Arrival at the Abyss
The Black Cliff Monastery clung to a sheer cliff above the South Sea like a tumor of black stone. Salt wind screamed through bone bridges. No banners. No lanterns. Only the endless crash of waves and the metallic clang of training.
Venerable Mo dragged Wuya across the Bridge of Femurs—human thigh bones lashed with sinew, slick with blood and guano. Each step cracked underfoot. Below: a 300-zhang drop into jagged rocks. Wuya's infected legs buckled. Mo kicked him forward.
"Fall, and the sea eats your hate."
At the gate—two iron doors forged from melted swords—stood Abbot Hei. Seven feet tall. Iron rings pierced his eyelids, chaining them open. His voice was a landslide.
"The rat arrives. Strip him."
The Stripping
Four senior monks in gray robes seized Wuya.
Ripped away his blood-crusted rags.
Yanked out the gold tooth trophy—left a bleeding gum.
Snatched the bowl shard tied to his wrist.
Wuya fought. Bit a monk's ear—crunch. Cartilage tore. The monk backhanded him; teeth scattered like rice. They chained his wrists with cold iron manacles etched with demonic runes. The bowl shard was tossed into a brazier. It glowed red.
"Relics are weakness," Abbot Hei said. "We forge you into the relic."
The Iron Cauldron Baptism
Center courtyard: a bronze cauldron three meters wide, filled with boiling demon-oil—black, viscous, stinking of sulfur and burnt flesh. Chains dangled from a crane of human spines. Previous initiates' skin flakes floated on the surface like dead fish.
Wuya was hoisted by the manacles. His toes skimmed the oil. Heat blistered skin.
"First forging: Iron Corpse Skin," Abbot Hei intoned. "Survive the boil. Emerge unbreakable."
They lowered him.
SCREEEEEAM.
Oil touched his calves—hiss. Flesh bubbled. Wuya thrashed. The chains rattled. Monks chanted in guttural tongues.
Ankles: skin sloughed off in sheets.
Knees: muscle cooked, tendons snapped like lute strings.
Thighs: fat melted, dripping into the cauldron.
His mind fractured. He saw Lan and Hua in the oil, mouths open in silent screams.
"Brother… it hurts…"
He bit through his tongue to stay conscious. Blood mixed with oil—sizzle.
At the waist, they stopped. Pulled him up. His lower body was raw meat, bones gleaming white. The monks scraped the cooked flesh with iron hooks—rip, tear. Wuya's vision blackened.
The Bowl Shard Reborn
They laid him on a stone slab carved with torture runes. The red-hot bowl shard was retrieved from the brazier.
Abbot Hei pressed it into Wuya's left palm.
"Your hate is your weapon. Fuse it."
SZZZZZZZT.
Porcelain melted into flesh. Wuya's scream shattered nearby windows. The shard bonded—edges fusing with bone, forming a porcelain-bone blade protruding from his hand. Nerves screamed. Qi surged—Iron Corpse Qi—hardening the wound into black scar-tissue.
He passed out.
Awakening: The First Lesson
Three days later.
Wuya woke in the Refining Cell—a coffin-sized box of iron. No light. Only the thump of his heart and the burn in his palm. The bowl-blade pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Food: a live rat shoved through a slot.
"Eat. Or starve."
Wuya crushed the rat's skull with the bowl-blade. Drank its blood. The taste was familiar.
Lesson 1: Mercy is meat. Waste nothing.
The Finger-Breaking Ritual
Day 7.
Training Hall: walls lined with severed hands.
Ten novices stood in a circle. Each held a stone mallet.
Wuya's turn.
They broke his fingers—one by one.
Index: CRACK. Bent backward 90°.
Middle: SNAP. Compound fracture—bone pierced skin.
Ring: CRUNCH. Pulverized into gravel.
Pinky: TWIST. Torn from socket.
Pain was a white ocean. Wuya did not scream. He counted.
"One for Father. Two for Mother. Three for Lan. Four for Hua."
They reset the fingers with iron splints—crooked, denser.
"Broken bones knit stronger," the instructor said. "Like your hate."
The First Kill at Black Cliff
Night 15.
A traitor monk, Huo Shan, caught selling children to brothels. Punishment: public execution by novice.
Wuya was chosen.
The traitor knelt in the courtyard, hands bound.
"Please… I have a daughter…"
Wuya's bowl-blade hand twitched.
He remembered Hua's doll.
"So did I."
He lunged.
Bowl-blade through the eye—pop.
Twisted—brain churned like tofu.
Yanked—optic nerve whipped out like noodle.
Huo Shan gurgled. Wuya ripped open the belly with his bare hand. Intestines spilled—steaming. He strangled the traitor with his own guts, looping them like rope.
"For every child you sold."
The monks cheered.
Abbot Hei nodded.
"The rat learns fast."
The Bowl-Blade's First Mark
Wuya carved a new tally into his forearm with the blade:
二 – Two.
Ma Gou. Huo Shan.
Zhao Heng still waited.
End of Chapter 4