Cassian awoke to darkness.
His body ached, stiff and weak, his stomach gnawing at itself with an unbearable hunger. The air was stale, thick with dust and something else—something rancid. He lay there for a long moment, breathing slowly, gathering his thoughts.
His mind was whole. His memories were intact. He remembered everything.
His sect. His training. The pursuit of immortality. The countless battles fought along the way.
But when he reached for his cultivation—**for the techniques that had carried him through life and death—**there was nothing.
A void.
Cassian's chest tightened as realization sank in. The oaths.
The sacred vows sworn upon entry into the sect. Lifelong loyalty. Eternal secrecy. Punishment in death.
Even now, in this new life, they bound him. His knowledge of cultivation had been erased, his techniques wiped clean.
His hands curled into fists. All that strength… gone.
But not everything had been taken from him.
Somewhere deep within, beneath the loss, beneath the emptiness, he felt it.
The Grotto-Heaven.
A thread of connection, faint but unbroken.
Cassian drew in a slow breath, steadying himself. He was in a body that wasn't his own. He was in a world he didn't understand. And worst of all, he was weak.
For now.
His stomach twisted painfully, hunger sharpening his focus. He pushed himself upright, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the cracks in the walls.
A ruined building. Broken furniture. A layer of dust thick enough to suggest weeks—maybe months—of abandonment.
Cassian searched the room with growing urgency. Food. He needed food.
There was nothing. Not even a scrap.
His gaze fell on the skeletal remains slumped in the corner, brittle and picked clean.
A grim conclusion settled in his mind.
The previous owner of this body didn't die fighting. He died starving.
Cassian exhaled slowly. Outside, a distant groan echoed through the empty streets, followed by the slow shuffle of footsteps.
Undead.
He wasn't alone. And he wasn't getting out of here anytime soon.
That left only one option.
He closed his eyes and reached inward, toward the last remnant of his past life.
Toward the Grotto-Heaven.