The rain had ceased by the time the grand gates of Golden Peak Sect faded into the misty horizon behind him, but the mud clung to Geummo's boots like the weight of betrayal itself. The wilderness beyond the Union's borders stretched as a forsaken scar on the Qingyun Region twisted valleys where the Abyssal War's curses lingered, birthing Ink Demons from unresolved grudges and poisoning the soil so nothing green dared grow. Towering cliffs loomed on either side of the narrow path, their faces etched with faded scripts from long-forgotten wards, now cracked and weeping black residue that dripped like eternal tears.
Geummo walked without pause, his remaining hand clenched into a fist, the stump of his left arm throbbing with every step a constant reminder of the abyss below the temple. The Binding Script burned in his dantian like golden chains forged in hellfire, sealing his qi to a trickle, leaving him no stronger than a mortal beggar. His robes hung in tatters, crusted with dried blood and curse ink, the fabric stiff and heavy. Pain radiated from his chest wound, where Jinho's stolen halberd had pierced, but his face remained an impassive mask eyes depthless voids, lips a thin line of stone.
Inside, the fracture widened.
The sealed heart meridian, once a wall against emotion, now cracked under the torrent. Memories replayed in merciless clarity: Sooyoung's moans in the pavilion, Jinho's mocking thrust, the elders' cold verdict in the Judgment Hall. Names etched themselves into his soul like black tattoos—Baek Sooyoung, Seo Jinho, the Baek presiding elder, even the silent Hwang representatives who had not spoken in his defense. The Union he had bled for had cast him out like refuse.
But the whisper in his mind—the cold, patient voice from the stirring Script Beast—echoed stronger now.
*They discarded the scale. Now become the weight that crushes them.*
He had nothing. No qi, no domain, no hand, no name.
But in the chaos of his escape from the temple, he had grabbed a small pouch from the demonic horse's saddle before abandoning the beast at the pavilion—it had bolted in the night, perhaps sensing the coming storm. Inside the pouch: twenty-nine golden coins, stamped with the Union's four-family crest, likely emergency tribute or bribe money for elite riders. Heavy in his palm, cold to the touch, they represented the last tether to his old life.
Twenty-nine pieces of betrayal.
The world beyond Qingyun was vast and merciless—a tapestry of endless murim realms, where sects rose and fell like tides, cities thrived on blood and qi, and forbidden zones harbored monsters born from ancient curses. To the east lay the nearest bastion: Hollow City, a sprawling murim metropolis perched on the edge of the Endless Sands, known for its unique Hollow Style—a martial path that emptied the self to channel void qi, turning practitioners into ghostly warriors who struck from nothingness. It was 350 miles of treacherous desert: sun-scorched dunes shifting like living serpents, oases poisoned by mirage curses, bands of thieves who preyed on exiles, and desert monsters—sand wyrms, mirage scorpions, grudge spirits that feasted on lone travelers.
Geummo turned east.
Rage fueled his steps—not hot, not explosive, but a cold, seething undercurrent that the sealed meridian could no longer fully contain. "I must travel," he murmured to the empty wind, voice flat but laced with an edge sharper than any blade. "To get strong. To eclipse them all."
The path descended into the first stretches of the desert fringe: rocky badlands where sparse thorns clawed at the sky, and the ground cracked like parched skin. Dawn broke gray and unforgiving, the sun rising as a blood-red orb that baked the earth. Geummo scavenged as he went—a fallen branch for a crude staff to steady his uneven gait, a puddle of rainwater to slake his thirst, bitter and metallic from curse residue.
Four hours passed.
The badlands gave way to true desert: endless waves of golden sand under a merciless sky, heat shimmering like illusions from Seo scripts. Sweat poured down his face, mixing with dried blood, stinging wounds. His stump itched fiercely, the curse poison from the temple remnants stirring anew—black veins creeping higher up his forearm, swelling the flesh like rotten fruit.
Pain began slowly.
At first, a dull ache in the stump, like embers rekindled. Then it augmented—spreading upward into the elbow, burning as though invisible flames licked the bone. Geummo gritted his teeth, face unchanging, but his steps faltered.
The curse fed.
Without qi to suppress it—sealed by the Binding Script—the abyssal ink hungered. It gnawed at the severed flesh, drawing sustenance from his life force, black tendrils inching toward his shoulder.
He collapsed to one knee in the sand, staff cracking under his weight.
The scream tore from him—an hour of unrelenting agony, voice raw and echoing across the dunes like a dying beast's wail. He clawed at the arm, nails drawing blood, trying to settle the pain, to balance it as he once had with his domain.
But there was no balance left.
The curse advanced, feeding deeper, now claiming the first part of his upper arm—flesh darkening, veins bulging like twisted roots.
At some point, the pain crested and ebbed, leaving him panting in the sand, body trembling, golden coins scattered around him like mocking treasures.
He must find a cure.
Hollow City held answers rumors of void healers who could excise abyssal curses. But the desert stretched endless.
Gathering the coins with his remaining hand, he rose.
Ahead lay the Skeleton Route a notorious stretch of the sands, littered with bleached bones of travelers past, where black crows perched in endless vigil, their eyes gleaming with unnatural intelligence.
The journey continued.
The sun climbed higher, a merciless white eye in a sky bleached of mercy. Heat rose from the dunes in shimmering waves, turning the air into a furnace that baked Geummo's wounds and drew sweat from pores he had forgotten existed. Sand clung to his blood-crusted robes, grinding into open cuts with every step. The twenty-nine golden coins weighed heavy in the pouch at his belt—cold metal against fevered skin, a mocking reminder of the life he had been stripped of.
He pressed onward, staff digging into the shifting sand for balance, the stump of his left arm swinging uselessly. The desert stretched endless: golden ridges rising and falling like the backs of buried leviathans, dotted with the occasional skeletal remains of caravans—bleached ribs of wagons, shattered blades half-buried, tattered banners fluttering like ghosts.
Rage sustained him.
Not the explosive fury of Baek flames or Seo shadows, but a cold, grinding rage that whispered with every heartbeat: Stronger. I must become stronger. To return. To eclipse them. The names repeated in his mind like a mantra—Sooyoung, Jinho, the elders—etched deeper than any script tattoo.
Four hours bled into five.
Then the curse stirred again.
It began as a faint itch in the stump, deeper than before, as though something burrowed beneath the cauterized flesh. Geummo paused, leaning on his staff, eyes narrowing against the glare. He unwrapped the blood-soaked rags with his teeth and remaining hand.
The sight stole what little breath the heat had left him.
Black curse veins had spread further—past the elbow, creeping like living ink toward the shoulder. The flesh around the stump was swollen, darkened to an unnatural purple-black, veins pulsing visibly as though feeding. Tiny reversed Murim characters flickered beneath the skin, the same warped scripts he had seen on the twisted remnants in the temple.
Pain followed—slow at first, a dull throb that built like gathering storm clouds.
He resumed walking, jaw clenched, face still blank. But the pain augmented with every mile. Throb became burn. Burn became knives twisting in bone. The curse, starved of qi by the Binding Script, turned inward—feeding on his own flesh, drawing life essence from the severed arm to sustain itself.
By the sixth hour, the agony crested.
Geummo dropped to his knees in the sand, staff falling from his grip. The scream tore from his throat—raw, guttural, echoing across the empty dunes like the wail of a dying god. For a full hour he screamed, body arched, back bowed against the merciless sun. Sand whipped around him in sudden gusts, as though the desert itself recoiled.
He clawed at the cursed arm with his good hand, nails raking flesh, drawing fresh blood that sizzled on the hot sand. Tried to settle the pain through sheer will—breathing techniques from childhood training, focusing on meridians long sealed. But without qi, there was nothing to balance, nothing to suppress.
The curse fed deeper.
Flesh blackened further, spreading in jagged patterns up to the midpoint of his upper arm. Veins bulged like twisted roots, pulsing with abyssal hunger. The skin split in places, oozing thick black ichor that smoked where it touched sand. Reversed characters glowed faintly beneath, forming partial outlines of coiling scales—a hint of the thing stirring within.
He rolled in the sand, screaming until his voice cracked and blood flecked his lips. Tried to bury the arm, to cut it off again with a shard of broken bone from a nearby carcass—anything to stop the feeding.
But the pain crested higher, white-hot, blinding.
At the peak, something inside him fractured further. The sealed heart meridian groaned, a hairline crack spreading. Suppressed emotion—rage, betrayal, loss—leaked through like black ink into clear water.
And then, abruptly, the pain stopped.
Not faded—stopped. As though the curse had reached satiety.
Geummo lay panting in the sand, body trembling, vision blurred. The cursed arm hung limp, now blackened to the shoulder joint, veins stilled. The flesh felt... heavier. Numb yet alive. The reversed scripts had settled, no longer spreading—for now.
He must find a cure.
Hollow City's void healers were his only hope—practitioners of the Hollow Style who could excise abyssal corruption, or at least contain it. But the desert still stretched hundreds of miles.
He rose slowly, gathering his staff, the golden coins glinting mockingly where they had spilled. The sun dipped westward, casting long shadows that pointed like accusing fingers.
Ahead, the dunes darkened with the approach of the Skeleton Route—a notorious stretch where the bones of countless travelers lay scattered like offerings, picked clean by desert winds and scavengers. Black crows gathered there in unnatural numbers, perching on ribs and skulls, their eyes gleaming with intelligence beyond beasts.
Geummo walked toward it.
The curse slept—for now.
But it had tasted him deeply, and it would hunger again.
The sun bled into the horizon, painting the dunes in shades of rust and dying fire. Shadows lengthened like grasping fingers across the sand, and the wind shifted—carrying a dry, carrion scent that clung to the back of the throat. Geummo walked on, staff dragging furrows behind him, the cursed arm hanging heavy at his side. The blackened flesh no longer pained him; it felt foreign, as though the limb belonged to something else now—something waiting beneath the skin.
Ahead, the desert changed.
The dunes flattened into a vast, bone-strewn plain that stretched for miles: the Skeleton Route.
No traveler crossed this stretch willingly unless desperate or mad. The ground was paved with the dead—thousands upon thousands of skeletons, some ancient, some fresh, half-buried in drifting sand. Ribcages jutted like broken ships, skulls grinned from dunes, femurs and finger bones scattered like spilled rice. Rusted weapons lay among them: snapped swords, shattered spears, helms crushed inward by unseen blows. Faded banners of forgotten sects fluttered from poles, threads unraveling in the wind. The air hummed with faint grudge qi—echoes of final screams, last breaths, unfulfilled vengeance.
And above it all, the crows.
Black as curse ink, larger than any natural bird, they perched in endless vigil. Hundreds at first, then thousands—lining every bone, every skull, every rusted blade. Wings folded, heads cocked, eyes gleaming with unnatural crimson light. They did not caw. They did not fight over carrion. They simply watched.
As Geummo entered the plain, the silence deepened.
Every crow turned its head in perfect unison.
Eyes fixed on him.
He kept walking, staff crunching over bones that cracked like dry twigs. Sand shifted underfoot, revealing more remains: a hand still clutching a broken jade tablet, a spine twisted in agony, a child's small skull half-buried beside an adult's. The grudge qi thickened, pressing against his sealed meridians like invisible fingers.
The crows admired him.
Not with hunger—something colder. Recognition.
They saw the curse in his arm: black flesh spreading, reversed scripts faintly glowing beneath the skin. They saw the Binding Script's golden chains flickering weakly in his dantian. They saw the fracture in his sealed heart, the void beginning to pool behind his blank eyes.
One crow—larger than the rest, feathers matted with old blood—hopped from a skull to a nearby ribcage, closer to the path. Its head tilted, crimson eyes unblinking.
Geummo met its gaze.
For a moment, the desert held its breath.
Then the bird spread its wings—not to fly, but in silent salute—and returned to its perch.
The flock parted.
A narrow path opened through the bones, crows hopping aside just enough for him to pass without touching the dead. They watched. Admired. Waited.
Geummo walked the gauntlet.
Bones crunched beneath his boots. Wind whispered through empty eye sockets. The crows' eyes followed every step, reflecting his darkened arm, his blood-crusted robes, the golden coins glinting at his belt.
Halfway across, a faint itch stirred in his chest—different from the curse in his arm. Colder. Deeper.
Black scripts flickered beneath his torn robe, unseen in the dying light. A single reversed character formed over his heart: Eclipse.
The crows rustled their wings in approval.
He did not stop.
The Skeleton Route stretched on, bones endless, crows eternal. But the path remained clear—a silent honor guard for the man who carried abyss in his veins.
By nightfall, he reached the far side.
The crows did not follow.
Behind him, as the moon rose pale and cold, the flock lifted into the sky—all at once, wings beating like thunder. They circled once, a black vortex against the stars, then dispersed into the desert night.
Geummo stood at the edge of the plain, staff planted in sand, cursed arm hanging heavy.
The curse slept.
But something else had awakened