Part 1:Grave Echoes
The sky over the Abyss was wrong.
Where once it had bled black and red like an open wound in the heavens, now it pulsed — like a dying heart refusing to still.
The deeper Li Shen walked, the quieter the world became. Not peaceful. Hollow. Like everything that breathed had been swallowed whole and only silence remained, heavy with something unseen.
He didn't tell Yue Ling.
He didn't need her to know.
She would have followed. Or worse, tried to stop him.
No.
This fight… this failure… had to be his alone.
His hands trembled, not from fear, but from a deep gnawing anticipation. The kind that only came when something ancient inside a man woke up and whispered:
"You are prey."
He stood now at the edge of a canyon that carved the land like a scar from the gods. Bone spires jutted from the walls, and down below, rivers of red mist swirled with the moans of the damned.
The Warden waited there.
The same one that had nearly ended him days ago.
Level 120+. Title: Abyss Warden. Soulforger. Eternal Chainbearer.
He was just Level 5 now — the merged systems had given him more power, a bronze-tier reward, enhanced regeneration, and stolen skills from the Chained King — but not enough.
Not for this.
Still, he came.
Because monsters don't retreat. They evolve.
---
System Notification:
> [Warning: You are entering a Tier-5 Forbidden Zone.]
[Abyss Sovereign-class threat detected: Abyss Warden.]
[Recommended Action: Immediate retreat.]
> [Override accepted: Continuing forward.]
Li Shen took his first step into the canyon.
The air grew heavy.
Like walking through a tomb carved into the lungs of a titan.
Chains clattered far below, dragging against stone. The sound echoed—metal screaming on bone.
And then… the Warden stepped into view.
Just as before.
Ten feet tall. Wrapped in tattered chains that bled black ichor. His face was a mask of hammered iron, cracked, fused to his skull.
His cleaver scraped behind him. A weapon forged from condemned souls, pulsing with agony.
The Warden raised a hand.
And the canyon trembled.
Chains erupted.
Hundreds of them.From the walls, the sky, from thin air — all of them screaming as if each link held a soul trying to escape.Li Shen dodged right. Then forward.
He twisted mid-air, drawing his halberd and slamming it into the ground.
Boom!
A shockwave shattered the stone, redirecting the chain strikes just inches from his skull.
[Skill Activated: Abyssal Riposte - Tier C]
With a roar, he dashed forward — feet cracking the ground with every step.
His halberd, now fused with the soul of the Chained King, pulsed with crimson runes. It extended as he swung, blurring like a whip.
CLANG!
It met the Warden's cleaver — and for a moment, the sound of their clash echoed across the Abyss like a death knell.
The Warden didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Then his mask split — revealing hundreds of teeth, serrated and gnashing beneath the metal.
> "You return, worm."
The voice wasn't a sound.
It was a feeling — knives dragging through Li Shen's thoughts.
He pushed back. Spun.
Swung again. And again.
A flurry of slashes, each one backed by supernatural strength.
He used Shadow Step, appearing behind the Warden — then Soul Severance, trying to cleave through the abomination's defenses.
And he landed hits.
Deep ones.
But no blood came out.
Only… chains.
They slithered out from the wounds. And from those chains came… faces.
Tortured. Screaming. Begging.
And they bit into Li Shen's arm.
> [Critical Warning: HP -43%]
[Abyssal Infection Detected!]
[Status Effect: Soul Decay Active. Reducing MP regeneration by 80%.]
Li Shen snarled and wrenched his arm free, flinging the chain-wraiths away.
He triggered Blood Ignition, a technique he shouldn't have used so soon. His own blood evaporated, turning to fuel.
His aura exploded — dark red and black flames spiraled around him.
> [Skill: Blood Ignition (Tier B) Activated.]
[Attack Power +70%. HP drops 2% per second while active.]
He struck again — this time, faster than the eye could follow.
SLASH!
SLASH!
SLASH!
Each blow sent sparks and blood-soul ichor into the air.
But the Warden didn't flinch.
He let the attacks come — his mask grinning wider with each wound.
Then he raised his cleaver… and the air broke.
Literally shattered, like glass — the pressure alone ruptured Li Shen's left lung.
> [HP -27%. You are in critical condition.]
Li Shen tried to counter.
Too slow.
The cleaver came down, splitting the earth. Li Shen dove, but the edge still clipped him — taking half of his left shoulder and collarbone with it.
He screamed.
Blood sprayed across the stone.
> [HP -31%. You are now at 3% HP.]
[Fatal Threshold Reached!]
His vision blurred.
He could feel the world dimming. The system screamed at him — emergency protocols engaging, auto-potions failing to stabilize him.
The Warden walked forward slowly.
Chains dragging behind him.
Like a priest at a funeral.
His own funeral.
Li Shen made one last move.
Not to attack.
To flee.
He plunged his hand into the wound on his chest — forcing a Shadow Key Sigil into his own heart.A gate opened behind him, forged in pain and desperation.
He fell through it.Not running.Retreating.To survive.
He landed on jagged ground. Blood spilled across ancient black stone carved with thousands of names.
Names of the dead.
He had no idea where he was.
But he knew he wasn't alone.
Dozens of red eyes stared from the shadows.
A voice echoed.
> "You have entered the domain of the Pale Reaper Clan… and bled on our altar."
> "Good."
> "You may live."
> "But first, you must die."
To Be Continued…
***********************************************
PART 2( Pale Reaper Trial I – The Skin That Screams)
Li Shen awoke screaming.
Not from pain — pain would have been a mercy.
This was something else.
Something alive inside him.
Something writhing.
The Pale Reapers didn't bind him.
They didn't need to.
The very soil of this forbidden place — black, cracked like an open corpse — whispered to him in voices that weren't human.
The moment he was brought to the initiation pit, his shadow had been peeled from his body. He watched it twitch, scream, and then crawl into the ground.
Now it watched him from below.
Its eyes had changed.
Where his eyes burned with determination…
His shadow's eyes hungered
A robed figure stood over him.
Her face was stitched where her eyes should be — thread soaked in cursed ink. Her breath came slow and fogged the air, though no warmth followed.
> "You are not welcome here," she said, calm as a mortician preparing a child's corpse.
> "But you bled upon our altar. And the altar accepts all offerings."
Li Shen coughed blood and sat upright. His body still screamed with pain from the Abyss Warden's cleaver.
> "Who are you?" he rasped.
> "We are death's disowned," she said. "We are the Pale Reapers. And you are now a worm beneath our crypt."
She handed him a bone shard etched with symbols that made his stomach turn.
> "Trial One begins now."
They didn't explain the rules.
There were none.
Li Shen stood inside a massive circular chamber — walls lined with hollowed-out skin, still breathing. The chamber was called The Flensing Maw. Below him, runes ignited.
> System Update:
You have entered the Trial of Flesh.
To survive, one must flay themselves of all protection.
No armor. No techniques. No lies.
Only pain remains.
Trial Objective: Survive the Unveiling. Duration: 6 hours.
Reward: Eligibility for the Second Rite.
The air changed.
Then he heard it — a screaming chorus, hundreds of voices trapped in the walls — screaming not in pain, but in memory.
The sound clawed at his sanity.
His body suddenly moved on its own.
His hand reached into his chest — and tore.
Not physically.
Worse.
It tore through his cultivation, unravelling the foundation he had bled to build.
He felt every technique fracture.
Every level unravel.
His stats bled out of his soul like pus.
> [Your body has entered Raw State. System functions suppressed.]
Li Shen dropped to his knees. His skin turned pale.
The pain was beyond real. It was ancestral.
Like he was being punished for every ancestor who ever drew breath in defiance of death.
From the walls came movement.
Skinless beasts, taller than men, their muscle fibers twitching like puppets under glass.
No eyes. No mouths.
Just stitched masks where faces should be.
They carried hooks made of living bone.
Li Shen tried to activate a technique — but the system was dead.
So he screamed — not in fear, but rage — and charged.
He had no weapon.
So he tore a rib from the nearest corpse wall and swung it like a blade.
The beasts came.
They didn't bleed.
They existed to make him scream.
Li Shen shattered the first one's chest.
Its mask fell — underneath, his own face screamed back at him.
The second impaled his leg with the hook.
He didn't fall.
He broke the hook with his knee, took the pain, and stabbed the beast in the eye with the rib shard.
It didn't die.
So he ripped its spine from the back, roaring as he did.
Each one he killed — the skin on the walls grew tighter.
Tighter. And tighter.
Until finally — they peeled off. And fell on him.
The wall-skin wrapped around Li Shen, screaming. Not with sound. But through his nerves.
It knew his past.
His pain.
It whispered Yue Ling's name in his ears.
It showed him his own death, again and again.
It showed him himself, standing over her corpse, saying:
> "I chose power. You were the price."
He broke.
But didn't scream.
He didn't allow it.
Instead — he opened his mouth — and bit the skin.
He devoured it.
> [Forbidden Path Acquired: Reaper's Hunger - Devourer Tier 1]
[Skill Gained: Cannibal Fortitude – Restore HP by devouring horrors.]
[Resonance Level: +2]
He rose to his feet.
Still bleeding.
Still broken.
But smiling.
The stitched priestess returned.
> "You did not beg."
> "You did not die."
> "You devoured the trial."
She knelt before him.
> "Welcome, Shadeborn. Welcome to the Reapers."
The system flickered.
> [Trial of Flesh Completed.]
[You have been accepted into the First Circle of the Pale Reaper Sect.]
[New Forbidden Art Unlocked: Bloodroot Sutra – Phase I.]
[Restrictions lifted: System synchronization 12%.]
Li Shen fell to his knees.
He didn't pray.
He didn't thank them.
He just smiled.
> "Again," he whispered.
> "I want the next one."