Theon's breath came in ragged gasps as he slumped against the cavern wall, the jagged stone biting into his back. His body throbbed with exhaustion, every inhale sending sharp pains radiating from his fractured ribs. Each breath was a battle against the constriction in his chest, and the faint metallic taste of blood lingered at the back of his throat as he fumbled for the Scarlet Lifeblood Pendant hanging from his neck.
The pendant's once-faint crimson hue now pulsed with vibrant life. The moment his fingers closed around it, warmth flooded his veins, dulling the agony in his ribs, steadying his breath. His breathing steadied, the aches subsiding as the pendant did its work.
But no trinket could mend the fractures appearing within his soul.
Inside, the once-still waves of his soul had begun to thrash wildly. Torrents of energy crashed against one another, stirring a tempest within him that had been building up ever since he had arrived on this planet.
Unaware of it, "Fuck." Theon muttered, his voice a low growl that echoed through the empty cavern. The frustration laced his words, reverberating through the hollow space like a dark incantation.
THWIP.
A single strand of a delicate suture, once binding two vital parts of his soul together, snapped under the pressure.
"Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!"
THWIP.
Another suture tore.
THWIP.
Followed by another.
THWIP. THWIP. THWIP
One by one, the threads holding his soul in fragile balance unraveled, each severed connection amplifying the turmoil within. The two once-intertwined halves of his essence were thrown apart, tossed mercilessly by the tempest raging in his core.
Silence filled the cavern as Theon's frantic breaths echoed off the stone.
"How the fuck am I supposed to beat that thing…"
The words slipped out, hollow and raw, as if speaking them made the hopelessness real as though they held a weight he could no longer bear.
The cavern responded with an oppressive stillness, his question lingering in the cold air, unanswered and cruel.
His gaze dropped to the ground.
"Should I just give up?"
Theon whispered, the admission coming out more as a sigh than a question. His voice, usually filled with iron resolve, wavered, the resignation in his tone foreign to his ears.
For a moment, the chaos inside him slowed. The violent waves within his soul receded, gradually returning to a deceptively calm surface, though the damage remained. The sutures that had snapped were still undone, leaving parts of his soul adrift, disconnected, and raw.
Theon's gaze slowly shifted, his surroundings gradually coming back into focus as the fog of inner turmoil lifted. He blinked, disoriented, trying to grasp what had just happened.
Had he really voiced those thoughts out loud?
Had he truly just considered giving up?
The words themselves were a foreign taste on his tongue, a bitter admission he hadn't known he harbored. A sharp, icy tendril of self-doubt coiled in his gut. This wasn't him. The weakness, the surrender—it was a stranger's voice echoing in his head. His chest tightened with a disquieting question: 'What is happening to me?'
It was utterly unlike him to break, to even think such things, let alone utter them.
Was he once again being influenced by a formation like he had when he was under influence of [Operation Straw Doll] ?
Theon sharply exhaled and sunk into his own thoughts. As much as it wasn't something he would have said, there was some truth in it. He had only just clawed his way back to a state where he could properly cultivate—where progress was possible again. And yet, here he was, already itching to throw himself into another life-or-death struggle?
It wasn't like him.
Theon had no problem with risking his life. He had done it countless times before. But he wasn't some comic book superhero; he wouldn't throw himself into danger without a clear reason. This wasn't the time for reckless bravado.
For now, he would leave this cave and come back when he was stronger.
Pushing himself away from the cavern wall, Theon winced as his body protested with every movement. Inspecting his injuries, Theon confirmed that the healing power of the Scarlet Lifeblood Pendant had done its work. The fractures were now mere illusions, the pain reduced to a manageable level. With a satisfied nod, Theon retrieved his daggers, their gleaming blades now reflecting the crimson glow of the pendant and delved back into the caverns that he had entered from.
As he walked, Theon's mind shifted to more practical matters. He needed a plan, and he needed it fast.
'I'm not exactly sure what cultivation stage I'm at,' he mused, 'but if I already have a soul sea, I can't be far from the second plane.'
Yet little did Theon know that this was a far from accurate assessment of his cultivation level.
'For now, I'll cultivate as fast as I can while traveling around and taking whatever treasures I can take from the different inheritances of the Sylvian Empire. Then—'
His thoughts were abruptly cut short as he came face-to-face with a dead end.
'What?'
He stared.
'I followed the exact same route. This shouldn't—'
Then it hit him.
The tremors. The battle must have destabilized the cavern.
He deeply exhaled as the realization settled in.
He was trapped.
'So. No choice after all.'
What other choice did he have? Though he had some food and water in the form of zombie remains, it was a limited supply. And at the end of the day, he was still stuck here.
It was just that the sooner he faced him the better it was for Theon. After all he knew he could always escape it by running far enough and then recover with help of the Scarlet Lifeblood Pendant. On top of that, the sooner Theon faced it, the more potent the lightning Lu inside his meridians would be, without being used up in passively cultivating.
'The Lu down here is too weak to cultivate effectively,' he noted to himself. 'There's no point waiting for a breakthrough in such poor conditions.'
Steeling himself, Theon turned back toward the abomination's lair, following the trail of destruction left in its wake. The industrial base's ruined corridors gave way to the vast, circular clearing where he'd first encountered the creature.
And there it was.
Waiting.
The abomination stood frozen in eerie stillness—a grotesque patchwork of rotting flesh and mismatched limbs stitched together in unholy union. Its hollow eye sockets gazed into nothingness, as if suspended mid-motion in some macabre pantomime of life. Every decaying muscle, every necrotic tendon, hung with unnatural symmetry, defying both biology and reason.
Crouching low, Theon began his stakeout with methodical intensity.
Up close, the details became more disturbing. Each limb had been harvested from different corpses—some fresher than others—then crudely fused together with thick, blackened sutures. The stitching was haphazard, as if the creator had prioritized function over form in their blasphemous craftsmanship.
The abomination's most distinctive feature, however, was a burn wound that marred its stitched-together form. The scorched area stood out amidst the decay, unlike the rest of its body, the burn wound refused to heal, leaving a blackened scar that hinted at a vulnerability.
'Even you have a weakness huh ?' mused Theon, a plan to defeat the abomination forming and solidifying in his mind. Silently, he retreated from the chamber, retracing the abomination's path through the caverns. Kneeling in the darkness, he drew his dagger and sliced his palm without hesitation. Blood welled up, glistening black in the dim light.
Then, he willed Lu into the ring that had stood silent for so long on his finger, making it pulsate and slowly cover his whole hand in a liquid silver which solidified to form a glove around his hand with particularly long nails. One razor-sharp nail extended further, hollowing into a needle-thin syringe that drank deeply from his bleeding palm.
With surgical precision, he pressed the metallic claw to stone and began to paint. His blood—now carrying faint silver luminescence—flowed in intricate patterns across the cavern floor. Each stroke was deliberate, each rune perfectly replicated from the database burned into his memory.
First, the central sigil: a cluster of intersecting crosses representing annihilation itself. Around it, two concentric circles took shape, filled with fire-aligned supplementary runes to amplify and stabilize the coming inferno. The entire formation spanned about thirty centimeters—a compact masterpiece of destruction.
As the final line connected, the blood-runes pulsed once... then thrummed with latent power. The Lu in Theon's blood began circulating through the design, transforming simple markings into a deadly machine.
Theon stepped back, admiring his handiwork.
A flick of his wrist sent a thread of Lu snaking toward the formation.
With a controlled, deliberate motion, Theon extended a finger, a single thread of Lu coiling from its tip. It snaked across the stone, a silver-black current drawn to the intricate blood-runes. The moment it connected, the formation flared—not with an instant burst, but a building hum, a low thrumming that resonated deep in the earth. The blood-runes on the floor pulsed brighter, a deep, ominous crimson.
Then, with a sudden, violent roar, a wall of fire erupted, not just rising but exploding from the cavern floor, a phoenix reborn in pure, scorching light. The flames danced with an otherworldly intensity, casting monstrous, flickering shadows that writhed across the cavern walls, banishing the oppressive gloom. The heat, an inferno capable of melting stone, washed over Theon's skin, not comforting, but invigorating, a surge of power mirroring his own.
"Now," Theon whispered, his voice barely audible over the crackling inferno, a grim, determined glint in his eyes, "the real work begins."