Back in the depths of the forest, Wuji slowly opened his eyes from a deep, dreamless sleep within the cave. At first, his vision was blurred, but it gradually focused on the mouth of the cave, where sunlight spilled inward. Judging by its intensity and angle it was nearly noon.
With a low groan, he pushed himself upright, rose unsteadily to his feet, and kept a firm grip on his sword. He trudged toward the entrance and stepped outside.
The forest greeted him at once. Leaves rustled as the wind blew through the trees and distant howls echoed faintly, carried by the wind. Warm sunlight settled on his skin, chasing away the damp chill that had seeped into his bones during the night.
He narrowed his eyes and scanned the area with the Eye of the End. No lifespan numbers hovered among the trees or undergrowth.
He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Mei Xu's array was simply too powerful—enough to keep the wild beasts and spirit beasts at bay, and enough to keep him trapped. He had already known it, but knowing did little to ease the weight.
His gaze drifted through the clearing before settling on the rear of the cave, where a lone tree stood apart. "Water," with that single thought, he moved toward it.
He halted beneath the trunk and raised his sword, severing a thick lower branch with a dozen swings. Kneeling on the grass, he began to carve.
Decades of shaping coffins had made woodwork a second nature. His hands moved with an easy, efficient rhythm—shaving, hollowing, smoothing—until a crude but serviceable cup took shape in his grasp.
Rising, he returned his attention to the tree. He made two shallow cuts in the trunk, one above the other. From a sliver of wood, he carved a narrow, half-hollow channel and wedged it between the cuts, angling it downward.
He placed the cup beneath it. Clear sap began to drip, guided by the channel, one patient drop at a time into the waiting vessel.
Satisfied, he sat beneath the tree and let time pass in silence, broken only by the soft patter of sap, the distant rustling leaves mingling with howls of beasts.
About three hours passed before the wooden cup finally filled. Without hesitation, he lifted it and drank everything in one go. Cool liquid slid down his throat, and almost immediately, a faint sense of relief spread through his body; his parched mouth eased, his head cleared, his limbs felt a little lighter.
With water secured, one burden was lifted from his shoulders. The following hours, and then days, passed with an agonizing slowness. At times, he slept simply to escape the drag of time and to dull the persistent ache in his chest, where the poison's heat pulsed like a dormant ember.
At other moments, the pain receded so completely it felt as if the Heart Gu did not exist at all. During those rare periods of calm, he forced himself to think. If he escaped the array… how would he navigate a forest teeming with wild and spirit beasts? Which direction led back to human settlements?
His thoughts drifted, inevitably, toward the Heavens Fall Sect. For a brief moment, the idea of joining them lingered in his mind. It was the most straightforward path—resources, early protection, access to all kinds of spells, powerful cultivation canons. All within reach.
Then he dismissed it. The thought was foolish and dangerous especially for him. What's more an old man, well past his prime, would never be accepted as a disciple, not even as a servant. And if the sect discovered the Heaven Burial Coffin… it would not be an opportunity that awaited him, but death.
He understood this instinctively. In this world, the quickest way to die was to make the wrong choice at the wrong time.
Perhaps… the path of a loose cultivator was the only one left to him.
Inside the array, the days passed and brought new problems. The number of insects outside steadily dwindled. The sap-dripping tree grew sluggish, its lifeblood slowing to a reluctant trickle.
He could make another cut easily, but the flow was thin. He even experimented with thick forest vines, yet they yielded only a few discolored drops, barely enough to stir a deep suspicion that the liquid might be poison.
By the third day, the ground's surface was barren. No insects crawled beneath the grass, and straining the Eye of the End revealed no flicker of bronze lifespans anywhere above the soil.
He returned to the cave, retrieved his sword, and began to dig outside the cave. The blade bit into the earth, turning soil in slow, careful motions. Soon, his ocular art revealed faint lifespan numbers writhing beneath the surface—worms.
For several long minutes, he gathered them one by one. When he finally staggered back into the cave, his right hand was clenched around a fistful of squirming bodies. Disgust twisted his face; his stomach tightened at the sight and feel of them.
But beneath the revulsion lay something harder. A cold resolve. As long as there was a way to survive, he would take it. Compared to absolute annihilation, eating worms was nothing.
By the fifth day, he stood again before the spot where the ritual circle had been drawn. His appearance was wretched: hair tangled and matted with dirt, beard clotted with grime.
His robes were indistinguishable in color, brown with soil, darkened by sweat and dried blood, even his nails were packed with dark soil.
His jaw was clenched, not from resolve alone, but against the pain pulsing in his chest. The Heart Gu had begun to stir since the day before. It was not yet fully awakened, but it had made its presence known, as if savoring what was to come.
He lifted his right hand and grasped the sword. His gaze shifted to his left wrist. Without hesitation, he cut.
Blood welled instantly, dripping onto the faint outline of the ritual circle. He stepped forward and began to move, retracing the pattern with measured steps, letting his blood repaint what had faded.
As the crimson lines spread, the lost details of the formation slowly reemerged; glyphs sharpening, paths reconnecting, symbols resurfacing as if drawn from memory itself.
For minutes, he walked in circles. The blood from his wrist did not slow; it flowed like an open tap, defying sense. Blood should clot. It should resist loss. But logic had long since lost its authority here. To think too deeply about why was to waste the little clarity he had left.
His vision blurred, his limbs grew heavy. The pounding in his chest faltered, each heartbeat dragging, sluggis, and strained.
Without hesitation, he reached into his pouch, crushed the Blood Qi Nourishing Pill between his teeth, and swallowed.
Warmth surged through him. His heartbeat quickened at once, crude strength returning to his limbs. Immediately, he followed it with the Spirit Clearing Pill. The fog in his mind thinned, just enough to see, to think, to go on.
He continued. Time passed, he did not know how long, but when his body weakened again, he swallowed the final Blood Qi Nourishing Pill, then the last Spirit Clearing Pill. His body jolted, shocked back into motion by borrowed vitality.
Five minutes later, the ritual circle was complete. Bronze light seeped from the blood-soaked lines, mingling with the dim glow of the artifact at the back of the cave. Warped shadows stretched across the stone.
Wuji stood at the edge of the circle, breathing heavily. With the recall formation finished, he released a slow, trembling breath. For the first time in days, the suffocating pressure of imminent death loosened its grip, if only slightly.
Now, only the final step remained. And compared to all he had endured, it was the simplest. He straightened his spine, drew a deliberate breath, and spoke steadily into the charged air.
{Return, Heaven Burial Coffin. For your Bearer}
The moment the words left his lips, the air above the ritual circle split open. A horizontal fissure tore through space itself, nearly four meters long and a meter wide, its edges rippling like torn skin.
He instinctively leaned forward, straining to peer through the tear. There was nothing on the other side. No light, no depth. Only a vast, oppressive darkness that swallowed his gaze whole.
As he strained to look deeper, every hair on his body stood on end. His breath hitched; his heart slammed against his ribs, each beat echoing in his skull. From the deepest part of his mind, a primal warning surged, one he could not resist.
Do not look.
He recoiled instantly, stumbling backward before losing his footing entirely. He fell hard onto the stone floor, his body drenched in a cold sweat that defied the scant water he had consumed over five days.
Then, the Heaven Burial Coffin emerged. It rose slowly from the spatial tear, silent and absolute. The moment it appeared, the suffocating dread gripping him vanished, erased as if it had never been, or perhaps simply overwhelmed by the coffin's presence.
The fissure sealed itself beneath it, space knitting closed without a sound. The coffin hovered for a breath… then descended.
It struck the rocky floor with a dull thud. The ritual circle beneath it dimmed, its bronze glow fading until it was nothing more than a blood-dark drawing etched into stone.
He pushed himself to his feet. His robes clung, damp and heavy, to his back, but he ignored them. Without hesitation, he approached the coffin and lifted the lid.
Inside lay Mei Xu. Her body was unchanged—no decay, no visible damage—but her eyes were wide open, frozen in terror. Her face was twisted into a final expression of absolute horror, as though she had witnessed something no mind was meant to witness.
Wuji's gaze lingered on her face only briefly before shifting to the spatial pouch still hanging at her waist. He tore it free and held it in his hand. He knew he could not open it, but that did not concern him. He already had a solution.
He tossed the spatial pouch to the left of the coffin, beside the lid, and returned his focus to the corpse.
At his deliberate intent, the interior of the coffin shifted. The wooden surface darkened, liquefying into a black, viscous stretch that shimmered faintly, like oil under starlight. It did not wet the corpse's robes, nor did it ripple as ordinary liquid would.
Instead, it behaved with a patient, devouring stillness. The corpse began to sink, slowly at first, then steadily, until Mei Xu was swallowed whole. Within moments, nothing remained.
The surface smoothed itself, flawless and undisturbed, as though she had never existed. He crouched and reached out instinctively. The instant his fingers touched the black expanse, it hardened beneath his hand.
In the same breath, the darkness retreated, restoring the coffin's interior to plain wood. He withdrew his hand and nodded. Without unlocking the Husk, that other space was sealed to him.
He climbed into the coffin, pulled the lid down, and sealed himself inside. Without hesitation, he willed the instillation to begin.
At once, the sigils carved along the interior walls ignited one by one. Their glow deepened, pulsing like slow heartbeats. Within seconds, all one hundred and eight sigils loosened themselves from the surface like living snakes and slid into his body.
There was no resistance from his flesh and there was none it could offer. There was no tearing, either. They passed through muscle and bone as though his body were only a mist, threading themselves directly into the space of his illusory soul.