The wind screamed over the ravine, tearing at Jin Seong's robes as if it too sought vengeance.
He stood at the edge of a forgotten battlefield—where bones slept beneath cracked earth and ashes still whispered names no one dared to remember. It was here that the old sects once clashed, where ten thousand cultivators fell in a single breath, and where ghosts had long since claimed dominion.
And now, it was calling him.
The iron scent of blood still lingered despite the years. The land itself seemed to bleed with every step he took.
> "You've come to beg forgiveness," a voice rasped from beneath the soil.
"No," Jin Seong replied, unsheathing his blade. "I've come to collect it."
The moment the words left his mouth, the ground fractured—lines of crimson Qi blazing outward like veins. From beneath the grave-earth rose figures bound in remnants of armor, faces stripped of flesh but not fury.
The dead had heard.
They remembered.
> "He bears the Blade of Heaven," hissed a skeletal monk.
> "Then let the heavens watch him bleed," answered another.
Jin Seong didn't hesitate.
His body blurred into motion, a spiral of steel and rage. The Heaven-Slaying Blade howled through the undead, carving not just flesh—but the hatred they clung to.
But they did not fall easily.
These were not corpses animated by foul arts—they were souls too angry to leave. Too betrayed to rest.
And Jin Seong was one of them.
---
He fought until his arms ached and his breath came sharp. Yet they kept coming.
Not to kill him—
—but to test him.
Each strike whispered:
> "Do you still remember why you walk this path?"
Each parry screamed:
> "Or have you become just another beast with a blade?"
And then, silence.
The last revenant fell, crumbling into dust with a smile on what was once a face.
In the center of the battlefield, a sword remained—black, jagged, humming with sorrow.
Jin Seong approached, recognizing it instantly.
> His master's sword.
Still buried in the ribcage of the one who betrayed him.
He pulled it free.
And as the twin swords rested in his hands, he heard a voice he had buried long ago.
> "You were never meant to carry this hatred alone, Seong…"
His hands trembled. Not from fear.
But from the weight of a truth too long ignored.
> The path to slay the heavens wasn't forged by anger alone—
But by the scars left behind.
He turned from the field, both blades sheathed.
Behind him, the dead returned to sleep.
But the rage?
It walked with him.