The world stank of rot.
Xiao Yun's eyes snapped open as flies scattered from his face. Maggots squirmed across his chest. A vulture squawked and hopped back from his corpse, sensing something was wrong.
He wasn't dead anymore.
Rain poured over the corpse pit, drowning the moans of the dying and the silence of the truly dead. Mud clung to the blood-soaked bodies, bones poking out at angles that screamed of violence. Thunder cracked above as if the heavens themselves realized something ancient had returned.
Xiao Yun sat up.
Not slow. Not weak.
Like a puppet cutting its own strings, he jerked upright, and the pain hit immediately—muscles atrophied, bones fragile, nerves screaming from disuse. His breath came shallow, thin. Every fiber of this new body was wrong. Mortal. Crippled. Trash.
But the soul inside?
That wasn't mortal.
He looked down at his hands—thin, shaking. A sixteen-year-old boy's hands. Covered in filth. Scarred.
And yet… alive.
Xiao Yun grinned, even as blood leaked from his cracked lips. The grin turned into a laugh, low and broken.
"So they actually did it," he muttered, voice dry as dust. "They killed me."
The last thing he remembered—standing atop the Skyless Peak, surrounded by traitors. Elders of the Heaven-Filled Sect. His own disciples. Ten thousand blades descending. A thousand seals suppressing his void arts. Chains made from divine beast bones. That bitch, Elder Yue, stabbing him in the spine while smiling in his face.
And now here he was. Dumped in some peasant grave, soul latched to a dying shell.
"Reincarnation by Void Fragment… huh." He dragged himself from the pile of corpses, bones crunching underfoot as he staggered upright.
A sign nearby, hanging crooked on a rusted pike: "Black Dog Burial Grounds – Entry Forbidden."
Fitting.
He spat blood and limped forward, using a snapped spear for support. His body felt like twine stretched too tight. His dantian? Shattered. His meridians? Cracked, leaking spiritual energy like a broken pot.
But he wasn't helpless.
He still had it.
He reached into his soul.
There—deep in his core, buried under layers of sealed energy, a flicker pulsed. A shard of the Void Core. Blacker than night. Hungrier than death.
He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, then sliced a rune into his chest with the edge of the spear. The old technique surged from memory—Void Rebirth Manual, First Gate: Devour the False Body.
Power crashed through his limbs.
Pain tore his world open.
Every nerve burned. His bones cracked again—louder this time—as if something inside him refused to stay human. The scars on his chest lit up with violet runes, glowing through the rain like brands from hell.
His screams were eaten by the thunder.
Then—silence.
The world held its breath.
BOOM!
A shockwave burst from his body, blasting the corpse mound apart. Limbs and broken weapons scattered into the rain-soaked sky. The air crackled with dark energy. The blood in the earth began to rise, drawn toward him like iron to a magnet.
His cracked meridians? Fused. His dantian? Whole again—barely. A seed of darkness now pulsed there, greedily devouring qi from the very air.
He collapsed to his knees, coughing, grinning through the agony.
Step one was done.
A noise—twig snapping.
His head jerked toward the trees.
A girl stood half-hidden behind a dead oak, clutching a rusty dagger in shaking hands. Rags for clothes. Filthy hair. Big, terrified eyes locked on him.
A beggar. No older than fourteen.
She took a step toward him, then froze as the scent of blood and void rolled off his skin.
Xiao Yun didn't move.
But behind the girl, more figures emerged from the trees.
Men. Four of them. Armor cobbled from scavenged sect gear, red fangs painted across their chests.
Bandits.
"You see that flash?" one muttered. "Lightning hit the grave pit."
"No—look!" The leader pointed. "There's a boy… and the rat girl. Still alive."
The girl turned to run. Too slow.
A chain flew, wrapping around her ankle. She screamed, falling face-first into the mud.
"Catch her! Sell her to Fang's men!"
They charged in.
Xiao Yun stood.
Blood still leaked from his wounds. His legs barely held. His muscles screamed for rest.
But his eyes—
Cold.
Alive.
Deadly.
The first bandit raised a cleaver.
Xiao Yun blurred.
His hand shot forward, grabbed the man's face, and crushed it with a burst of black lightning.
The second didn't even see the strike. His chest exploded outward, ribs blown apart from within.
The third screamed—"MONSTER!"—before a broken spear punched through his throat.
The fourth ran.
Xiao Yun pointed a single finger. A thread of void tore from the air, slicing the man in half as if he were paper.
Silence returned. The girl curled up, shaking.
Xiao Yun turned away.
"Don't follow me," he said.
But she did.
She staggered after him, dragging her bruised leg through the mud, eyes wide.
He ignored her.
His mind was racing. The power he just used—it wasn't even a tenth of his past self's strength, yet this world had grown soft in his absence.
Pathetic.
If these were the dogs guarding the grave pit, what was left of the sects?
He limped deeper into the forest. Qi churned in his chest. He needed a place to recover. A clean spiritual spring. A beast core. Anything to fuel his next step.
Behind him, the girl whimpered.
She'd stepped on a trap.
A rusty spike pierced her foot.
She collapsed, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.
He stopped.
Turned.
And cursed himself.
"Idiot," he muttered, yanking the spike from her foot with one swift pull.
She passed out from the pain.
He lifted her onto his back.
He didn't know why. She wasn't strong. She wasn't useful.
But something in him remembered—what it felt like to be alone, hunted, dragging a broken body across cold ground while the world watched and did nothing.
He wouldn't pity her.
But he'd use her.
He reached a cave by nightfall. Small. Dry. Hidden. Perfect.
He dumped her inside and collapsed at the mouth, letting the void qi pulse through him like a heartbeat. His eyes drifted shut.
Then snapped open.
A shadow moved at the cave's edge. Not hers.
Bigger.
He stepped out.
Something stood on the ridge above the trees. Towering. Cloaked in black. A mask with three eyeholes stared down at him.
He recognized the symbol carved into its shoulder.
The Seal of the Heavenly Tomb—one of the forbidden factions that had joined the crusade to kill him a thousand years ago.
They were still alive?
A low hum echoed through the woods. The masked figure raised its hand.
"Void energy detected," it said in a voice that wasn't human.
"Target locked."
The sky exploded.
A beam of light surged toward him, wide as a river, burning with white-hot fury.
He didn't hesitate.
He dropped the girl, ripped open his palm, and slammed his blood against the ground.
"Void Rebirth Manual: Second Gate."
The ground collapsed.
His body plunged into darkness—
As the beam annihilated the entire ridge above.
And the forest caught fire.