Liang's POV
Fire was never a stranger to me.
I was born amidst smoldering embers and silent vengeance. But tonight, the blaze I saw through the cracks of this wooden hut wasn't from a hearth or a guard's torch. It was a roaring inferno—consuming rooftops, licking the sky, and casting shadows that danced violently across the dry fields.
I was hiding at the edge of the village, my body still bruised from the last skirmish. The walls of this shack offered only the illusion of safety, and now that illusion was beginning to melt under the growing heat of what smelled like scorched timber—and something worse.
But before the flames reached me, something else had already set my mind ablaze—
The truth I had uncovered beneath the sacred temple of the Tianyin Sect.
---
Just hours before, I had crept back into the temple compound. After what happened in the Blood Hall, I knew they were hiding more than petty political secrets. The temple was eerily silent—too silent. Not a single guard at the stone gates. No whisper of chanting. Even the torches lining the halls were dimmed.
My feet moved like shadows as I followed a hunch toward the rear sanctum. Behind the towering brass Bodhisattva statue, something was… off. Its neck bore a strange marking, one I had never seen before. A symbol burned into the metal—Lingchi, the death of a thousand cuts.
I pressed my fingers against it. The ground shifted beneath me.
A panel of stone slid aside, revealing stairs that spiraled downward into blackness.
I descended. The air grew colder, drier. The scent of dust and ancient decay clung to my tongue. I lit a spirit stone to see—and what I saw made my blood run cold.
Hundreds of clay jars lined the chamber.
Each bore a name. Some were familiar.
"Zhang Yue… Qian Ru… Feng Lin…" I whispered. They were disciples said to have fallen in battle. Their bodies were never recovered.
I picked up one jar and opened it.
Ash. Bone.
A charred finger lay nestled within—marked with the sect's seal, seared into the bone.
That wasn't for remembrance. It was containment.
I looked up and saw it then—an old mural on the chamber wall, painted with something far too dark to be ink. It depicted skeletal warriors rising from graves, their bones glowing with spiritual light. Beneath it, in ancient script:
> "Bones left unburned become the path to resurrection."
I trembled.
Among the jars, I found an old scroll. A forgotten record.
> "The blood of a high-level cultivator can reawaken the dead… unless their remains are destroyed by heavenly flame.
Burn the body. Burn the spirit. Seal the soul."
The words clawed at my spine. All this time, the sect's sacred cremations weren't acts of honor…
They were acts of imprisonment.
They didn't bury heroes. They extinguished threats.
Suddenly, a presence stirred behind me.
I spun around.
A figure stood at the edge of the corridor. White robes. Eyes covered in black silk. He made no sound, but spiritual pressure oozed from him like frozen fire.
"You should not be here, Liang Shen."
His voice was a whisper, yet it echoed through bone.
"Who are you?" I rasped, hand tightening around my blade.
"The ones you think are dead… are merely asleep."
He vanished.
I didn't wait. I clutched the scroll and fled—back through the statue, out into the shadows of the forest, and into the lonely village shack.
---
Now, the fire had come.
Through the window's narrow slit, I watched as flames tore across rooftops and fields. One of the granaries—where herbs and medicines were stored—had already collapsed into cinders. Villagers were running, some screaming, others clutching children or sacks of rice. But not a single temple bell rang. No one came to help.
Why was no one warning them?
The answer sank into me like poison.
This fire… was no accident.
On the ridge above the village, I spotted them.
White-robed figures of the Tianyin Sect stood motionless, like ghosts watching a funeral. In one of their hands, I saw a black ignition stone—its surface pulsing with spiritual energy.
"They're erasing the evidence," I muttered. "Erasing… me."
And not just me. The whole village.
---
I burst out of the shack, scroll tucked tight to my chest, and sprinted toward the flames.
"Liang Shen!"
A familiar voice broke through the chaos.
Qin Yao emerged from the shadows, her clothes streaked with soot, a bleeding gash on her shoulder. But her eyes—her eyes burned with fire of their own.
"What's happening?" she cried, grabbing my arm.
"They're destroying everything. Everyone," I said. "To silence the truth."
We ran. But then—I heard something.
Not screams.
Not wood cracking.
Laughter.
A low, inhuman chuckle from within the fire.
And then, stepping through the blaze like it was mist—
A man.
Half of his robes were scorched to ash. His face blistered and split. But he walked as if death had no claim on him. His eyes glowed red. And on his chest—
The Tianyin Sect's insignia… burned backward.
"Feng Lin…" I breathed. "No… that's not possible."
He was a senior disciple. Declared dead three years ago.
But his bones were never fully burned.
Only sealed.
Only half-destroyed.
"He didn't die," Qin Yao whispered in horror. "They… trapped him."
Feng Lin raised his hand. Fire coiled around him in a perfect ring, forming a spiritual formation I didn't recognize. Then he spoke:
> "We are the remnants.
And the remnants shall ignite the world."
The fire roared upward like a beast unleashed.
The village exploded.
We were thrown back—our bodies crashing against the earth. Smoke. Ash. Screams swallowed by flame.
---
My ears rang. But I was alive.
The scroll was still clutched in my hand.
I pushed myself upright. Qin Yao coughed beside me, her hair singed, her fingers trembling.
"We… we have to run," she pleaded.
But I couldn't move yet.
From the cracked earth behind us, something jutted out.
A clay jar.
Half-buried. Shattered.
Inside—charred bone.
And carved on the inside of the lid…
The Tianyin insignia. Scratched out. From the inside.
I froze.
They weren't just burning bodies to stop resurrection.
They were trapping them between life and death.
Burned just enough to keep them from returning.
Not destroyed. Not free. Just… bound.
And now—
The seals were burning.
Qin Yao grabbed my arm, shouting something—but then we both heard it.
Footsteps.
Not from guards.
Not from villagers.
But from… them.
Dozens of figures rising from ash and embers—skeletons clothed in smoke, eyes glowing like dying stars. Their bones creaked with ancient power. Each step shook the ground like a heartbeat returning from the void.
Wind howled through the trees.
A voice whispered through the smoke, close to my ear—so close I could feel its chill crawl into my skin:
"Liang Shen… your blood… is the final key."
Qin Yao yanked me away just in time. A flash of burning ash flew past where I'd just been standing—sharp enough to slice bark from a nearby tree.
"They're coming closer," she hissed, voice tight with fear. "Liang Shen, if we stay here, we die."
But I couldn't tear my eyes away from them.
The risen.
Not quite living. Not entirely dead. Their bodies shimmered with firelight and residual spiritual energy. One of them had no face—just a cracked skull with flickering eyes. Another dragged a broken leg, its bones grinding together in sickening rhythm. They weren't just walking corpses.
They were… angry.
And they were looking for something.
No—someone.
Me.
I realized then: it wasn't just about silencing the past. These beings—they weren't hunting aimlessly. They had memory. Vengeance. Consciousness.
"They're bound to me now," I muttered, the truth landing like ice down my spine. "Because I took the scroll… because I know."
"Then we destroy it!" Qin Yao shouted, reaching for the parchment.
I stepped back, gripping it tighter. "No. If we do that, we lose everything. Proof, knowledge… maybe the only way to stop this."
"Then what do we do?"
A gust of wind blew through the fire-blackened trees. The howls were closer now, inhuman and guttural. The reanimated cultivators moved with horrifying unity—like one mind split into dozens of fractured souls.
I looked toward the base of the mountain.
"The cave behind the shrine," I said. "There's a cleansing pool. It might be sealed, but if we can get to it—there's a chance I can draw a spiritual barrier. At least… buy us time."
Qin Yao didn't argue. She followed as I led the way through the scorched forest, weaving through fallen branches and smoking roots. Each step echoed with the sound of death behind us.
More flames surged behind us. One of the skeletal figures raised both arms, and a ring of fire erupted from the earth—cutting off the path we came from.
"They can channel fire," Qin Yao breathed, stunned. "How is that possible?"
"Residual cultivation," I said. "The Sect didn't destroy their cores… they only suppressed them. These aren't corpses—they're remnants of cultivators who refused to vanish."
We reached a ridge. Just beyond it, the narrow path that led to the cleansing shrine.
But blocking the way—
Two of them.
Their robes still bore traces of the Tianyin insignia. One of them was missing a jaw; the other had a gaping hole where his heart should be. But both moved with terrifying speed as we approached.
I pushed Qin Yao back. "Stay behind me."
Drawing my blade, I channeled what little spiritual energy I had left. The blade hummed with resistance—I was still weak, but there was no other choice.
The first strike connected—bone cracked. But the creature didn't stop. Its arm twisted unnaturally, grabbing the edge of my sleeve and yanking me forward.
I brought the blade up again—this time slicing through its shoulder. It staggered, then fell apart into flaming ash.
The second one leapt at Qin Yao.
"Duck!"
She rolled aside just as I drove the sword downward, pinning the thing to the ground. Its hand twitched, claws reaching—until it finally went still.
Breathing hard, we stumbled down the path toward the shrine.
The door to the cleansing cave was already partially open. That was… wrong.
No one had used this shrine in years.
We entered slowly. The temperature dropped instantly—spiritual dampening from the sacred spring. Blue light glowed softly from the water, casting dancing shadows on the cave walls.
I dropped the scroll into the center of the room.
"I'm going to try a containment seal," I said. "But you have to protect me while I draw."
Qin Yao nodded, blood still dripping from her shoulder. "Make it fast."
I knelt and began inscribing with the last of my energy—a circle meant to suppress spirits, reinforced with the symbols etched in the scroll's margin.
Outside, I could already hear them. Bones cracking. Wood splintering. The dead were coming.
Qin Yao stood at the entrance, blade drawn, eyes wild with fear and fury.
One more line. Just a few more strokes—
A piercing scream cut through the cave.
I looked up in time to see one of the risen leap from the shadows, claws extended toward Qin Yao.
"No!"
I surged forward, slicing across its chest. But I was too late.
Blood sprayed the cave wall as Qin Yao staggered back, clutching her side.
"I'm okay," she gasped. "Just… finish the seal!"
I turned back, ignoring the tremble in my hands.
The circle began to glow.
And then—something inside the scroll pulsed.
The symbols rearranged themselves.
My eyes widened.
"No... this isn't just a seal," I whispered. "It's a lock. A keyhole."
The writing revealed something hidden—a glyph that matched the pattern burned into Feng Lin's chest.
I had seen this before—on me.
During the last initiation rite. When the sect made us drink from the Bone Chalice.
"Liang Shen… your blood… is the final key."
My heart stopped.
Not metaphorical. Not symbolic.
Literal.
They weren't just trying to silence me because I knew.
They needed me.
My blood was the last component of the ancient curse. My blood would either seal the dead forever…
…or awaken them all.
And I had just activated the lock.