The fall felt incredibly long to Han Yu, as if time itself had slowed down. He saw every inch of the dark walls as he grew closer to the ground.
He could make out the details, the cracks, the loose rocks, the moss growing on the walls, as well as a few critters that lived on the wall, everything. It all seemed slow, and yet his abrupt halt came quick.
Han Yu’s body slammed into the ravine floor with a bone-shattering crash.
For a moment, there was only darkness and the ringing in his ears.
Then the pain hit him like a tidal wave.
Agonizing, soul-tearing pain.
He gasped, or tried to — the air barely moved in his crushed lungs.
He could feel it — ribs shattered, legs twisted at unnatural angles, one of his arms bent so badly it was barely hanging by tendons.
Blood gushed from countless wounds, pooling under him, soaking into the broken rocks.
Through blurry eyes, he saw two figures nearby.
Liu Ping and Sun Kang.
Their bodies were twisted in grotesque ways, heads lolled at impossible angles.
Han Yu’s vision blurred again, but he fought to stay conscious.
’No... no... not ...’
’I don’t want to die.’
His thoughts were frantic, spiraling.
He clawed at the ground with trembling fingers, dragging in broken breaths that only made the agony worse.
’I didn’t come this far... just to die like a bug crushed underfoot...’
Tears mingled with the blood on his face.
The cold seeped into his bones now.
His body, once full of life and tenacity, was failing.
He thought about the Twin Peak Left Sect.About the dreams he had.About the masters he had yet to defeat, the places he had yet to see.
And bitterly... about Li Mei’s stupid grin and her maddening experiments.
He would never see them again.
’Is this really it...?’
His heartbeat slowed.
The pain dulled into numbness.
But even then, even on the brink, Han Yu’s soul raged against the dying of the light.
’I don’t want to go... I don’t want to—’
The world went black.
His breathing stopped.
For a few heartbeats, there was nothing.
A faint, silvery glow shimmered from the small pearl tied around his neck.
The Undying Life Pearl.
He had been told by the ghostly man it was spent, a useless trinket, the last embers of its once-glorious power exhausted long ago.
But somehow, in this moment of finality, it stirred.
The light grew stronger, purer.
It wrapped Han Yu’s mangled corpse in tendrils of mist-like energy.
And then, like a star inhaling the night, the pearl drew Han Yu’s soul into its depths.
His body remained broken and bloodied, lying still among the ruins of the ravine floor.
But within the Undying Life Pearl, a spark flickered to life.
A soul refusing to vanish.
Han Yu drifted through an endless expanse of silvery fog, weightless, alone.
Somewhere deep inside the pearl, a new journey was beginning.
The mist surrounded him in every direction, thick and silver, muffling all sound, swallowing all sense of time.
He didn’t know how long he had been here.
Minutes? Hours? Days?
He tried to move, but his body felt sluggish, like he was trapped in syrup.No pain.No hunger.No thirst.
His memories were a blur, as if someone had taken a blade and slashed through the fabric of his mind.
He couldn’t remember.
Only flashes — a broom sweeping dusty tiles, a grinning girl holding a bubbling cauldron, a stern-faced elder barking orders, a surge of power blooming in his veins.
The wind howling.The ground rushing up to meet him.Pain.
The realization struck him like a hammer blow.
Han Yu shuddered, curling inward as if to protect himself.
The two disciples... the beast... the collapse... it all came back, piece by piece, like shards of glass cutting into his mind.
And yet... he was still here.
’Is this the afterlife?’ he wondered bleakly. ’Am I just going to wander this nothingness forever?’
He stumbled forward blindly, the mist parting just slightly with each step, only to close in again behind him.
There was no ground beneath his feet, yet somehow he walked.
There was no sun above, yet he could see.
The silence pressed down on him, heavy and suffocating.
Barely more than a whisper.
It curled around him like smoke.
"O’ seeker of undying fate..."
But the voice continued, threading its way directly into his mind.
"You who refused to fall into oblivion... accept the gift, the burden... the severance of destiny itself."
Han Yu clutched his head, a sharp pain stabbing into his consciousness.
New memories, new knowledge flooded into him.
He gasped, falling to his knees in the mist.
Images seared into his mind — twisting patterns, ancient scripts glowing with otherworldly light, a silhouette standing defiant against a collapsing world.
A name burned itself into his soul:
Undying Destiny Severance.
And with it, understanding.
Han Yu’s eyes widened in disbelief.
This was not a cultivation technique for the body.Nor for the qi cultivation.
It was a method to temper — no, to cultivate — the soul itself.
To strip away the fragile fetters of mortality and weave a destiny unbound by life and death.
Everything he had ever known screamed at him that it couldn’t be done.
The soul was untouchable, sacred.You could strengthen your body, refine your qi, even forge your bones into treasures, but the soul?
Only legends spoke of such things.And even then, they spoke of failure and madness.
Yet here, now, the knowledge was etched into him, clear and complete.
Han Yu clenched his fists.