The first thing Lin Mo understood after dying was this:
The world did not care.
Not about regret.
Not about fairness.
Not about how hard someone had tried before everything collapsed.
Ash pressed against his cheek, warm and coarse, filling his mouth with the bitter taste of something long burned and never buried. He lay still for several breaths, not out of confusion, but habit. In his previous life, moving too early in an unfamiliar situation had always been a mistake.
Pain arrived late, as if even suffering needed to confirm his continued existence.
His chest rose and fell—shallow, controlled. Each breath scraped his lungs like rusted blades. This body was young, but damaged. Malnourished. Recently injured.
Alive.
Lin Mo opened his eyes.
The sky above him was a dull crimson, stretched thin like old blood soaked into fabric and left too long under the sun. Black clouds drifted slowly, heavy and low, as if the heavens themselves were pressing down on the land.
No divine light.
No welcoming voice.
No sense of mercy.
Only a wasteland.
Broken stone jutted from the ground like exposed ribs. Charred structures—once buildings, once homes—collapsed inward, half-swallowed by drifting ash. The air carried no warmth, only the scent of decay and something sharper beneath it… fear that had lingered long after its owners were gone.
So this was the world he had been sent to.
Lin Mo pushed himself up on one elbow. The motion sent a spike of pain through his shoulder, and he paused immediately, adjusting his breathing until the tremor passed. Panic solved nothing. It never had.
He examined his hands.
They were thin. Scarred. Fingers rough with calluses that did not belong to a scholar or an office worker. Dirt was packed beneath the nails. Old blood crusted along the knuckles.
Not his body.
Fragments of memory surfaced uninvited.
This body was also named Lin Mo. Sixteen years old. Born in a border domain abandoned by the great powers. His parents had died gathering spirit ash from forbidden lands—this very wasteland—trying to earn enough to buy protection from a minor sect.
They never made it back.
The memories carried no warmth. Only facts. Hunger. Fear. A quiet resentment toward a world that demanded obedience but offered no safety in return.
Lin Mo exhaled slowly.
Different life. Same rules.
In his previous world, he had believed in effort. In fairness. In the idea that persistence would eventually be rewarded. He studied harder than others, worked longer hours, endured humiliation without complaint.
When the system crushed him anyway, no one apologized.
Here, at least, the cruelty was honest.
A crunch echoed behind him.
Lin Mo's eyes sharpened instantly.
Footsteps. Deliberate. Unhurried. More than one person.
He did not turn around.
Instead, he lowered his head slightly and let his shoulders sag. Fear was a tool. Weakness was camouflage.
"Still breathing?" a voice said behind him, amused. "You frontier rats are stubborn."
Another laugh followed, closer this time.
Lin Mo recognized the memory attached to the tone before the symbols on their robes came into view.
Iron Bone Sect.
A third-rate sect that survived by stripping border lands bare, harvesting resources and lives with equal indifference. Not strong enough to challenge major powers. Too strong for anyone here to resist.
He forced his voice to tremble.
"I… I won't tell anyone," Lin Mo said hoarsely. "Please."
Silence.
Then a man snorted. "Tell who?"
A shadow stretched across the ash in front of him. The faint metallic scent of blood reached his nose.
Lin Mo calculated.
Three cultivators. Low level. Their breathing was steady but careless. They were not expecting resistance. Why would they? This body was weak. Injured. Alone.
The odds of survival through submission were zero.
The odds through blind resistance were also zero.
The blade moved.
Steel cut into his shoulder, clean and deep. The pain was immediate, white and absolute, threatening to drown thought itself.
Lin Mo welcomed it.
Pain anchored the mind.
He did not scream. Did not beg. Instead, he reached out and grabbed the cultivator's wrist mid-swing.
The man froze.
"What—"
Lin Mo's grip was not strong. It didn't need to be.
He leaned forward, blood soaking into the ash beneath them, and spoke quietly.
"If I beg, you win," he said. "If I resist blindly, I die."
His fingers tightened just enough to apply leverage.
"So I choose neither."
Something shifted.
Not in the air.
Not in the world.
Inside him.
A pressure formed behind his eyes—vast, heavy, ancient. It was not a voice, not a command, but a presence, like a door that had existed his entire life and had never once been opened.
Symbols carved themselves into his consciousness. Not words. Not images. Concepts too sharp to misunderstand.
Immutable Will: Dormant
Condition to Awaken:
Choose loss over illusion.
The cultivator snarled and tried to pull free.
Lin Mo twisted.
Bone cracked.
The scream that followed cut through the wasteland, raw and terrified. The other two reacted instantly, drawing their weapons, but they were already too late.
The pressure inside Lin Mo snapped into place.
Immutable Will: Awakened (Fragmentary)
Effect:
Resolve cannot be shaken by fear, pain, or temptation.
The world slowed—not because time obeyed him, but because his mind no longer wavered.
He stepped into the second cultivator's guard, ignoring the blade scraping across his ribs, and drove his elbow into the man's throat with brutal precision. The third tried to retreat.
Lin Mo picked up the fallen knife and threw it.
The body dropped soundlessly into the ash.
Silence returned.
Lin Mo stood among the dead, blood dripping steadily from his ruined shoulder. His breathing was even. Controlled. His hands did not shake.
The wasteland watched him without reaction.
Good.
He looked up at the crimson sky.
"From today onward," Lin Mo said calmly, "I will not pray to fate."
Ash stirred around his feet as the wind passed.
"I will dissect it."
The sky did not answer.
That was fine.
It never had.