In the still, shadowy space, Ning Zu sat in the center of an intricate formation, blood streaming from a deep wound in his stomach. His face was pale, his lips pressed tightly together in concentration, while a strange dark qi was being drawn into his aperture. This sinister energy was devouring his essence, dissolving it bit by bit.
In each hand, he clutched primeval stones, channeling their power into himself, fighting to maintain the highest capacity of his dark green primeval essence. His entire body was slick with sweat, his clothes drenched, but he had long since stopped caring. His focus was absolute. He was managing several tasks at once—maintaining the formation, absorbing essence, refining multiple gu worms inside his aperture, and desperately trying to heal himself from the inside with a low level healing gu that he got recently. The strain was immense, and it was taking every ounce of his willpower to keep going.
Forty-eight gu were undergoing refinement in his aperture—an arduous and delicate process. He could feel the dark energy invading his body diminish gradually, little by little, until the last trace of it was gone. The formation could no longer draw in any more qi, signaling that the essential energy had been depleted. A flicker of relief crossed Ning Zu's face, but there was no time to rest. His work was far from over.
Tiny, dark lights began to shimmer inside his aperture, catching his attention. He shifted his focus entirely to the refinement process now, every fiber of his being concentrated on what was happening inside him. The gu worms were nearing completion. These dark lights hovered over the surface of his primeval sea, looking deceptively similar to hope gu—but they emanated the opposite feeling, a malevolent aura, their glow a twisted dark hue.
Ning Zu carefully opened the entrance of his aperture, just enough to release the refined gu worms without allowing them to escape prematurely. Whenever a despair gu reached its final stage of refinement, he guided it towards the aperture's entrance and swiftly extracted it, removing the deadly gu from his body in mere moments, ensuring they wouldn't break his aperture.
One by one, he expelled all forty-eight despair gu. When the last one was out, Ning Zu finally opened his eyes. They had been shut tight for nearly five hours. He took a deep breath, the air around him dry and thick. His gaze shifted to the dark lights that now swirled before him, their ominous glow casting strange shadows on his face.
With a grunt, he attempted to stand, but his legs gave out beneath him, his body collapsing back to the ground. He grimaced in frustration. Exhaustion was hitting him harder than he had anticipated. His limbs felt like lead, and even breathing seemed like a monumental effort.
"I can't die here," he muttered to himself, determination flickering in his eyes. "Not from exhaustion. Not before I complete 'that.'"
The despair gus saw his state, and started approaching him, to try and break into his aperture.
Grinding his teeth, Ning Zu activated the rank 1 Man as Bear gu stored within his aperture. This gu would grant him the strength of a bear for half an hour, banishing all feelings of fatigue. But once the thirty minutes were up, every ounce of exhaustion that was blocked would come crashing down on him at once—a dangerous gamble, but one he had no choice but to take.
Immediately, energy surged through his body. The fatigue vanished, replaced by an unnatural strength. He rose to his feet with ease this time, moving swiftly to capture all the despair gu. Using a movement gu, he trapped each one in a jar, securing them except for a single gu that he allowed to float in the air.
This last despair gu was eerily similar to a hope gu in its behavior. It floated gently, almost gracefully, its dark light flickering in the dim room. Ning Zu observed it for a moment, his expression unreadable.
"Refining these with such a mediocre formation, and with my C-grade talent… it really took its toll on my body," he muttered, his voice betraying a hint of frustration. He knew the truth: his low aptitude had made this process far more difficult than it should have been.
But that had been the point. The very nature of despair was that it flourished in failure, in hopelessness. The lower the aptitude of the person refining the gu, the greater the despair produced. With someone like Xiong Zi Rui, a vessel of much higher talent, Ning Zu would have been lucky to refine even a single despair gu.
Yet here, in his current vessel: a body with only a 52% maximum aperture capacity, he had managed to refine forty-eight despair gu. This was why he had chosen a vessel with such low aptitude. The more flawed the body, the more despair it could contain.
"I've exhausted all the necessary qi in this place," Ning Zu noted, scanning the formation around him. "I won't be able to refine another despair gu here again."
Despair qi was a fickle resource, and the more abundant it was, the more successful the refinement of despair gu. The best location for such a refinement was an utterly depleted spirit spring, a place once filled with hope, only for all that hope to be drained away.
"This was a grave of a Rank 5 Gu Master," Ning Zu murmured, "but I barely managed to refine forty-eight despair gu. If I had access to a dead spirit spring, I could've refined many more."
Despite the difficulties, Ning Zu felt a surge of satisfaction. Not only had he found the liquor worm he needed for his next vital gu, but he had also refined an impressive number of despair gu. They would be essential tools in his future plans, a grim arsenal for the path he walked.
His time was running out. He had mere minutes before the Man as Bear gu's effects would wear off, and when that happened, the backlash could very well kill him. He needed to act fast.
With a quick glance at the demonic gu master's skeletal remains, Ning Zu made his way over and retrieved a small bag containing fifteen primeval stones. He clutched them tightly, feeling their power humming beneath his fingers.
The despair gu, now without its brothers, kept following Ning Zu but not attacking his aperture since it alone can't break his aperture.
There should be enough despair gu to destroy an aperture, and it alone could do nothing.
"I need to complete that material," he reminded himself grimly, not minding the despair gu that's keeps floating above him.
...
"Haaa, that woman's giving you a real hard time, huh?" a man said, slurring his words as he downed another swig of wine.
"Yeah, Brother Mo, I don't know what to do anymore," his companion replied, his voice thick with frustration. "I've tried everything, but nothing seems to work. She just doesn't care."
A little fat from the Gu Yu village, two rank 1 gu masters were completely drunk, talking about each other's problems.
The two men were deep in their cups, lost in their troubles. They didn't notice Ning Zu approaching from the shadows. One man continued drinking, oblivious, until a sharp crack echoed through the still night air— He's skull broke from the punch he received.
The sound of a bottle smashing against the ground. His world went black in an instant.
His companion jolted upright, startled, but quickly recovered, his hand darting to activate his clan's signature gu—the Moonlight Gu. A crescent-shaped moon blade materialized in his hand, gleaming in the dim light. He hurled it at Ning Zu as he jumped back, trying to create distance. He recognized Ning Zu as a member of the Xiong Clan and knew all too well that close combat with him would be a death sentence.
The moon blade cut through the air, aimed directly at Ning Zu's head. But Ning Zu was faster. He activated his Quick Feet gu, his movements becoming a blur. He darted forward, narrowly dodging the blade. It grazed his shoulder, slicing deep into his flesh, but he barely slowed. Blood poured from the wound, yet he pressed on.
The Gu Master panicked, raising his hand to summon another moon blade. But before he could complete the gesture, Ning Zu was upon him, driving his fist into the man's chest with the force of a bear. The Gu Master's ribs shattered under the impact, his lungs collapsing. He coughed up blood, his body crumpling to the ground.
"Aghhrrr"
A strangled cry of pain escaped his lips, but it was cut short as Ning Zu's boot came down on his face with brutal force. The man's skull cracked under the pressure, and he fell unconscious, his face a ruin of broken bones and blood.
Ning Zu laughed darkly, wiping his bloodied hands on his robes.
"Lucky for me, I found you two drunk and far from your clan's territory. You were practically begging for this."
With both men unconscious, Ning Zu slung them effortlessly over his shoulders, disappearing into the dark forest. The woods grew thicker, the path more treacherous with every step, but he moved swiftly, undeterred.
The despair gu floated nearby, its dark glow casting unsettling shadows, but it didn't seem to care about the injured men Ning Zu was carrying.
Reaching a large, gnarled tree, Ning Zu set the men down and, with the remaining materials he'd brought, fashioned a kind of makeshift rope, securing the two Gu Masters tightly against the tree trunk. Once they were bound, he inspected the aperture of the first man, the one he had struck down with ease.
Ning Zu frowned, his irritation clear. 'So you detonated all your Gu before I ambushed you. Smart move,' he thought bitterly.
Moving to the second man, the one who had wounded him, Ning Zu carefully checked his aperture.
The shoulder injury was a concern, though he had stopped the bleeding with some hastily applied medicine. The scent of blood still lingered heavily in the air, a potential danger that could lead others to his location.
'The blood's attracting too much attention, and that despair gu following me isn't helping either,' Ning Zu thought grimly. 'I need to be quick.'
To his relief, this man hadn't destroyed his Gu. Without wasting any time, Ning Zu refined the contents of his aperture, seizing a rank 1 Moonlight Gu and a rank 1 Little Light Gu. The Moonlight Gu was this Gu Master's vital gu, and refining it caused a violent backlash. The man's eyes snapped open, panic instantly flashing across his face.
Before he could scream, Ning Zu grabbed him by the jaw and, with cruel efficiency, tore his mouth apart. Blood gushed from the mutilated man's face, a grotesque river of red that pooled on the ground. Ning Zu didn't flinch.
Instead, he detached from his physical body, allowing his soul to capture the despair gu still hovering nearby.
With precision, Ning Zu guided the despair gu into the very soul of the wounded Gu Master. The man, his face half-ripped, could only watch in mute horror as the gu worm burrowed deep within his soul. Speechless, literally and figuratively, his body began to convulse.
Returning to his vessel, Ning Zu retrieved a small, ordinary bowl he had stolen earlier from the ice cream guy, holding it carefully in front of the man. He waited in silence, his cold eyes fixed on the tortured guy before him.
Moments later, the man's eyes shot open wide, but they were filled with something far worse than fear: they held pure, unrelenting despair. He didn't scream, though his body shook with agony. The weight of hopelessness bore down on him with such intensity that he couldn't even muster the strength to make a sound. His soul was being corrupted, turning darker with each passing second until it began to burn from within.
The suffering only deepened as time passed. Gu Yu Mo's mind shattered under the overwhelming pain. His eyes, now flooded with black liquid instead of tears, went completely blind. The darkness poured from him, dripping into the bowl in front of him. The stream of black tears continued until they finally ceased, signaling the man's soul had been utterly extinguished.
Ning Zu glanced at the bowl now brimming with black liquid: Night's Tears, a rare refinement material harvested from the deepest despair of a soul broken beyond repair in a dark night.
'If he'd had a stronger will, he might have survived, refined a Tranquil Gu instead of dying. But that takes a soul as strong as a desolate beast's, and he was nowhere near that level,' Ning Zu thought, almost dismissively.
The other Gu Master, who just woke up, witnessing this horrifying display, stared in disbelief. But even in his terror, he couldn't comprehend the true purpose of the Night's Tears.
Ning Zu, without a word, gathered the despair gus and all his gu worms inside a bag that is also filled with primeval stones, he put it aside storing them all safely.
He looked at the newly refined Night's Tears. Then, without hesitation, he drank the liquid.
The effect was immediate and violent. His bones creaked and popped as black veins began to crawl across his skin, all funneling toward his aperture. His aperture, already filled with primeval essence, swelled to its absolute limit as the dark liquid mixed with the essence, causing it to solidify, slowly drawing life force from him. His vessel, once youthful, began to age rapidly, wrinkles forming on his skin as the passage of years consumed him in mere moments.
The aperture shrank and hardened, becoming smaller and more condensed until it transformed into a solid, round crystal lodged within his body. Pain surged through him as the transformation neared completion.
When his body had aged beyond recognition, the process concluded. With trembling hands, Ning Zu pierced his own stomach, retrieving the crystal from within. It was beautiful in a macabre way: a pitch-black orb, its surface marred only by the faintest cracks with it being 52 percent complete. Inside, the dark green glow of peak rank 1 essence flickered ominously.
The other Gu Master, still bound to the tree, had long since lost any hope of escape. Seeing this gruesome scene unfold, any shred of resistance left in him was crushed.
Ning Zu placed the crystal close to the man's aperture and allowed it to enter. The man's essence was devoured almost instantly, and his talent dropped from C grade to D grade in mere moments. The rapid deterioration continued until the man's aperture shattered completely, killing him on the spot.
'If he had been more talented, he might have survived, just with his talent lowered,' Ning Zu mused, removing the now complete crystal from the gu masters stomach.
The despair core gleamed in his hand, a perfect, solid black orb, with no trace of the energy it contained visible on its surface.
'This is the key,' Ning Zu thought, the corners of his lips twitching into the faintest of smiles.
'The most important material out of the 10 needed is now with me.'