Liang's POV
There was no beginning.
No sound.
No breath.
Only the cold.
I didn't remember falling asleep. Maybe I didn't. Maybe the dream swallowed me whole, the way bones eventually swallow flesh. All I knew was that one moment I stood in that bone-carved library, and the next…
…I was seated.
Alone.
Surrounded by skulls.
Tens of thousands of them—stacked in towers, lining the blackened walls, pressed into the floor beneath my feet. Some still bore fragments of hair. Others grinned as if whispering secrets they would never share. And all of them… looked at me.
I wasn't afraid. Not yet.
Because something about the place recognized me.
And worse—I recognized it.
I looked down at my hands. They were stained. Not with dirt or blood—but memory. As if I'd carried these bones in my arms before. As if I'd buried them, or worse—unburied them.
> "Liang Shen."
The voice was everywhere. Soft. Eternal. Neither male nor female.
> "Bone Prince. You have returned."
A whisper rippled through the ossuary. The skulls vibrated with breathless anticipation.
"I'm not…" I tried to speak, but my throat was dry. "I'm not a prince of anything. I didn't choose this."
> "Yet you carry the marrow. You wear the mark. The First Bone accepted your offering."
I stood. Or maybe I floated. It was hard to tell. Time had no shape here. Neither did fear.
But as I turned, I saw something moving through the towers of skulls.
A child.
Barefoot. Pale. Hair made of threads of ash.
Its face was blank, but I knew it was looking directly into me.
It stepped forward and spoke without lips:
> "Why do you run from what loves you?"
"Why do you fear the gift your ancestors died to preserve?"
"I never asked for it," I said. My voice cracked like dry branches. "I didn't ask for any of this."
> "No one asks the river why it flows," the child replied. "No one asks the bone why it outlasts the flame."
The skulls around us shook, as if stirred by invisible thunder.
Then the child raised a hand.
A mirror formed from thin air. Bone-framed. Its surface shimmered like smoke.
> "Look."
I didn't want to.
But I did.
And what I saw shattered me.
---
In the Mirror
In the reflection stood me—but not the same.
My skin had paled to ivory. My left eye glowed faintly. Symbols burned across my throat. My left arm… was bone. Elegant, clean, inhumanly perfect. Its joints moved smoothly, but it no longer looked like part of me. It was like I had been sculpted by death itself.
And worse—I was smiling.
Smiling like I had accepted it.
Like I belonged here.
I stepped back.
"No," I whispered.
The child tilted its head.
> "This is what you will become. A vessel for what is buried. A voice for the forgotten. A prince in the land of remains."
"No. That's not me," I said, voice trembling. "I'm not… I'm not this."
The mirror shattered.
The skulls around us began to rise.
Some floated. Others twisted into shapes—arms, limbs, weapons.
They chanted in a language older than the sky.
> "Heir of the Hollow.
Prince of Ash.
Son of Bone.
Take your throne…"
I covered my ears.
> "Take your throne…"
"Stop it."
> "Take your throne…"
"STOP IT!"
---
I screamed—and woke up.
Gasping. Soaked in sweat.
Back in the hidden chamber. Bones silent. Air still.
But something was wrong.
I couldn't move my left hand.
I looked down—
And my heart plummeted into my stomach.
My left arm was gone.
Not missing.
Transformed.
From the shoulder down, it was bone.
White. Gleaming. Etched with runes. The same ones I'd seen in the mirror.
"No… no no no no—" I backed away, clutching it, but there was no pain.
Only numbness. Cold. Like it had never been flesh to begin with.
The runes pulsed.
And then… it moved. On its own.
My hand—my bony, cursed hand—closed into a fist without my command.
I collapsed to my knees.
Tears sprang to my eyes—not from fear, but from something deeper. Something raw.
> "Who am I now?"
"What's left of me?"
My voice cracked.
I thought of Qin Yao's face. Her eyes filled with fear. Her voice trembling.
What have you become?
I didn't know anymore.
Was I still Liang Shen?
Or just a shadow wrapped in the name?
My arm twitched again. This time… it pointed. Toward the dark corridor ahead.
Something called me forward.
And I didn't know if I was still walking toward a destiny—
—or into a tomb where my name would be the last thing buried.
The air grew thick.
No wind. No sound.
Only the soft, rhythmic clicking of bone against bone—from my own fingers. They tapped against the ground in an unnatural cadence, like counting down to something I couldn't name.
"Stop…" I begged. "Please stop."
But my arm—my bone arm—didn't listen.
It moved on its own, rising slowly, curling and flexing, as if testing its own power. I watched, horrified, as veins of black spiritual energy ran up my shoulder, spreading into my chest like dark roots.
My breathing became erratic. Each inhale burned. My vision blurred at the edges.
I could feel something inside me waking up.
Not a voice.
Not a presence.
A hunger.
---
Suddenly, the chamber trembled. Bones rattled on the shelves. The floor beneath me cracked open—only slightly—but enough to see shadows crawling beneath, like serpents under glass.
Then—
I saw her.
Not Qin Yao.
Not anyone I knew.
But a woman formed of smoke and marrow. Cloaked in black hair that flowed like ink. Her eyes were hollow sockets—but they bled gold fire.
She stood at the far side of the chamber.
And smiled.
> "So... you've inherited the Curse of the Hollow."
I tried to speak, but my tongue refused me.
> "They lied to you, Liang Shen," she continued. Her voice echoed from the walls, from inside my skull. "They called it a gift. But it was always a trap."
> "The First Bone was not meant to be awakened. It devours."
"No…" I forced the words out, trembling. "I—I can fight this."
The woman tilted her head.
> "Can you? Then why do you feel stronger now than ever before?"
She stepped forward. Her footsteps didn't make a sound. The bones on the walls began to tremble—some cracking from sheer pressure.
> "You're no longer just a cultivator. You are a relic. A vessel."
> "And vessels are meant to be filled."
I clenched my jaw. My heart pounded, screaming for escape.
Then she pointed at me.
> "You want to see what you'll become? Look again, heir."
The floor split wide.
And I was falling—again.
But this time, I didn't land.
I saw visions spiraling around me like a nightmare painted in blood:
—Myself, standing atop a battlefield, commanding an army of skeletal cultivators. My smile no longer human.
—Qin Yao, chained in bone, eyes begging me to remember who I was.
—The five great sects, bowing in fear—not respect.
—And at the center of it all, a throne of white bone… with my name carved into its spine.
I screamed.
I did not want this.
I was no prince. No heir. I was just a boy who buried his master and wanted to survive.
The visions shattered.
I slammed back into the chamber floor, coughing violently.
Blood trickled from my mouth.
I blinked—once, twice.
My reflection appeared in a pool of dark water.
And this time, I saw it clearly.
Not just my arm.
Half of my face… was bone.
Exposed. Burned into the shape of a death mask. A sigil branded across my cheek.
My left eye flickered—no longer brown.
But glowing silver-white.
My heart twisted.
"I'm not ready…" I whispered. "Please… someone stop this…"
But no one came.
Only silence.
And a slow echo:
> "Bone Prince."
"Your time has begun."