They thought it was just a ghost. A mindless wraith, driven by hatred and grief.
But before death, before the curse, it had been a warrior. A fellow disciple. A man.
It had fought. It had bled. It had died.
Now, it was nothing but wrath.
…
The battlefield had long since fallen silent, but the stench of blood still choked the air. Corpses littered the land—some torn apart beyond recognition, others left in twisted shapes that no longer resembled men. The earth had been soaked so deeply in flesh and gore that it no longer seemed like soil, but something more grotesque, something alive in its gluttonous hunger for death.
He had been left behind among them. A corpse that refused to die.
His body was broken—his right arm barely attached, his ribs shattered, his breathing wet with the taste of blood that refused to stop rising in his throat. He didn't know how he had survived when all the others had been slaughtered. He only knew one thing:
He wouldn't last much longer.
The demon they had been sent to fight was gone. Not dead—just gone. It had crushed them effortlessly, wiping out their forces in waves of carnage, until there was nothing left but him, a discarded scrap of flesh. He had seen the beast vanish into the shadows, dragging the bodies of the stronger cultivators away. But it had spared him. No—ignored him. As if his existence was beneath its notice.
It should have been a blessing. A miracle.
Instead, it was a curse.
The sect wouldn't come back for him. There was no honor in rescuing a failed disciple. They had sent him here to die, and if by some cruel joke he had managed to live through it, then he was no longer their concern.
His wounds were beyond healing. Even if he did escape this graveyard, even if he dragged himself back to the sect gates, they wouldn't waste resources on a crippled failure. His fate was already sealed.
He had been nothing more than a disposable tool. And now, even as he lay dying, he was alone.
No one would remember him. No one would even say his name.
He should have just accepted it.
But he couldn't.
The thought of fading away, of vanishing like he had never existed, made something in him snap. He refused. He refused. If he was meant to die, then he would decide how he died. And if the world wanted to cast him away—then he would claw his way back, even if it meant becoming something monstrous.
There was a way. He had heard of it before. A forbidden technique, whispered among the desperate.
To abandon the body.
To sever the last ties to mortality.
To become something undying.
His father had told him about it long ago. "This technique is not salvation—it is damnation. Use it, and you will never return to the world of the living."
Back then, he had sworn he never would.
But what did promises mean anymore?
With shaking hands, he smeared blood over the ground, carving the ritual into the dirt. His vision swam, his body barely able to move. The pain didn't matter. He had already lost everything.
A ghost's birth was not peaceful.
It was agony stretched beyond mortal limits, an unraveling of the soul that turned breath into cold nothingness, that stripped away warmth and left only hunger. The pain of his wounds faded, but something worse took its place—emptiness. His heartbeat slowed. Stopped. His flesh lost its warmth, his body no longer his own.
When he opened his eyes again, the world was the same. But he was not.
He had become the very thing his father had warned him to never become.
A ghost. A creature reviled by the living.
And with that, he had broken the only promise that had ever mattered.
"Never kill too many," his father had said. "Or you'll become something that can't turn back."
But what did that promise mean anymore?
The sect had discarded him. The world had cast him aside.
He had no reason to hold back.
At first, he thought there would be a way out. That he could leave, hide, rebuild himself. But the truth came crashing down like an executioner's blade.
He was trapped.
The battlefield where he had died—this was no ordinary land. It had been the graveyard
At first, he thought there would be a way out. That he could leave, hide, rebuild himself. But the truth came crashing down like an executioner's blade.
He was trapped.
The battlefield where he had died—this was no ordinary land.
It was a graveyard of the past. A place where true monsters once fought, where Rank 3 cultivators had clashed and torn the heavens apart. What he had been thrown into wasn't just a mission. It was a slaughter. The elders had sent them here knowing they would die.
They had never expected him to return. He was never meant to survive.
He was just a tool. A body to slow down the demon.
And now? Now, he was less than that.
The injuries that had once been fatal were gone, but the chains remained. He felt them the moment he tried to leave—the suffocating pull of the realm rejecting him. It was as if the battlefield itself had decided that he was no longer human. That he was nothing more than another wandering soul in its endless cycle of bloodshed.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not step beyond its borders.
He didn't understand.
He clawed at the barrier. He screamed, raged, begged—only to be met with silence.
The sect had abandoned him. The world had forgotten him. He was nothing.
Despair gripped him like an iron vice, pressing down until there was nothing left to break. His thoughts spiraled. Was this his fate? To rot here, trapped in the ruins of a war that was never his?
Days passed. Months. Years.
He lost count.
The weight of time bore down on him, and with it, his mind eroded.
At some point, he stopped speaking. Stopped thinking.
His very existence faded into the realm, a ghost lingering where it did not belong.
Until—
The secret realm opened.
It was so sudden that he didn't even realize it at first. His thoughts were muddled, his very being a haze of resentment and exhaustion.
Then, the scent of fresh blood filled the air. The tremors of footsteps echoed across the battlefield.
Humans.
They were here. Again.
He watched, hollow and distant, as the first group entered. Young disciples, the same as before—bright-eyed, proud, walking across the corpses of the past like they were stepping on mere stones.
His mind stirred. He knew these robes.
The same sect. The same banners. The same arrogance.
They had returned.
And they didn't even remember.
They didn't know.
They didn't know about the battle, about the blood that had soaked this land. About the countless nameless disciples thrown into the grinder to buy time for their so-called "heroes."
They didn't know about him.
Something inside him snapped.
Hatred, raw and all-consuming, surged through his spectral veins.
He had spent years drowning in despair, lost in the futility of it all, believing there was no way forward.
But now—
Now, he had a purpose.
It started with just one. A single disciple, plucked from the group like an insect caught in a web. He didn't savor it, didn't hesitate. Just reached out and snuffed the life away like blowing out a candle.
The feeling was… intoxicating.
It wasn't enough.
The next time the realm opened, he killed again.
And again.
At first, the sect dismissed it. A few missing disciples. Unfortunate accidents. Perhaps an elderless rogue cultivator hiding in the ruins.
But the truth was cruel.
Each time the realm opened, he hunted.
Each time, he took another genius from them.
It wasn't enough.
It would never be enough.
Years passed. His strength grew, his techniques refined. He became something more than just a lingering soul—something colder, sharper, more complete.
And yet, he remained trapped.
That was when he realized.
The realm was weakening.
The energy that had bound this battlefield together for centuries was beginning to unravel.
If it collapsed before he escaped—he would truly die.
The thought sent a thrill of fear through him. He could not allow that.
So he made a choice.
He would tear the gates open with his own hands.
If the realm was fading, then he would force it to stay open.
And if that meant sacrificing every single disciple that entered—then so be it.
His father's words echoed in the back of his mind.
"Never kill too many, or you'll become something that can't turn back."
That promise had once been his last tie to his past.
But now? Now, it meant nothing.
He was already a monster.
And he would burn the sect to the ground before he ever let them forget his name.