Rain fell softly over the Blackspine Mountains, a fine mist that clung to skin like ghost sweat and turned the already slick stone paths of the Forgotten Bone Sect into channels of cold, ankle-deep slime. Xiao Ren squatted at the edge of a trench behind the latrine yard, a bent iron rake in his hands and a half-rotted marrow sack leaking down one leg.
He'd stopped trying to breathe through his nose—didn't help, not when the air was saturated with the scent of fermented bone pulp, sour spiritual waste, and human shit. Cultivators shit too. In fact, with all the pills they swallowed, it came out even worse.
Ren scraped the runes at the trench's edge with slow, tired strokes. The glyphs had clogged again—bone dust hardened over them, choking the spiritual flow. Without the cleansing runes, the waste didn't drain properly, and then the elders yelled, and then Ren got fewer rice tokens. He'd learned that lesson quick.
He reached for the small chisel on his belt when a shadow fell across him.
"Still alive, Bone Ash?" came Ji Fei's voice, syrupy with mockery.
Ren didn't look up. "Alive enough to know that you never wipe."
A beat. Then cold slop splashed across his back—wastewater, full of spiritual sediment. Ji Fei laughed as Ren stood slowly, soaked. Another outer disciple—Kang Mu—joined in, tossing a chewed-up marrow husk at Ren's chest.
"You see that look?" Kang said. "Like a dog that thinks it's human."
"More like a worm," Ji said. "But you'll make good fertilizer someday."
Ren didn't respond. Words meant nothing in the outer sect unless backed by power, and his name sat at the bottom of every ranking. No cultivation root, no spirit tool, no patron elder. He was officially what they called Disciple Number 88—a courtesy rank barely above corpse storage staff. If he complained, they'd just throw him into the next blood furnace trial.
Which, as it turned out, was exactly what happened.
Later that afternoon, two senior disciples appeared at his door. One of them, tall and grey-eyed, barked without preamble, "Emergency. Furnace collapse. You're summoned."
Ren blinked. "You want me to clean up a collapsed spirit furnace?"
"You want food tokens or not?"
Ren went.
The Bone Furnace Pavilion loomed like a scorched skull halfway up the mountainside, obsidian pillars blackened from centuries of flame trials. The outer gate was cracked open, leaking smoke and faint pulses of unstable flame Qi that made Ren's skin prickle.
Inside, the chamber was a wreck. Bones charred beyond recognition littered the floor, and the air shimmered with residual heat. The furnace itself—a massive crucible carved from a single slab of Voidstone—was split down the middle like a cracked egg. Globs of alchemical marrow steamed in puddles, congealing against the spirit-repellent lines.
Elder Lin stood by the cracked furnace, robes singed, face furious. He waved a hand at Ren without turning. "Clean. Don't touch anything glowing. If it hums, step back. If it moves, run."
Ren gritted his teeth and began. He picked his way through the debris, sweat plastering his hair to his neck despite the cool rain still dripping through the broken skylight.
He found one of the disciple's femurs lodged into the wall—fused to the stone. Spiritual backlash could do that, he supposed. Turn a body into slag and vapor, leave nothing but memory and pain.
As he reached to scrape up a marrow puddle with a bone ladle, his hand passed too close to a cracked bead lying in the ash. It pulsed—dimly, then bright.
He froze. The bead vibrated, then pulsed again.
"Don't—!" someone called from the side.
Too late.
It flared.
Fire exploded across his chest, a soundless burst that shredded the front of his robe and knocked him flat. He felt every inch of it—the flame Qi wasn't external, it was inside him, spiraling up his channels, turning marrow to magma. His bones screamed. His organs twisted. He couldn't breathe. He clawed at his own chest, skin bubbling beneath his fingernails.
He opened his mouth to scream, but it came out a gurgle. He tried to crawl—couldn't move his fingers.
Elder Lin stood above him, face shadowed. "Tch. Idiot."
Ren's vision darkened. Someone laughed. Someone else said something about "useless dogs dying in the kennel."
He wanted to shout. To spit. To cry.Instead, he saw his own hands—charred black.Then—
Nothing.
[SYSTEM BOOTING…]>> Regression Protocol Initialized>> Death 1 of 99 Registered>> Flame Imprint stored>> Reincarnation node established: t = -7 days>> Beginning new cycle…