The floor descended slowly, groaning beneath their feet.
Yuan Zhi stood with four other initiates, all silent, all staring straight ahead. They did not speak to one another. They didn't ask names. They didn't dare.
Because names meant futures.
And this trial allowed only one.
The descent ended with a heavy thud, like a coffin sealing shut.
They stood at the mouth of a massive underground chamber — dome-shaped, lined with jagged obsidian, and lit only by glowing worms embedded in the walls. The air was damp, heavy, and filled with a faint iron tang.
Chains hung from above. Broken blades littered the floor. Bones — some ancient, some fresh — lay half-buried in the red-streaked soil.
This was not a battlefield.
It was a feeding ground.
And they were meat.
The blindfolded elder's voice echoed around the chamber, though his body was nowhere in sight.
"This is the Maw. It remembers every death."
A pause.
"Make it remember yours."
The walls groaned. A single pulse of qi lit the formation beneath their feet — a spiral rune shaped like an inverted fang.
Suddenly, each of them was yanked backward by invisible force.
Chains erupted from the ground, coiling around their limbs. Yuan Zhi rolled mid-air, breaking two of the links before they tightened, but still found himself shackled at the wrists and ankles.
Then the ground cracked.
From the center of the chamber rose a black pillar — wide, tall, ancient — inscribed with cruel glyphs and rusted hooks.
Atop it sat… something.
A cage.
Inside the cage: a corpse.
Or so it looked.
Until it moved.
The figure was skinned from the neck down. Its muscles were exposed, raw, twitching, and yet… alive. Faint veins of dark gold light pulsed through its chest. Its mouth was stitched shut, its eyes replaced with obsidian beads.
It began to scream without sound.
The ground responded.
Each of the five initiates screamed too — some falling to their knees, some biting their tongues. Yuan Zhi stood still, trembling but upright.
Not because he was unaffected.
But because pain was a mirror. And mirrors could be useful.
The elder's voice echoed again.
"This is the Heart Remnant."
"You have until it stops screaming to prove you are worthy."
"And only one shall remain."
The chains fell away.
And the slaughter began.
The first to move was the barefoot girl.
She vanished — a flash of movement, then appeared behind the muttering boy. Her hands glowed with corpsefire, and before he could scream, her fingers drove into the back of his skull and ripped.
He dropped, twitching. Brain matter steamed.
She turned toward the rest. "Don't hesitate."
The twin-saber boy answered with steel — both blades flying in wide arcs.
The girl caught one strike with her bare hand and let it carve through her fingers. She didn't flinch. Her other hand went low, breaking the boy's kneecap with a single strike, then plunged both hands into his chest.
Ribs cracked. Blood sprayed.
Yuan Zhi watched.Then moved.
The last disciple — a pale, silent boy with runes carved across his arms — raised both hands and whispered a chant.
Spines erupted from the ground.
Barbed. Coated in acid.
Yuan Zhi flipped backward, barely avoiding being impaled, and landed behind a broken pillar. The barefoot girl wasn't so lucky — a spine tore through her calf, and she dropped with a shriek.
Yuan didn't give her time to recover.
He grabbed a shattered blade from the dirt and drove it into her throat as she turned.
Her eyes widened.Then dimmed.
Three down.
Two remained.
The rune-armed boy smiled, lips pale.
"You're different," he said, approaching.
"I'm still breathing."
"That won't last."
He raised one hand.
This time, the ground sank — swallowing stone and bone alike. A swirling pit formed, dragging everything toward its center.
Yuan Zhi threw himself sideways, stabbed his blade into the dirt to anchor, and watched as the pillar itself began to crack.
But so did the rune boy's skin.
Blood leaked from his pores.
His own technique was destroying him.
And he didn't care.
"You'll die with me!" the boy shrieked, blood bubbling in his mouth.
Yuan Zhi released the blade and ran into the pull.
The boy blinked.
Too late.
Yuan Zhi slammed into him, drove his knee into the boy's chest, and with both hands — tore at the carved runes along his neck.
The boy screamed.
The technique unraveled.
The ground stopped trembling.
Yuan Zhi pulled a shard of obsidian from the ground and drove it through the boy's ear.
Silence.
The Heart Remnant stopped screaming.
And the chamber began to rise.
When the light returned, only Yuan Zhi stood.
He didn't kneel. Didn't gasp. Just waited.
The elder appeared again — still blindfolded.
He regarded the corpses, the blood, the broken runes.
Then he smiled.
"Black Rain remembers," he said.
"And now, it remembers you."
He tossed something toward Yuan Zhi.
A ring. Black jade. Silver inlaid.
Rank: Initiate — Black Rain Sect
Entitled: One private training chamber. One inner sect robe. One permitted duel per week.
Reward: First Tier Secret Manual (Choose One).
Back in his new chamber — higher up the mountain, above the rot of the lower cliffs — Yuan Zhi sat on stone steps, letting rain wash the blood from his arms.
It didn't work.
Black Rain didn't cleanse.
It baptized.
He was visited the next day.
Not by an elder.By her.
The spear-wielding inner disciple with cropped hair.
She didn't knock.
"Name?" she asked.
"Yuan Zhi."
She nodded.
"Mine's Feng Lian."
She leaned her spear against the wall and sat across from him, cross-legged.
"You fought like a beast," she said. "Not technique. Instinct."
"I learn fast."
"Not fast enough."
She pulled out a scroll.
"Here. Shadowbone Form: Tier One. It will hurt. Good."
She stood.
"Next week, there's a duel slot open. I put your name down."
Yuan Zhi raised a brow. "Against who?"
She grinned.
"Me."
Then left.
He unrolled the scroll.
The first line read:
You must break what you've built if you want to grow stronger bones.
Yuan Zhi smiled.
Then started tearing himself apart again.