The world had never felt so quiet.
Yi Jue staggered along the jagged rim of the Ashen Ravine, his breaths shallow, his steps unsteady. His once-pristine white robes, embroidered with golden phoenixes, were now singed and stained with dried blood—like the remnants of a glory that had long since been extinguished. Each movement was a torment, but he moved forward, a broken shadow dragged by nothing but the weight of shame.
In his trembling hand, he gripped the sword—Wei Lianfeng's blade. The golden phoenix embroidered into its hilt glared back at him with ruby eyes, as if silently judging, mourning the failure of its bearer. The cold metal was heavy, burdened with memories of friendship, loyalty, and lost hope.
His name—Yi Jue—had been stripped from the Golden Sky Sect.
His future lay shattered like the countless shards of broken glass beneath his feet.
A dull, relentless pain radiated from his abdomen with every faltering step. His dantian, once the radiant core of his cultivation, throbbed like a shattered heart—fractured, bleeding, and leaking Qi into the void. Each attempt to summon even a flicker of power was agony—a thousand needles stabbing relentlessly through his spine. He tried once, then twice, until he realized it was futile. So he gave up trying. He simply walked.
Before him yawned the Ashen Ravine—a vast, gaping wound carved deep into the earth. Yi Jue remembered it from old tales as the fallen stronghold of a heretical sect, wiped out by the righteous allied sects, with the Golden Sky Sect leading the charge. Now, it was a barren wasteland—a graveyard of discarded relics, broken artifacts, and worst of all, the corpses of failed disciples. Those deemed unworthy by a world where strength alone determined worth.
In the Golden Sky Sect, the strong were revered; the weak were trampled like vermin beneath their feet.
And Yi Jue… he knew he was among the weak. His life as a cultivator was over.
He still felt the ghostly burn of Lan Meiyu's parting kiss against his cheek—a kiss that felt like both a blessing and a curse—and the cold echo of Wei Lianfeng's words ringing in his ears. His friend had handed him the sword with grim certainty: better to die than to live as a weakling.
Now, standing at the precipice of ruin, Yi Jue wrestled with a dark temptation—should he end it all here? Join the countless failures who had perished in this forsaken place, their names and faces forgotten, their existence erased?
He raised his eyes toward the sky—a vast expanse of bruised purples and fading stars.
Why did you betray me? he begged silently of the heavens.
You once favored me. Why cripple me now?
I have lost everything.
My life.
My master.
My friend.
My lover.
My power.
All gone.
I am nothing. Not just a failure… a loser.
Then, carried by the cold wind, a voice whispered—dark, detached, almost otherworldly.
"To lose is to live."
"Let them mock you, so they will later fear you."
"Let them believe you are nothing, for only nothing can become everything."
"Take back what Heaven has stolen from you."
A chill ran down Yi Jue's spine. Was he losing his mind? Had the voice been real, or a phantom conjured by his despair and loneliness?
All he knew was that his life was over—and that he had to escape this place.
He walked on. And on. And on.
The Ashen Ravine stretched endlessly beneath the bruised sky. His feet bled, raw from the jagged rocks. Hunger gnawed mercilessly at his insides, cold seeped into his bones like frostbite, and his strength drained away—like water slipping through the cracks of a shattered vessel.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Months into a year.
A whole year since he had fallen.
Since he had lost everything.
Each day was a battle against the bitter cold and the endless ache within him—a battle he was losing.
He believed he could not fight the will of Heaven—that it had already decided his fate. That it had destroyed everything he held dear without mercy.
And so, on a night swallowed by shadows and silence, Yi Jue stood once more on the edge of the Ashen Ravine.
His hands shook as he raised the blade—the sword of his friend, the last thread tethering him to the world—and pressed the cold steel against his stomach.
With a heavy heart and trembling hands, he drove the blade inward.