The Bone-Wash Hall had no doors. Just chains.
Each worker was chained to their station with cold iron and a sliver of blood metal that burned when touched. The Sect claimed it was to prevent theft. In reality, it was to remind the weak that they were tools. And tools don't walk away.
Lu Tian scrubbed the acid pit in silence, hands wrapped in damp cloth to stop the bones from slicing deeper into his fingers. His new scar-skill thrummed inside him like a second heartbeat. Silent Promise. It hadn't stopped shaking since he woke up.
He could feel the difference.
He saw clearer. Thought faster. The fear didn't leave him, it sharpened into shape.
Across from him, another worker stared.
Thin. Crooked smile. Skin like paper stretched over bone.
He had noticed Lu Tian the day before, when he returned from the supply room with something extra in his eyes.
Now he walked over.
"You're new," he said, voice like broken glass.
Lu Tian said nothing.
"You walk like someone who hasn't broken yet."
Lu Tian glanced up. Measured him. His name was Mo Yao, a former outer disciple demoted to labor after killing a senior's favored pet beast. In the book, he survived over a hundred days in Bone-Wash Hall by becoming more monster than man.
He sat beside Lu Tian and dropped a cloth-wrapped bundle on the floor. Inside: dried meat, half a cold mantis leg, and a cracked spirit pebble.
"Eat. Talk. Or don't. I just need to open my mouth before I forget language."
Lu Tian waited.
Mo Yao chewed, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with a piece of robe.
"You've got that look, you know? That dead-but-still-watching look. The kind cultivators either fear or recruit."
Lu Tian spoke. "What kind do you think I am?"
Mo Yao smiled. "The dangerous kind. But not yet."
Then his eyes narrowed. "You're not from any sect branch, are you?"
Lu Tian didn't answer.
Mo Yao leaned in.
"Let me guess. You don't understand how it all works yet."
That made Lu Tian pause.
Mo Yao took it as permission.
"Alright then, little ghost. Let me teach you how things work in this rotting world."
He raised a finger and tapped the side of his skull.
"Everyone starts with a core. Doesn't matter if it's perfect or cracked. The real division is how you feed it."
He ticked off with each finger.
"Qi Path cultivators? They take in the energy of the world. Refine, circulate, store. Condense realms. Most common. Most dull."
"Blood Path cultivators? They eat. Flesh, spirit beasts, pills, people. They store it in their marrow and mutate their bodies into weapons. Dangerous. Unstable. Banned by every sect not secretly using it."
"Soul Path? They sacrifice pieces of themselves to draw power from beyond. Ancestors, spirits, old gods, dead techniques. They burn their lifespan for short bursts of godhood."
He held up his last finger, slowly.
"And then there's the Abyss Path. The rarest. Cultivation through memory. Scar. Trauma. No need for Qi. Just truth."
Lu Tian stayed still.
Mo Yao gave him a long look.
"I knew a man once. An Abyss cultivator. He remembered the night his entire village burned. Used that memory to walk through fire without pain. Created a skill that let him kill anything touching a flame."
"What happened to him?"
"Broke when he ran out of things to remember. Cut out his own eyes trying to feel again."
Silence hung like smoke.
Mo Yao leaned back. "Most people are one path. A few mix two. Anyone who tries more than that ends up screaming or splattered across a wall."
"Which are you?" Lu Tian asked.
Mo Yao showed his teeth.
"I'm nothing. That's why I'm still alive."
Then the lights flickered.
A whistle. Then a scream.
The vat behind them exploded.
A body hit the wall. Bones snapped like dry wood.
Lu Tian rolled to the side as a blade of Qi shot past him and embedded in the floor.
Three figures entered the chamber.
Disciples. Not guards.
They wore white masks and silver rings. Inner sect. Off-duty. Drunk. Bored.
The leader smiled beneath her mask.
"Supervisor said the new one smells like secrets," she said, pointing her curved blade at Lu Tian. "We're here to open him up and see."
Mo Yao didn't move.
Lu Tian did.
He stood up. Hands shaking.
"Run," Mo Yao said without looking.
"I can't," Lu Tian replied.
He triggered Silent Promise.
The pressure of fear focused into stillness. His pulse slowed. His thoughts turned to crystal.
The disciples rushed.
He didn't block.
He stepped forward and bit his own lip, drawing blood.
Vein of the Unspoken activated.
The first slash passed through air.
The second missed completely.
For three seconds, he was a ghost.
Then he moved.
Tore the spirit pebble from Mo Yao's bundle and crushed it in his hand.
The raw energy cracked against his bones. His meridians screamed.
He forced it into his scar-seed.
Another memory surfaced.
His sister's voice, singing to drown out the shouting outside their door.
He took it. Accepted it. Let it carve into him.
The Abyss answered.
[Scar-Skill Created: Echo in the Hollow]
• For 10 seconds, reflect any sound-based technique or Qi resonance
• Usable once per day
• Cost: permanent memory degradation of the source memory
He screamed. The sound bounced, twisted, turned.
The disciples' own Qi techniques rebounded.
The walls shook. The ceiling cracked.
One disciple dropped, skull split by his own sonic blade.
The others fled.
Lu Tian collapsed, ears ringing, heart thudding like a war drum.
Mo Yao looked down at him and whistled.
"You really are the dangerous kind."
Lu Tian didn't answer.
He was staring at his hands.
At what he had just done.
And what it had cost.
He couldn't remember the end of his sister's song.
The next morning, the Bone-Wash Hall was quiet. Too quiet.
The acid vats were still. The air hung thick with smoke and scorched blood. A new disciple stood guard outside the door, eyes twitching, hand on his blade.
Lu Tian sat alone, shirtless, his upper torso wrapped in stiff spirit-cloth that clung to dried blood and bruises. His breathing was steady. His mind was not.
He had won.
But the price was obvious now.
The memory was gone. Not dulled. Not blurred. Gone. He couldn't recall the tune his sister used to hum every night, not even the rhythm.
He had weaponized it.
And in doing so, erased it from himself.
The Abyss doesn't give. It takes.
"You look like a man who tried to swim in lava and forgot which direction was up," Mo Yao said, tossing him a chunk of half-dried spirit bread. "Eat. They'll come soon."
Lu Tian didn't respond.
He was watching his palm. A faint line of black Qi now etched itself along the skin, pulsing with each heartbeat. A mark. Not of rank. But of loss.
"Tell me," Lu Tian said. "What happens when an Abyss cultivator forgets everything?"
Mo Yao chewed for a moment.
"They become pure power. No self. No direction. Just a hollow shell with scar-skills and muscle memory. A ghost made of pain."
Lu Tian nodded. He had expected that.
"And when they run out of scars?"
"They try to make new ones. On others."
Before he could answer, the door slammed open.
Three inner sect enforcers entered. Real ones this time. Black robes. Iron masks. Formation-forged spears. No talking. Just action.
Lu Tian stood.
They seized him. Shackled him in cold spirit-iron that numbed his nerves.
He didn't resist.
They dragged him through two corridors, down three floors, and into a chamber deep below the outer sect training grounds.
A dark room lit by spirit lamps shaped like crying faces. Symbols of suppression etched across every inch of the floor.
And seated at the center, sharpening a bone-blade with methodical calm, was a woman.
Thin. Pale. Elegant in the way a dagger is elegant when pressed to your throat.
Elder Yi Qing.
One of the three Abyss-qualified instructors in the Crimson Soul Sect. Cultivation unknown. Age unknown. History redacted.
She gestured. The guards left.
"You survived a soul rebound," she said without looking up. "And reflected a Qi resonance technique with no core foundation."
Lu Tian said nothing.
She set the blade down and finally looked at him.
"The Sect rewards power, even when it isn't understood. But I'm not here to praise you."
She stood and walked closer, stopping just shy of his reach.
"You're an Abyss type. We know. The question is: are you stable?"
"I'm breathing," he said.
She slapped him.
Not hard. Surgical. Just enough to fracture a molar.
"Not the answer I want."
Lu Tian spat blood, then smiled.
"I've cultivated two scar-skills, awakened my first Abyss Root, and I haven't murdered anyone who didn't come to kill me first. That stable enough?"
She tilted her head. Studied him like a puzzle piece found in the wrong box.
Then she nodded.
"Good. Then you're ready for the truth."
She raised her hand and the room shifted. The walls flickered, revealing murals carved into the stone.
A battlefield of cultivators. Not shining heroes, but fractured bodies. Some split in half. Some missing limbs. All glowing with strange, black flame.
She pointed to the center. A figure seated on a throne of bones, eyes blank, surrounded by a spiral of floating scars.
"The first Abyss Root cultivator. Name lost. Known only as the Drowned Saint."
Lu Tian leaned forward.
"He survived five heavens and killed a True Immortal without forming a single golden core."
"How?"
"By cutting away everything that made him weak. Piece by piece. Until all that remained was clarity. Pain refined is the most stable energy in existence. Unlike Qi, it doesn't fluctuate. It doesn't depend on environment or talent."
She walked to the edge of the mural.
"But it comes with cost. You already know that."
"I do."
"You've created two scar-skills. You've made your first Root. Do you know what comes next?"
Lu Tian shook his head.
She held up a single finger.
"The Spiral."
He frowned. "What's that?"
"A path unique to Abyss Root cultivators. Unlike other systems, which move through realms, you spiral inward. Each Root branches into scars. Scars unlock techniques. But after a Root deepens enough, after enough of your Self has been offered, it twists."
She pointed to her own chest.
"Your cultivation doesn't ascend. It turns. It refines your ego, your soul, your flaws. Until your very identity becomes a technique."
Lu Tian felt a cold wind in his gut.
"What happens when the Spiral completes?"
"You stop being human. You become a True Scar. The embodiment of your own suffering. At that point, your path is irreversible."
"And if I don't Spiral?"
"You stagnate. Your memories rot. Your skills become brittle. You become a useless ghost, unworthy of cultivation."
She snapped her fingers.
A scroll flew into her hand. She tossed it to him.
"Instructions for Root Binding and Spiral Mapping. Read it. Memorize it. Then destroy it. No one else can help you."
He caught it. Unrolled it.
The first line chilled him.
"To Spiral is to remember your death before you die."
She turned away.
"One more thing."
"Yes?"
"Keep surviving, Lu Tian. I want to see how far you'll fall."
He left without another word.
By the time he returned to Bone-Wash Hall, Mo Yao was gone. Transferred. Possibly dead.
In his place, a quiet girl scrubbed acid with bloodied hands.
Lu Tian sat down.
Unrolled the scroll.
And began mapping his Spiral.