Darkness consumed everything. It wasn't a peaceful void, but a churning, oppressive weight pressing against Yao Qin from every direction. Suspended in the abyss, his awareness pulsed like a raw nerve, each thought an echo of pain and despair. He had no body, no breath, just jagged fragments of memory slicing deeper than any blade.
"Again?" Yao Qin whispered, his voice trembling in the abyss. His words were raw, barely more than a fractured plea. "This time, let it end."
The shadows shifted, coalescing into a towering form cloaked in undulating darkness. Pale, glowing eyes pierced the void, colder than frost and sharper than steel. The Gravewalker stood immutable, an ancient force that had wrenched Yao Qin back from death more times than he could count. Its presence pressed against the void like a storm barely contained, its weight suffocating and unyielding.
"End?" The Gravewalker's voice resonated, deep and resonant, a weight that bore down on Yao Qin's fragile consciousness. The sound wasn't just heard–it reverberated through the very fabric of the void. "You speak of endings as though they are yours to choose."
"I can't," Yao Qin said, his tone breaking under the weight of despair. "Not again."
"You will rise," the Gravewalker intoned, its pale eyes narrowing with an inscrutable judgment.
"Enough!" Yao Qin snarled. His voice cracked, raw with desperation. "Do you have any idea what it is, what it is to die, you fiend?"
"To die a thousand times?! To harvest the souls, so you might escape like a little rat?!" Yao Qin roared, his voice carrying the raw edge of fury as it cut through the oppressive void. His words echoed, swallowed by the abyss only to return as faint, mocking whispers.
"No! You know nothing!" he snarled, the words ripping free like jagged shards. His voice was raw, a broken cry of anger and anguish. "Every time, I feel it. A piece of me torn asunder, lost to the winds of change. Each time, I'm lesser."
"Every time I care, every time I love–it gets ripped away, by you!" His voice cracked, trembling with a mix of fury and despair, the words spilling out like a wound laid bare.
"Do you know the worst part?" he continued, his tone dropping to a bitter whisper. "It gets easier. Every time I come back, the hurt, the loss–it slips away. But that's what makes me human! I don't want it to go! I don't want to forget my mother, my father, how they burned." His voice rose again, trembling with desperation. "The smell of the charred remains–it's all I have left!"
He shuddered, his breath ragged. "I need it! Otherwise, what was the point? To remain numb, to forget about it?" His voice broke entirely, his body trembling in the void. "When the very bastard that burnt them screaming and paralyzed is plunging a dagger into my heart right now?!"
"End it... please, Gravewalker," Yao Qin whispered, his fury crumbling into despair. "If I lose another piece of myself... I will be dead. I won't be me."
The void quivered, and the Gravewalker's presence grew colder. "The cycle is not yet complete. Threads of destiny fray, but they do not sever so easily. You will rise again because there is no other way."
Yao Qin's resistance faltered, his anger ebbing as despair gripped him. "You're a devil," he whispered, the words trembling with resignation.
"I am a necessity," the Gravewalker replied, its voice cutting like frost. "Rise."
The shadows collapsed around Yao Qin, dragging him into a torrent of rushing light.
Yao Qin's first breath came as a shuddering gasp, his chest rising and falling in fits as his consciousness clawed its way back to life. Pain lanced through every nerve, sharp and unrelenting, but it was anger that burned hotter–a seething fury swallowing the ache. His lips moved before his eyes even opened, his voice hoarse and venomous.
"Fuck," Yao Qin rasped, his words spilling into the dim air of the cavern. His eyes twitched, and his limbs trembled violently, as though struck by a bolt of lightning. Gasping and panting, he felt his mind fray under the weight of pain before recoiling, slowly clawing its way back to his senses.
"Here... again," Yao Qin whispered, his gaze falling to the wet, glistening cave floor beneath him. His arms were stretched taut, suspended from ancient, rusted chains above his head, their cold bite sinking into his raw skin.
"Ahhhh!" The cry tore from his throat as a wave of pain struck him, vicious and unrelenting. His teeth clenched as his body convulsed. The Gravewalker's powers had lessened with each death at Po Luoyang's hands, the curse starving for new souls to fuel its strength. This time, the wounds across his chest hadn't healed. His gaze fell to the gaping hole above his heart, where his chest thumped unnaturally, the beating of his own heart disturbingly visible through the torn flesh.
"Quite the disturbing sight," Po Luoyang's soft, deep voice echoed through the cavern, carried by the languid haze of smoke rising from his sapphire-encrusted opium pipe. The thick tendrils drifted lazily, mingling with the damp air of the cave.
"I had thought maybe you wouldn't be back this time," Po Luoyang said as he emerged from the opium cloud. His tall, pale figure moved with an eerie grace, his outstretched arm holding a heart, decayed and grotesque, that pulsed faintly as he spoke.
Looking down at Yao Qin's chest, where his heart beat visibly through the open wound, Po Luoyang smiled, his expression one of detached amusement. "It seems your friend healed only what was necessary this time."
He placed the decayed heart onto a large, blood-streaked metal table with a quiet clink, then turned toward a bowl of warm water. With deliberate precision, he dipped his hands into the water, the crimson washing away in swirling rivulets. Taking a clean cloth, he dried his hands with an air of unhurried grace.
He reached for a thick tome, the weight of it making even his long, gangly limbs appear slight by comparison. Opening its creaking cover, he began to jot down notes, each stroke of the quill deliberate and meticulous. "Interesting... very interesting," he murmured, his tone tinged with a quiet fascination.
Yao Qin's stomach churned at the sight of Po Luoyang, his presence a blend of elegance and malice. Beneath his skin, still numb from the endless cycle of torture and rebirth, it felt as though a thousand fire ants were devouring him from within, a relentless gnawing that refused to abate.
"Dear apprentice, fear not your demise–"
"Apprentice," Yao Qin interrupted, scoffing. "Don't mock me, 'Master.'" His words were venomous, each syllable laced with bitterness. "When you took me as your apprentice… did you know?"
"I know a great many things, Yao Qin. How many times have I told you–precision is perfection? Now, elaborate," Po Luoyang said with a horrifying smile. His eyes darkened, widening unnaturally as he loomed over Yao Qin, his presence oppressive and inescapable.
Fear shot through Yao Qin's spine like electricity, the hairs across his body standing on end. "My mother, my father. You killed them... Did you know?! Did you know, when you took me as your apprentice?!" Yao Qin's voice cracked as rage boiled over, his words erupting like a dam breaking.
Waiting until the last vestiges of Yao Qin's energy flickered and waned, Po Luoyang responded, "Not until you tried to assassinate me. I must admit, that was quite the revelation."
Yao Qin's eyes snapped, his glare sharper than any blade. "Monster."
Po Luoyang crouched down, his smile curdling into something more sinister. "Better to be a monster than a fool."
Po Luoyang's Thousand Faces Spirit shimmered faintly behind him, its ever-shifting visage an eerie reminder of his mastery. "Do you have any idea how much I've watched?" he asked, his tone almost wistful. "Every squandered opportunity, every reckless display of power. You paraded the Gravewalker's gift like a child showing off a new toy."
Yao Qin's jaw clenched, but his body remained still, his strength drained.
Po Luoyang's smirk deepened. "You know nothing of how to wield true power," he continued, his voice cutting like frost. "You were given mastery over death itself, and what did you do with it? Nothing. You're pathetic–just like your parents."
The words hit like a hammer, but Yao Qin's glare didn't waver. "One day death will come for you, Po Luoyang, if not by my hand, then the Tang bastards will carve out your blackened heart."
"Oh? A blackened heart? That's a bit rich coming from you, Yao Qin," Po Luoyang sneered, his tone dripping with mockery. "Tell me, how many people have you killed? How many souls have you reaped like wheat beneath your blade? I've killed you near a hundred times now, and I've watched you die a hundred more."
"Your little assassin missions," he continued, a cruel smile curling his lips, "where you prance about like some amateur, dying time and time again to fulfil a single goal. It's embarrassing."
Po Luoyang tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing as his voice turned colder. "So, Yao Qin, how did you reap so many souls?"
Gritting his teeth, Yao Qin hesitated, but the compulsion to answer overtook him. "Yao Rui," he muttered, his voice heavy with regret. "She... she told me of the Red Demon Plague... it was me, I unleashed it."
Po Luoyang's eyebrow arched, a glimmer of genuine intrigue lighting his pale features. "Impressive," he said, his tone rich with amusement discovering his apprentice is the one responsible for the bedlam and mayhem, dismissing the mention of the little demoness without a second thought.
"No wonder you managed to live so long!" Po Luoyang exclaimed, a low chuckle escaping his lips. "You decimated half an imperial province. Bravo, apprentice. Truly, bravo."
Leaning in close, Po Luoyang whispered, "I fear you've culled more than me, apprentice. Do you ever dream of them? Those poor, sweet innocents? How they would lose their minds? How fathers would tear their own children apart like rabid dogs? Do the souls of a million dead sing softly in your dreams?"
Yao Qin looked down, unable to meet Po Luoyang's gaze. Was it shame? Was it guilt? He couldn't tell. His midnight-shaded left eye twitched as his mind raced, fragments of thought spiralling chaotically. The Gravewalker did me the kindness of hiding them, he thought bitterly, the weight of the memories pressing heavily on his soul.
His mind flashed back to the void–an abyssal storm teeming with horrors beyond comprehension. The air there had been thick with the ceaseless wails of lost souls, each scream a jagged shard tearing at the fabric of his sanity. The shadows writhed, forming horrific shapes that melted into one another, their forms too alien and shifting to grasp. It was a place where time folded in on itself, where agony had no beginning or end, and Yao Qin's very essence had felt as though it was being unravelled, thread by agonizing thread.
Po Luoyang laughed, the sound low and cruel. "Fear not–you shall join their song soon."
From within his robes, Po Luoyang produced a small, ornate box. He opened it slowly, almost reverently, revealing a ceremonial dagger wrought from obsidian, its blade etched with ancient runes that pulsed faintly with a sickly, malevolent light. The hilt was wrapped in dark leather, worn smooth by the hands of countless wielders, and set into its pommel was a crimson gemstone that seemed to shimmer with a life of its own.
"Do you know what this is?" Po Luoyang asked, tilting the blade slightly so the light caught its edge. "The Spirit-Purging Dagger. I had to borrow it from my uncle, Gu Zhaoming–a trusted member of the Shadow Council. This blade has a special purpose: to sever the bond between a Cult member and their spirit. To strip away everything that makes them... them."
Po Luoyang stood, his gaze fixed on the dagger. "You wasted the Gravewalker's power. I won't. I'll use it well."
He stepped closer, the dagger gleaming in the flickering firelight. "Goodbye, Yao Qin," he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "This time, there will be no return."
The blade plunged through the gaping wound into Yao Qin's heart, the jagged edges of the unhealed flesh framing the disgusting sight. The light from the dagger flared violently, a sickly green pulse illuminating the cavern as it severed the bond with the Gravewalker.
For the first time, panic surged through Yao Qin's mind–raw, unrelenting terror that this might truly be the end. His scream tore through the cavern, reverberating like a dying echo, before fading into a hollow silence.
Po Luoyang stood over him, the faint shimmer of satisfaction playing across his features as he watched the life drain from Yao Qin. "Pathetic," he muttered, his voice a sharp whisper of disdain.
Sheathing the dagger with a practiced flourish, he turned, his silhouette swallowed by the flickering flames dancing in the cavern's damp shadows.