side.
Pain snapped his focus into place.
He drove the dagger upward into the man's eye and twisted.
The third broke and ran.
Lin Mo didn't chase.
He didn't have time.
He stripped what he could—spirit stones, a cracked defensive talisman, half a technique slip scorched nearly unreadable—and secured them to his body.
Then he went deeper into the ravine.
Mist clung low to the ground.
Something moved.
A spirit beast emerged—boar-shaped, massive, tusks faintly glowing as qi circulated beneath its hide. Each breath it took made the air vibrate.
Too strong.
Lin Mo smiled anyway.
He charged.
The fight lasted seconds.
The boar caught him head-on. Tusks punched through his abdomen and lifted him from the ground. Bone shattered. Heat flooded his chest.
Lin Mo didn't let go of the jade slip.
He watched closely instead.
The way the beast's hide hardened just before impact. How qi layered itself defensively rather than explosively. He memorized the rhythm.
Then the tusks twisted.
Darkness rushed in.
—
Earth.
Lin Mo collapsed onto his apartment floor, blood seeping from his nose as soul pain tore through him. This one didn't fade quickly. It lingered. Dug in.
Worse than before.
[Return Complete]
Death Classification: Cultivation-Suppressed Physical
Soul Integrity: 88%
Options unfolded.
[Selectable Returns]
▸ Low-grade Spirit Stones ×6
▸ Movement Technique: Shadow Step (Incomplete)
▸ Stonehide Boar: Defensive Qi Circulation Insight
"The insight," Lin Mo said.
Pain surged as knowledge forced itself into place. His body jerked. Breath caught. Something new settled behind his ribs, heavy and unfamiliar.
He stayed on the floor until the shaking stopped.
When he stood, the mirror reflected a face paler than before.
"That body's dead," he said quietly.
No regret followed.
Each life was temporary.
Each death, a transaction.
Lin Mo wiped the blood from his mouth and turned back to the mirror.
"Next."