Why does a soul have to choose between so many paths?
What is the true purpose of a soul?
Nothing. Just... nothing.
Without a path, purpose fades into the void. In its absence, so too do our goals, our ambitions, our very reasons for existing.
But choose a path—*any* path—and suddenly direction returns. Purpose crystallizes. The destination becomes visible, even if impossibly distant.
Choose. It's a simple word that contains everything: the pursuit of glory, of respect, of fame, of power, of all that you aspire to achieve.
Choose to climb, or choose to fall. There is no middle ground.
---
A tempest gathered over the land like the wrath of forgotten gods. Autumn trees bent and swayed in frantic dance, their remaining leaves torn free by winds that screamed through the valley. The looming mountains vanished behind the storm's ominous veil, swallowed by sheets of rain so thick the world seemed to be drowning.
Zhung stood atop a wooden rooftop, rainwater hammering his body with relentless force. His clothes clung to him like a second skin, heavy and cold. Yet he remained perfectly composed, his gaze fixed on the retreating form of the Albino Mountain Wolf as it limped back toward the forest's edge.
Blood trailed behind the beast—his doing. The arrow wound in its eye wept crimson. It favored its injured leg where wooden spikes had pierced its paw.
A cold smile played across Zhung's lips as his vacant eyes tracked the prize.
*You're mine,* he thought with absolute certainty. *You just don't know it yet.*
In his hands, he held a damaged bow—the string frayed, the wood cracked from the earlier fights. The only arrow he had left was bent, its fletching torn. By all reasonable standards, the weapon was worthless.
Zhung pulled the tie from his hair, letting his long brown strands fall free to whip in the wind. With practiced fingers, he used the cloth tie to reinforce the bow's damaged string, knotting it tightly. The makeshift repair wouldn't last long, but it only needed to work once.
He nocked the bent arrow, drew the bow back with trembling arms—exhaustion was setting in, his body screaming from the earlier battles—and aimed at the retreating beast.
The storm raged around him. Wind howled, throwing off his aim. Rain blurred his vision. Thunder rumbled like the laughter of Heaven mocking his efforts.
But Zhung's mind went silent. Empty. Cold.
His dark eyes became still as winter lakes. His posture locked into perfect stability. His focus narrowed until the entire world consisted of only two things: the beast, and the arrow's path between them.
*Even if I face another failure,* he thought distantly, *it won't stop me. For every closed door, a new opportunity waits. I just have to be alive to find it.*
Who among us is without the specter of failure? Who hasn't fallen and risen and fallen again?
He released.
The arrow flew, spinning awkwardly through the storm, fighting against wind and rain and gravity itself. It arced high over the village ruins, over the corpses scattered in the muddy streets, over the shattered buildings and broken dreams.
For a heartbeat, success and failure hung in perfect balance.
The arrow struck the ground three feet in front of the Albino Mountain Wolf, embedding itself in mud with a dull *thunk*.
The beast's massive head turned. Its remaining good eye—burning crimson in the storm's gloom—fixed on the source of the projectile. It saw Zhung standing on the rooftop, small and alone and defiant.
The wolf's lips pulled back from blood-stained fangs. It released a howl that shook the very air—not pain, not fear, but *rage*. Pure, mindless fury at this persistent insect that refused to die.
Thunder answered the howl, and the storm intensified as if nature itself was responding to the challenge.
The beast turned completely, abandoning its retreat, and charged back toward the village with murder in its eyes. Its wounded leg barely slowed it. Its injured eye wept blood, but the remaining one burned with such hatred that it seemed to illuminate the rain.
Zhung smiled—a terrible expression, cold and calculating—and immediately leaped to another rooftop.
The chase was on.
The Albino Mountain Wolf, massive as a small cottage, barreled after him with devastating speed. It smashed through the remains of wooden structures in its path, reducing them to splinters and kindling. Roof tiles exploded. Support beams cracked like bones. The ground shook with each thunderous step.
Zhung ran and leaped between rooftops with desperate agility, always staying just ahead of those snapping jaws. When he glanced back, he saw the creature nearly upon him, its remaining eye fixed solely on him with single-minded obsession, blind to everything else in its consuming need to kill.
His lungs burned. His legs screamed in protest. Exhaustion pulled at him like hands trying to drag him down.
But worse—pain bloomed in his abdomen, sharp and insistent. The earlier impact from the blood wolf, the bruising from multiple fights, the accumulated damage of the day—all of it was catching up to him. He tasted copper in his mouth.
*Doesn't matter,* he thought grimly, pushing through the agony. *Just a little further. Almost there.*
He leaped from the final rooftop, landing hard in the mud below, and sprinted toward the forest. Behind him, the beast followed without hesitation, its massive bulk crashing down from the roof with earth-shaking force.
They plunged into the tree line together—predator and prey locked in their fatal dance.
Zhung's footsteps pounded against the forest floor, mixing with the beast's thunderous pursuit. The sound reverberated through the trees like war drums announcing the end of the world.
Then—there. The familiar clearing.
Zhung's eyes locked onto the prepared trap—the pit he'd carefully concealed just hours earlier, covered with branches and leaves that the rain had now partially revealed. But beneath those natural coverings lay something else: furniture. Broken wood. Shattered planks bristling with nails. Sharpened chair legs. Table corners filed to spear-points. Every piece of debris from the destroyed buildings, positioned with deadly intent.
At the last possible moment, Zhung gathered his remaining strength and *leaped*.
His body sailed over the pit, arms windmilling for balance, legs tucking to clear the edge. Behind him, the Albino Mountain Wolf—too large, too fast, too committed to the chase—couldn't stop or turn.
Its jaws snapped at empty air where Zhung had been a heartbeat before.
Then its weight crashed through the concealing branches.
The beast's howl transformed from rage to agony as it plummeted into the pit. The sound that emerged was something Zhung had never heard from any creature—a scream that was almost human in its pain and terror.
Hundreds of wooden spikes, nails, sharpened furniture legs, and improvised spears punched through the wolf's belly, legs, and flanks. The sound of tearing flesh and breaking wood mixed with the beast's screams.
But it wasn't enough to kill it. Not immediately.
The Albino Mountain Wolf thrashed in the pit, its movements driving the stakes deeper, opening wounds wider. Blood sprayed in arterial spurts, painting the wooden spikes crimson. Its remaining eye rolled with pain and confusion.
Zhung landed on the far side, stumbled, caught himself. Without hesitation, he grabbed the axe he'd positioned there earlier—stolen from a dead hunter, its blade still stained with blood wolf gore.
The beast was trying to climb out, its massive paws scrabbling at the pit's edge, pushing against stakes that tore through its flesh with wet, obscene sounds.
Zhung ran forward and *jumped*, bringing the axe down with every ounce of strength remaining in his exhausted body.
The blade struck the wolf's remaining good eye with a sickening *crunch*. Fluid sprayed. The eyeball ruptured like an overripe fruit.
The beast's scream reached a new pitch—pure anguish beyond anything Zhung had inflicted so far. It was completely blind now, thrashing wildly, destroying itself further on the stakes as it tried desperately to escape the pain.
Zhung wrenched the axe free, blood and eye fluid coating the blade and his hands. He raised it to strike again—
The wolf's massive paw shot out with the last burst of desperate strength, catching Zhung across the chest before he could complete the swing.
The impact was devastating. Zhung felt ribs *crack*—not break cleanly, but splinter like green wood. The force launched him backward through the air. Blood erupted from his mouth in a spray that mixed with the falling rain.
He hit the ground hard, rolled, couldn't breathe. Every attempt to inhale sent lightning bolts of agony through his chest. Broken ribs had shifted, puncturing something internal.
*Get up,* his mind commanded, even as his body refused to obey. *Get up or die here.*
The beast had pulled itself partially out of the pit through sheer agonized determination. Blind, bleeding from dozens of wounds, it was still moving—still trying to kill him through nothing but hatred and instinct.
Zhung forced himself to his knees, then his feet, swaying like a drunk. Blood poured from his mouth with each ragged breath. His vision swam. The axe was still in his hand somehow, fingers locked around the handle in a death grip.
The wolf staggered toward him, guided by scent and the sound of his labored breathing. Its movements were jerky, uncoordinated, but no less deadly. One strike from those jaws would crush his skull. One swipe from those claws would disembowel him.
*Can't fight it like this,* Zhung realized with cold clarity. *Can only run. Lead it where I need it to go.*
He turned and ran—or tried to. His legs barely cooperated. Each step was agony. Blood loss was making everything distant and dreamlike.
Behind him, the blind beast followed, crashing through underbrush, drawn by the scent of his blood like a shark to chum.
Zhung's path was weaving, unstable. The forest blurred around him. Thunder cracked overhead. His ears were bleeding from the beast's earlier howl, making everything sound muffled and distorted.
Then—the sound he'd been heading toward. The roar of rushing water.
The river.
He burst through the tree line and skidded to a stop at the river's edge. The water was a raging torrent, swollen by the storm, moving faster than any horse could run. Foam and debris churned in the brown water.
And in the distance—the sound of falling water. The waterfall.
The Albino Mountain Wolf crashed through the trees behind him, jaws wide, drawn by his scent, launching its massive bulk forward in a final desperate lunge.
Zhung twisted aside at the last instant. The wolf's jaws snapped shut on empty air where his head had been.
But the beast's bulk still caught him—a glancing blow from its shoulder that sent him sprawling. They both went over the river's edge together, hitting the water with enormous splashes.
The current seized them immediately, pulling them into its irresistible flow like a giant hand dragging them toward the edge of the world.
Zhung's lungs screamed for air but he was underwater, tumbling, disoriented. He broke the surface gasping, saw the white fur of the beast beside him, both of them helpless in the current's grip.
*Now,* some primal part of his mind commanded. *Now or never.*
With the last of his conscious will, Zhung pulled himself closer to the beast. His hand found the axe handle still miraculously in his grip. He drove the blade deep into the wolf's hide, using it as an anchor point.
Then—and this was the part that required more courage than anything he'd done so far—he opened his mouth and *bit* down on the creature's neck, right where the major artery pulsed beneath the wet fur.
His teeth broke through. Hot blood flooded his mouth—not normal blood, but *demonic blood*, thick and potent and alive with power that burned like liquid fire.
The pain was instantaneous and absolute. It felt like drinking molten metal, like swallowing broken glass and acid simultaneously. His throat seared. His stomach convulsed. Every cell in his body screamed in rejection.
But he *held on*, teeth locked in the beast's flesh, swallowing the burning blood, even as his body tried desperately to reject it.
His dark eyes widened, bloodshot, tears streaming down his face mixing with rain and river water. The agony was transcendent—worse than any physical injury, worse than broken ribs or crushed organs. This was his *soul* being torn apart and reconstructed.
Ahead, the roar of the waterfall grew louder. They were being carried toward the edge.
A small, distant part of Zhung's mind registered this fact. The rest of him was consumed by fire, by the demonic blood reshaping him from the inside out.
*Mother,* he thought, and the word was an anchor, a prayer, a reason to survive when survival seemed impossible.
Flashbacks erupted through his fragmenting consciousness: his first life in the modern world—the truck, the hospital, the betrayal. His second life as a cultivator—Master Shin Luo's smile, Xain Xe's cold eyes. This third life—his mother's warmth, the only light in a world of darkness.
*I recognize my failures. I accept them. But I will not let them define me. Nothing will stop me from reaching my goals. Nothing.*
*So why... why do I still feel so broken?*
A single tear fell—his own, not rainwater. He couldn't tell anymore.
Then—silence as they went over the edge.
The world became weightless. Falling, tumbling, the roar of water all around. Zhung's teeth remained locked on the beast's neck, drinking, swallowing, even as the demonic blood tore him apart from within.
*No. I refuse to fail. Not again. Not when I'm this close.*
His eyes—bloodshot, bleeding, barely functional—widened with defiant will as they plunged toward the churning pool below.
*I succeeded before, despite everything. I found love, even if it was false. I became a grandmaster, even if that world might have been a dream. I survived two deaths. I found my mother in this life—genuine warmth, genuine light.*
*I WILL NOT LET THAT LIGHT BE EXTINGUISHED.*
They hit the water like meteors. The impact should have killed them both instantly. The depth saved them—barely.
Underwater, in the churning darkness, Zhung's body convulsed. The Aperture was forming in his chest—a spiritual organ manifesting in physical space, tearing through where his heart had been, replacing it with something new.
The pain of broken ribs was nothing compared to this. The pain of drowning was nothing. The pain of the demonic blood burning through his veins was nothing.
This was *reconstruction*. Death and rebirth happening simultaneously.
His pale skin went translucent. His dark eyes rolled back. Blood poured from his mouth, his nose, his ears. His body jerked and spasmed like a puppet with cut strings.
The Albino Mountain Wolf's corpse drifted beside him—finally, mercifully dead, its blood fully drained.
Somehow, through dying reflexes or unconscious will, Zhung's hands found purchase on the wolf's body. He pulled himself onto its back as they drifted, breaking the surface, gasping for air through a throat that felt like it had been scoured with steel wool.
He lay sprawled across the white fur, his body broken, his soul fragmenting and reforming in patterns that defied natural law. The Aperture's formation was nearing completion—almost done, almost done, just a little longer...
His pale skin contrasted sharply against the wolf's white fur. His dark eyes stared up at the storm clouds, barely seeing them. Blood poured from his mouth with each ragged breath.
A smile—painful, triumphant, insane—spread across his face.
*Perhaps when I awaken... I'll be someone new. Someone stronger. Someone who can protect what matters.*
His expression shifted to a frown as consciousness began to slip away.
*Or perhaps I'll die here, after all of this, one failure away from success.*
His eyes closed. Profound silence enveloped him. He perceived nothing—no pain, no cold, no sound. Just... nothing.
The storm subsided gradually. The rain gentled to a steady patter. The river carried the corpse of the Albino Mountain Wolf with its strange passenger toward calmer waters downstream.
---
In the space between death and life, Zhung's consciousness drifted in a void.
He stood in shadow where a river meandered softly—not the physical river, but something else. Something deeper. He scanned his surroundings but encountered only emptiness.
Then—an immense, overwhelming presence descended upon him like the weight of mountains.
He looked up.
Golden eyes. Enormous. Glowing like twin suns in the darkness. They blinked slowly, deliberately, studying him with ancient intelligence.
"Welcome to the Realm of Nothingness!" A voice boomed through the void—joyful, amused, entertained by his presence.
Zhung felt cold terror spike through him, but it vanished almost immediately. His expression remained neutral. His dark eyes surveyed the impossible space with analytical calm.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice steady. "And how did I end up here?"
Silence for a moment, then laughter that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
"How delightful! A toy that ended up in my realm. This doesn't happen often."
Zhung's jaw tightened. "Toy? Is that what I am to Heaven and Fate? Just... entertainment?"
More laughter, warm and terrible in equal measure.
"Time's up, little toy. An unseen force is pulling your soul back to the physical world. But before you go..." The voice shifted, becoming almost sympathetic. "Let me offer you a glimpse of what awaits."
The golden eyes drew closer, and Zhung saw himself reflected in them—all his lives, all his deaths, all his struggles displayed like theater for an eternal audience.
"As you cultivate and grow stronger, you'll encounter many familiar souls on your journey. People you loved. People you hated. They're returning to your story, Zhung Hang. Because your story..." The voice paused, savoring the words. "Your story is genuinely captivating. Truly interesting. I'm curious to see how it ends."
"Wait—" Zhung tried to speak, to ask about these familiar souls, to demand answers.
But an unseen force seized him, yanking him backward through the void. The golden eyes watched from the shadows as his form dissolved.
*Who will return? Xain Xe? Master Shin Luo? My brother? Mei Ling? Who?*
The questions flooded his fragmenting consciousness. But there were no answers, only the terrible understanding that his past would not stay buried, that nothing was ever truly over.
His soul began to shatter—truly and completely shatter—breaking into pieces that should have been irreparable. The pain was worse than anything he'd experienced in the physical world. This was the destruction of the *self*, the annihilation of identity.
But from the fragments, something new began to form. Not the old soul pieced back together, but a new construction—darker, colder, emptier. A soul made of shadows and determination and nothing else.
The new soul fractured again immediately, shattering under its own weight, and the pain doubled. This was the price. This was what it meant to survive the impossible.
*This is true pain,* Zhung understood distantly. *Everything else was just practice.*
Then—awakening.
---
His eyes shot open, staring at an unfamiliar sky. The storm had passed. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees overhead, warm and almost gentle.
He was lying on a riverbank, beside the massive corpse of the Albino Mountain Wolf. The beast's white fur was matted with blood and river water. Its body was already beginning to stiffen.
Zhung sat up slowly, testing his body. His ribs—miraculously, impossibly—were healed. His breathing came easily. His internal injuries had vanished.
More than that—he felt *power* flowing through him. Not Chi, but something similar. Will. The fundamental energy of this world, now accessible to him through the Aperture that pulsed steadily in his chest where his heart had been.
He was no longer mortal. He was Tin rank now—the first step on the cultivation path, but infinitely more than he'd been hours before.
*Eight years,* he thought with something like wonder. *Eight years of planning and failing and trying again. And finally... finally...*
He stood, testing his legs. Solid. Strong. The exhaustion was gone, burned away in the reconstruction.
His gaze fell on the axe still embedded in the wolf's hide. He pulled it free, feeling the weight of it, and slung it over his shoulder.
His long brown hair—unbound, wild from the ordeal—danced in the gentle breeze. For the first time in years, something like genuine peace settled over his previously expressionless face.
His dark, vacant eyes turned upward toward the sun, and he allowed himself a small smile.
*My true journey begins now. I can finally start climbing.*
The Broken Path stretched ahead of him, no longer impossible. Just difficult. Just deadly. Just requiring everything he had and more.
But for someone who'd died twice and been reborn three times, who'd fed people to monsters and betrayed hunters and survived a demonic beast through pure stubborn refusal to quit—difficult was manageable.
He turned away from the corpse and began walking, following the river downstream, away from Black Water Village and everything familiar.
His mother would worry when she returned. The letter would explain enough. And someday—when he was strong enough to protect her properly, to ensure no Hang family cultivator or Heavenly Demon or cosmic joke could threaten her—he would return.
Until then, he had a path to walk. A broken, shadowed path between saint and demon, between human and monster.
But it was *his* path. His choice. His will.
And nothing—not Heaven, not Fate, not all the forces of the cosmos combined—would stop him from climbing to the very top.
The sun shone warm on his face as he walked. Somewhere in the distance, a bird sang. The world continued turning, indifferent as always to human struggles and victories.
But Zhung smiled, and in that smile was the promise of storms yet to come.
**End of Chapter 10**