The very air in the ruins of the Ancestral Shrine seemed to hold its breath, thick with the dust of shattered relics and the ozone tang of spent power. It was in this graveyard of sacred things that Donovan Valdez, his body a conduit for the raging, untamed energy of a Foundation Establishment freshly forged, unleashed his killing intent.
His fist, wreathed in the corrosive aura of the Bone Eroding Fist Art, descended like a meteor, its trajectory aimed to pulverize the skull of the broken man kneeling amidst the debris.
The force behind it was that of a mountain peak shearing away, carrying with it the absolute finality of crushed bone and extinguished life.
Yet, in the sliver of time between the strike's inception and its impact, the space before Krogh Hanz shimmered and coalesced, a shadowy form materializing from the lingering grief of the battlefield to intercept the blow with a resilience that defied its ghostly nature.
Thud!!
The sound was not a crack, but a deep, resonant impact that shuddered through the ground, a percussive note that spoke of immense power meeting unyielding defense. The shadowy figure was forced back two full steps, its ethereal form wavering like a banner in a gale, yet it held firm, its silhouette solidifying into the soul form of a stunning beauty, her features etched with a pain that was both ancient and immediate.
It was a stunning beautiful lady, her translucent form flickering like a candle flame in a hurricane, who had thrown herself into the path of annihilation. She had absorbed the full, vicious brunt of Donovan's technique, her very essence screaming in protest as it corroded the edges of her being, yet she stood as a fragile, desperate barrier between her dying Dao Spouse and the cold finality of his execution.
Donovan's eyes, burning with Foundation-stage power, narrowed in recognition, his brow furrowing for only a heartbeat before a sneer of pure contempt twisted his lips.
"Madam Claret?" His voice dripped with a venomous triumph, no longer that of a mere Qi Refinement ant looking up at an insurmountable peak. He now stood as her equal in the realm of Foundation Stage, his power a turbulent, roaring river compared to her deep, but wounded, well. Though his foundation was hastily built upon the common Human Path Dao Pillar and marred by instability, the chasm between their former stations had been closed. He was now a master of the same cultivation realm, and the powerful ghost lady who had once seemed so far above him was now a tangible foe he could break.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Without another word, consumed by battle-lust and a grief that had curdled into pure rage, Donovan pressed his assault. His fists became a relentless storm, a battle-drunk rhythm of thunderous eruptions.
Each strike was a manifestation of the Human Path's defiance—a philosophy where a cultivator seizes power by rebelling against the natural order, tearing it from the heavens and earth to fortify their own being. At that ascension moment of his life, fueled not by serene contemplation but by a whirlwind of raw, human emotion—the gut-wrenching fear of his lethal circumstances, the bitter anguish of gaining Legendary level Foundation Establishment Pill and then relinquishing a grand prize, and the fierce, uncomplicated responsibility he felt for his sworn brothers—his breakthrough had been anything but orthodox.
Donovan was never a benevolent immortal master in the world's sight; he was a fierce, terrible demonic powerhouse. But at that ascension moment, he's nothing but a simple human male confronting a terrible unknown, and this pure, unadulterated release of his own humanity weakness had strangely solidified his Dao Pillar, making his power wild, frightening, and intensely personal.
This terrifying, emotionally-charged power now rained down upon Madam Claret in an unforgiving barrage. Donovan's fist shadows piled upon one another like raging waves against a cliffside. Madam Claret staggered, her form flickering violently with each world-shattering impact. Wisps of her ghostly aura were scattered like smoke, and ethereal ghost blood, the essence of her soul, spilled forth in shimmering arcs. Yet, with a will that transcended her dissipating form, she refused to be driven back completely. She planted her feet, her form growing translucent under the onslaught, a desperate and unwavering shield standing firm before the fallen Krogh, her man, her anchor to a world that had long since let her go.
The sight of the famed Blood Madam straining, her form flickering in desperate, uncoordinated parries against his assault, sent a thread of cold suspicion weaving through Donovan's battle-fury.
This was not the peerless ghost cultivator of legend, the entity whispered to be a match for any Early Phase Foundation Stage expert. Her movements were sluggish, her ghostly qi dissipating with each block as if the very core of her power was leaking away into the void. It made no sense; the intelligence gathered by his sect had been unequivocal about her formidable strength. Only when he landed another shattering blow, a concussive impact that sent her ethereal form swaying like a reflection in disturbed water, threatening to scatter her essence to the four winds, did the final piece of the puzzle click into place with chilling clarity.
His gaze snapped from the faltering ghost to the broken swordsman lying prone amidst the ruins. Krogh Hanz was a vessel of spent power, his life force ebbing in a visible tide, his body a map of catastrophic ruin. The connection was undeniable. They were bound, not just by oath or affection, but by a far more profound and damning contract—a Ghost Path technique, a Life-Death Soul Contract of order. Their souls were tethered, their fates intertwined on a fundamental level. As Krogh's vitality withered, so too did Madam Claret's; his wounds were her wounds, his impending death was her dissolution. She was not fighting him with her own independent power, but with the fading dregs of a shared existence, a echo of strength siphoned from a dying source. A cold, brutal certainty settled in Donovan's heart: victory was not merely possible, it was inevitable.
A savage, unforgiving grin split the Mister First Dominator's face as he loomed over the tragic pair, his voice dropping to a venomous growl that carried over the din of their clashing energies.
"Krogh Hanz... hehe, fucking hell! What a powerful figure, hey!" he taunted, the words laced with acid mockery.
"Your name echoes across the entire Outer Sect, why this fucking legend brought to his knees, huh?" He drove another Heaven-Sundering Palm forward, the force of it booming like celestial judgment, forcing Madam Claret to sacrifice another portion of her essence to deflect it.
"You arrogant motherfucker. How dare you slaughter my squad brothers, murder my sworn kin? You think your power gave you the right?" His assault was a relentless storm, a magnificent, terrifying spectacle of flashing palms and thundering fists that sent shockwaves rippling through the mountain peak, reducing the ancient jade tiles of the shrine to glittering dust beneath their feet.
Yet, beneath this ferocious, overwhelming display, a far more insidious and lethal power was being born. While his right hand waged a war of thunder and light, his left hand, held close and subtle against his side, was performing a different, darker art entirely. His fingers curled inwards with a ritualistic slowness, one knuckle at a time, as if counting down the final moments of a condemned soul. With each infinitesimal flex, invisible threads of baleful energy were drawn from the very shadows of the battlefield, from the residual despair of the fallen Ju-On and the deep-seated malice of the earth itself.
These threads coiled silently around his clenched fist, not with a flash of light, but with the absorption of it, creating a pocket of profound stillness. This was the forbidden apex of the Bone Eroding Fist Art—One Thought, Ten Thousand Bone Withering. It was not an attack of force, but of absolute negation. The air around that hidden fist grew preternaturally cold and silent, the vibrant colors of the world leaching into a monochrome gray in its immediate vicinity. It held no aura, no discernible killing intent, nothing to trigger a cultivator's spiritual danger sense. It was simply a void, a secret debt of utter annihilation now fully charged and waiting for the lightest touch to unleash its silent, irrevocable verdict upon the world.
"Today's the day I wipe that arrogant fucking stain you call a smile off your face. I'll butcher you. You don't know the fucking meaning of the word. I'm not here for mere vengeance. I'm here to paint the ground with your insides and make your beloved watch. Don't worry, I'll send your precious Dao Spouse bitch to keep your corpse company. Should've stayed in your goddamn cave, you piece of shit." The vow tore from Donovan's throat, a promise of vengeance etched in thunder.
With a final, incandescent surge of his Foundation Stage spirit essence, he thrust his fist downward, and the very heavens seemed to obey his murderous will. The sky darkened, not with clouds, but with a palpable, crushing intent that condensed into a singular, monstrous fist aura—a pillar of obliteration that descended with the weight of a falling mountain range. The air itself compacted into a solid wall of force, and the terrifying pressure began to pulverize the earth long before the strike even landed. The ground for a hundred feet around Krogh Hanz fractured into a spiderweb of deep crevices, and violent, screaming winds coiled into a prison of howling force, shrouding him in a maelstrom from which there was no escape. It was an inevitable death scene, a divine punishment wrought by human hands.
Trapped within that vortex of certain doom, Krogh Hanz could only stare upward with wide, blood-red eyes. His body, already corrupted by the countless death curses of the Ju-On, was now pinned in place by the invisible, coiling energy of the One Thought, Ten Thousand Bone Withering technique. He was a fly in amber, a king in chains. A torrent of grief, indignation, and utter bitterness threatened to drown his soul, but his ravaged body had nothing left to give. All he could manage was a silent, open-mouthed bellow of pure, unadulterated rage at the immeasurable murderous intent falling from the sky, a final, futile curse against the injustice of his fate.
But the world seemed to draw a breath.
The deafening roar of the impending impact faded into a strange, anticipatory hush, and even the earth-shaking fist force seemed to pause for a single, fractured moment. In that sliver of stolen time, a familiar, gentle hand—pale and delicate as remembered moonlight—appeared beside him. With a soft, decisive push, it shoved him aside, out of the direct heart of the annihilating force.
Madam Claret stood in the raging storm, her form facing the cataclysm. She turned her head, her slightly red-rimmed eyes meeting his, and on her fair, clear face, there bloomed a simple, unadorned smile. It was a look that held no regret, no fear, only a profound, heart-rending certainty. The wild, murderous wind caught the midnight threads of her ghostly gauze, making them flutter and dance around her like a final, poignant elegy, the most beautiful and devastating scene the world would ever witness.
A cold, bottomless dread plummeted through Krogh's soul. He understood.
"NO!"
The scream was a raw, mental tear, but in reality, all that escaped was a choked, guttural roar. He tried to lunge forward, to throw himself back into the path of destruction, but the violent clash of energies forced him back as if he were a leaf in a typhoon. He was mad, desperate, straining against the impossible pressure until blood vessels burst in his eyes and fresh, crimson life spilled from his mouth, streaking down his ravaged cheeks. He could only watch, a prisoner in his own dying body.
The woman in the storm halted her retreat. Instead, she surged forward. The stunning beauty spread her arms wide, a gesture of ultimate defiance and acceptance. She faced the sky full of pouring, eroding venom, the enormous killing intent that ravaged Heaven and Earth, and she answered it not with a technique, but with her very being. In that final, transcendent moment, directly before Donovan's triumphant face, she ignited the core of her soul-form. She detonated with a cataclysmic fury that was the absolute antithesis of the ghostly decay Donovan wielded. It was a conflagration of pure spirit, a star going supernova in the mortal realm.
The resulting collision was not merely loud; it was the universe objecting. A magnificent, terrifying glory erupted—so dazzling that it bleached the world of all color and meaning, forcing all eyes shut. An indescribable, deafening sound shook the vault of the heavens, a physical wave of noise that cracked the descending fist aura of obliteration into a thousand fragmented shards. The numerous energy fists filling the sky were thrown into chaotic disorder, scattering like panicked birds. And on TongTian Peak, the earth could bear no more. The mountain quaked in its very foundations, colossal stones flying upward as if trying to flee. Enormous cracks, deep as abysses, scarred the landscape, a vision of the world's end.
Blast!
BOOM!
The entire left peak of the mountain, a monument to the Hanz Clan's ancient legacy, could not withstand the release of such concentrated power. It disintegrated, utterly and completely, reduced in an instant from a majestic pinnacle to a sprawling, chaotic field of shattered rubble and dust. With its destruction, the final Earth Vein that had feebly sustained the grand formation was severed.
The inner formation of the Gloomwater Phantom Lily Array, which had held for two last, trembling breaths, convulsed in a final, spastic death rattle before shattering into a shower of extinguished spiritual light. From outside the Twin Peak Hill mountain range, the vast, illusory lake that had hidden the estate for centuries vanished in the blink of an eye, ripped away like a curtain to reveal the stark, desolate, and broken truth of the Hanz Clan Estate, laid bare for all the world to see.
There was no warning roar, only a silent, furious swelling of light that consumed everything. It was a sun born a foot from Donovan's face, a ravenous, white-hot god that denied sight, sound, and thought. The pressure came next, not as a wave, but as a solid, invisible wall that struck him with the finality of a mountain falling. It was a force that held no argument, only absolute agony.
Sight was a fractured pane of glass. Blurred shapes swam in a haze of dust and smoke. A flicker of fire here, the dark silhouette of a beam there, all seen through a film of water and what he dimly realized was his own blood. He tried to blink the world into focus, but it remained a smeared impressionist painting of devastation.
Donovan's body became a rag in the grip of a titan. The pain was the only sensation. It was the searing kiss of the flash, scorching his skin. It was the deep, wet crack of bones surrendering, a sickening percussion from within. It was the visceral, tearing agony as his very structure was pulled apart. His left arm was gone. His feet below the knees were gone. The loss was a sudden, horrifying absence. Then he saw it: a splintered white rib, jutting from the ruin of his chest, greeting the hellish air.
Silence roared in his ears, a high-pitched whine in a void of sound. He tried to breathe, and the world flooded back in a tide of agony. A wet, rattling cough tore through him, a harsh, gasping sound he barely recognized as his own. It was followed by another, and with it came the taste of iron and salt, the coppery tang of his own life flooding his mouth. He lay not just on the ground, but in it, the warm, sticky seep of his blood creating a gruesome mattress beneath him.
His mind, struggling from the depths of shock, found a single, burning point of focus. Madam Claret. Not the title, not the memory of her ghostly form, but the name as a curse. The thought was not a sentence, but a raw, primal scream within his skull. It was a hatred so pure it was a physical heat in his veins, a final, defiant ember in the wreckage of his body.
Fucking bitch!
The words were a silent snarl, forming around the bubbles of blood in his throat.
He coughed again, a wet, desperate hack that sent fresh shards of pain lancing through his chest.
Not far away, Krogh's breathing was so faint it was almost imperceptible.
In her final self explosion, Madam Claret had shielded him with her fading body from the blast's core.
Fire and debris sent by explosion was pure, incandescent igniting of the spirit of A Foundation Stage ghostress. A wave of blinding, white-silver light expanded from the beauty, soundless and clean in front of Krogh's eyes. It washed over the killing intent. The dark presence of the ghost lady simply… ceased. Unmade by a love that refused to be bound by death.
A single lock of her dark hair drifted down, settling gently upon the man's open palm.
The world had already narrowed to a sliver for Krogh, a dim narrow path at the end of which was only pain. His body was not his own anymore, but a vessel of leaden cold and shattered bone. Each breath was a ragged, insufficient thing, scraping its way into lungs that felt like parchment. He could no longer feel the rough stone beneath him, only the immense, crushing weight of his own failure.
The sorrow so vast it had no end, the regret so profound it felt like the crumbling of his very soul. He wanted to roar, to shatter the heavens with his grief. He wanted to crawl from the ground, to gather her fading form into his arms, to offer his own worthless life a thousand times over for the one breath still in her.
But he could do nothing.
The last of his strength had been spent in the witnessing. His blood tears would not come; his body offered no outlet for the apocalypse within. He could only lie there, a prisoner in his own decaying flesh, his eyes drinking in the terrible, breaking form of his beloved.
"KROGH! HAAANZ!"
A sound tore from his throat, ragged and wet. It was not a scream, but a torrent of guttural, venomous curses. Words he didn't know he knew, filth and blasphemy spat into the dusty air with the coppery tang of blood.
The Mister First Dominator, a title now as broken as his body, snarled. The sound was a raw, painful scrape of hatred, a noise that defied the white-hot agony screaming from every shredded nerve ending. He had lost an arm, both of his calves were pulped meat and splintered bone, and yet, with a will fueled solely by vengeance, he propped his wrecked torso up on his one remaining elbow. Agony lanced through him, a fresh hell with every shuddering breath, but he embraced it, using the pain as fuel.
"FUCK! YOU!"
"You treacherous piece of shit! You disgusting worm full of nonsense!" Donovan roared, blood and spittle flecking his cracked lips. "You certainly fooled a fucking loyal Dao Spouse, you smug bastard! You played the righteous fucking hero!"
His wild, bloodshot eyes scanned the carnage before locking onto a specific, broken form. "But open your fucking ugly eyes!"
"SEE?!"
"She's fucking DEAD! That psycho lady ghost you loved is dead now, and I scattered her precious soul to the fucking winds myself!"
The world swam in and out of focus, a watercolor painting bleeding at the edges. Donovan's heart was a frantic, caged thing trying to beat its way out of his ribs, its wild rhythm a deafening drum in the cavern of his chest. It thundered in his ears, the lingering sound of the explosion that had torn his reality asunder.
And yet, through the maelstrom of pain and sensory chaos, a single, triumphant thought ignited in the dark of his mind: But thank the abyss, he was still alive. The assessment of the damage was a lightning-quick, internal inventory—shattered ribs, a lung that burned with every ragged breath, countless lacerations, and a concussion that made the world tilt on its axis. They were grave wounds, to be sure, injuries that would spell the end for any man. But he was not mortal or some lesser Qi Refinement Stage lowlife. He had ascended to Foundation Stage. With the right elixirs, with careful spiritual treatment and time to mend, he would live. And that simple, undeniable fact crystallized into a bedrock of arrogant certainty. Survival was the only victory that mattered in this moment, and he had seized it.
Through the blurred haze and the relentless ring, a sound clawed its way out of him. It started as a low rumble in his gut and erupted into laughter—a raw, strangled, and horrifying sound that was utterly devoid of mirth.
"It's gone, like pissing in a hurricane! GWAHAHAHA!"
"I said I'd fucking butcher you today, you son of a whore! And I'm going to take my fucking time to—"
SKRRRT!!!—
Donovan's world, already reduced to a blur of pain and tinnitus, was upended once more. The ragged gasp was torn from his lungs as an unimaginable sudden force seized him from behind. His torso, which had been propped up on trembling elbows in a final, pathetic semblance of defiance, was wrenched violently upward.
—THUMP!!!
The sound was not a clean cut, but a wet, rending cacophony of tearing muscle and splintering bone.
In the very next instant, the source of that sound made a grotesque appearance, erupting through the center of his chest in a shower of gore and fragmented rib. A hand, sleek and crimson, fingers clad in a glove of his own vital life, now occupied the space where his sternum had been.
Those five fingers, slick and deliberate, curled inward with intimate, ruthless precision, nestling around the frantic, pulsating muscle of his heart. And then, with a slow, excruciating torque, the hand began to withdraw, pulling its prize back through the ruined cage of his ribs. The heart beat one last, desperate, captive rhythm against the confines of the clenched fist, trailing behind it a web of torn arteries and vessels that stretched like a sick harp strings, thrumming with a final, fading vibration.
"Oh, greetings, Senior Brother Valdez." The voice that floated from behind him was a mockery of gentleness, a winter breeze laced with shards of glass.
Emma Dawson's face, that exquisite, delicate mask of beauty, leaned into his peripheral vision, now tastefully spattered with a fresh artist's spray of crimson. A crimson droplet traced a path down her cheek like a tear. Her lips, curved into a smile of pristine cruelty, were a hair's breadth from his ear as she whispered,
"I do hope… you found my Legendary-level Foundation Establishment Pill… to your liking?"
----
PS:
Hey there, you wonderful reader.
Thank you for settling in to read a 3800+ word chapter is the highest compliment. Happy Weekend! That's my gift to you, and this chapter is yours to hopefully make it a little better.
Want to hang out more? You're officially invited to Abyss Pit Sect:
https://discord.gg/kGPseCkh
It's a wonderfully chill (and slightly chaotic) corner of abyss pit sect where you may chat about chapters, characters, theories, and everything in between. I'm there often, lurking, chatting, and sharing sneak peeks.
I'll be posting some AI-generated visual inspiration for the story in the Discord server.
And lastly… about that new book below.
If this story has been a good companion for you, there might be another world waiting just underneath. When you're ready, maybe take a peek. No pressure, ever—just an open door.
Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading. You're the reason these worlds get to breathe.
Enjoy your weekend. Hope to see you in the Discord.