The Scorched Valley greeted Rin Xie with silence—a silence too thick, too absolute to be natural. The air clung to his lungs like a breath that refused to exhale, stilled not by peace but by the weight of unending conflict. The soil, blackened and cracked, bore the marks of battles long forgotten. Charred remains of shattered weapons and bones interwove with ash-laden grasses, their blades sharp as regret. There were no birds, no insects, no wind—only the scent of burnt flesh that had never faded.
This was where the heavens first descended.
Millennia ago, the divine struck down into the mortal world here, leaving a valley ruptured by holy flame and fractured time. It was said the gods themselves carved this land open as punishment for the mortals who dared cultivate death. The battle had ended in silence, but its warriors had not.
They still fought.
Rin took a step forward. The heat surged around his ankles like whispers from a fire that never died. The sky above was burned a dull copper, its light filtered through layers of spiritual residue. A haze shimmered across the valley like an illusion, but he knew better. These were not ghosts.
They were wounds.
Dozens of them—spirits of the dead warriors—suddenly appeared in flickering flashes, locked in the same ceaseless movements. Soldiers in ancient armor clashed with ethereal blades that never dulled. They bled but never died, screamed but never fell silent. Some had no eyes, others bore swords through their guts, and still others fought with severed limbs flailing uselessly as they pressed forward against unseen foes.
And they all turned toward Rin.
A hush followed his presence, but only for a breath. Then they surged forward—not with hatred, but with desperation. To them, Rin was another enemy. Another invader upon their sacred field of war. The living did not belong in the Scorched Valley, and the dead had long forgotten mercy.
Rin did not lift his blade.
He had already decided.
He walked forward.
The first blow came from a spirit with half a face and the shattered remains of a spear. The weapon pierced Rin's shoulder, ripping muscle and tendon. He staggered but did not raise a hand to block. Blood poured freely, but the pain was sharp, clear, purposeful.
He felt the man's memory pour into him.
"I left my daughter behind. She was five. I never told her I loved her."
The spear vanished as the spirit recoiled, continuing its endless war elsewhere. Another came, and another. A rusted sword carved across Rin's ribs. A halberd slammed into his thigh. Arrows dug into his back. He welcomed them all.
Each wound, a door.
Each pain, a life.
He did not cry out. But his vision blurred as thousands of years of pain surged into his Death Core, feeding it, nourishing it with a truth more powerful than spiritual essence—suffering made real. The Wound Assimilation Technique had been outlawed for a reason. To absorb pain without healing it was to become a mirror for the suffering of the world. Those who used it went mad or died, twisted by the agony of countless lives.
But Rin was not healing. He was refining.
The technique coiled around his Death Core, reshaping it, darkening it not with hatred—but with empathy. A paradox that only death could allow. Where most cultivators devoured beasts, herbs, and Qi to grow stronger, Rin fed on wounds. And every one he bore was earned.
A sword burst through his spine.
"I drowned my brother in his sleep for a promotion. I died thinking I'd be remembered. I wasn't."
Another cut through his neck, splitting flesh.
"She waited for me. I never came back. She died alone."
Rin staggered forward, but still he walked. His body was mangled, dripping blood from every joint and limb. Bones cracked under his weight. The air reeked of blood and burnt marrow. The valley raged around him, spirits howling in endless chorus, and yet he did not fall.
The deeper he walked, the heavier the valley became.
Here, time bled. Days and years overlapped. He passed warriors who had slain their own commanders for survival, mothers who had taken up arms and died with their children's names on their lips, sons who had murdered their fathers to escape conscription. Their regrets became his. Their sins, his burden.
He reached the heart of the battlefield.
At its center lay a massive crater, wide and bottomless, cracked open like the earth's final wound. Here, the first celestial punishment had struck. It was not a weapon, not a divine beast, but a voice. The very decree of the heavens had carved the wound, a proclamation of judgment that had never healed.
Rin fell to his knees at the edge of the crater. Blood spilled from his mouth. His body was no longer his—it belonged to them. Every scream in his mind echoed louder, every breath weighted by ten thousand regrets. But it was there, on that precipice of unbearable grief, that something changed.
The Death Core inside him did not shatter.
It bloomed.
Like black lotus petals unfolding in a storm, it pulsed with understanding. The wounds he had taken did not fester. They sang. A chorus of the dead harmonizing through his soul. The Wound Assimilation Technique had not broken him—it had made him the vessel of mourning itself.
He closed his eyes. And for the first time, since he began this cursed cultivation, he wept.
Not for himself.
But for them.
Tears slid through blood and ash. The pain did not fade. But it was no longer unbearable. It was accepted, absorbed, understood. Rin felt each soul's longing and let it shape him.
He took no lives in the Scorched Valley. Yet he left stronger than ever before.
He rose from the crater's edge, body torn and riddled with holes, but eyes gleaming with clarity. As he stepped back, the spirits did not follow. They continued their battles, unaware of what had passed. Their stories had been told—not erased, not silenced—but woven into something eternal.
Rin would carry them.
Not as weights, but as truths.
He limped from the valley, the sky above flickering with pale light as if the heavens themselves watched, uncertain now of the being they had once marked for erasure.
The Wound Assimilation Technique, once sacrilege, had become revelation.
And Rin, the cultivator of death, had finally felt life.
Wounds Without End.
But now, they were his to bear.
To be continued…