Chapter 134 – Footsteps on a Forgotten Grave
There are places where death forgets to close its eyes. Where the breath of the dead lingers in the soil, sighing through rusted bones, never quite fading.
Rin stood at the edge of such a place.
The Vale of Drowned Wills was not marked on maps. It was a scar between sect territories, avoided not because of beasts or formations, but because of what it remembered. Centuries ago, three rogue sects—Red Silence Hall, Thousand Pulse Maw, and the Verdant Bastard Clan—had clashed here in a three-day slaughter that ended with none surviving. Cultivation techniques torn from heaven and hell had devoured the soil, fractured space, and drowned the future in spectral rot.
They said the souls of those who died here had never reincarnated. They lingered—not as ghosts, but as conscious memories, stripped of bodies, chewing on their last moments like gristle stuck between the teeth of eternity.
The path was not guarded by talismans or wards. It was protected by memory itself.
And yet Rin stepped forward.
Each footfall echoed louder than the last, though the wind was still. The grass was black. The stones were smooth, veined with soul marrow. No birds flew above this place. The clouds circled like vultures with patient wings.
As he walked deeper, the land began to whisper.
Not aloud. Not in language. But in guilt.
At first, it was subtle. The wind tugged at his sleeve like a begging hand. A dying disciple's voice brushed his ear—"Why did you run?" The ground seemed to sag beneath his steps as if the earth itself mourned its weight.
Then it broke.