Smoke tangled through the shattered alleyways like ghost fingers, thick with blood, ash, and something fouler—decay that whispered in a language no mortal should understand.
Zhen Hu staggered forward.
The battle hadn't ended. It had only twisted.
His breath dragged like gravel in his lungs, yet no pain reached him—only a strange warmth coiled beneath his skin, something other, something ancient, licking at the edges of his soul.
His right hand clenched around a fallen blade—though it wasn't the one he remembered picking up.
It pulsed.
Dark veins had sprouted along his arm, fed by the Nytherion within him. But now... there was something else too. A memory not his own bled into his consciousness—an image of a war long past, of gods carved from bone and stars who spoke death into being.
A voice echoed, fractured and deep:
"Do not fight. You are the grave I once chose."
Zhen Hu's knees buckled.
A burning symbol bloomed across his chest, not drawn by ink or blade, but by intention. A forgotten mark—etched in Nytherion and sealed in something older than time—emerged as he collapsed against a broken pillar.
He convulsed. The battlefield dimmed.
Not because the sun vanished, but because his sight changed.
He saw threads—life threads—thin, trembling strands of pulsing essence trailing from every corpse, every wounded enemy, every dying insect crushed beneath rubble. The world was rotting around him, and yet it welcomed him now.
"You see as I once did," the voice intoned. "You feel the decay not as loss... but as truth."
Zhen Hu coughed, but no blood came out—only shadows.
He clutched his head, and images surged through him like storms: a silver throne atop a tower of skulls; a being whose body was made of bone dust and silence; black rivers flowing backward, feeding a sunless tree...
Three Humanios cultists emerged from the ruined plaza, weapons soaked and eyes frenzied.
"Kill him before he awakens!" one howled, panic thick in his voice. "He's not one of us—he's one of them!"
Zhen Hu's body moved before his mind could catch up.
Not like before.
Not human.
He surged forward in a burst of shadowed decay, his very steps hollowing the ground beneath. The air around him peeled with frost. His fingers reached out—not for their weapons—but for them. One touch, and the first man's skin withered, flaking into ash before he even screamed.
Zhen Hu recoiled, staring at his own hand.
What did I just—
"This is merely a glimpse," the voice murmured again, curling like smoke beneath his ribs. "There is no zen without death. And you are mine."
The second cultist lunged. Zhen Hu ducked low, eyes flashing with something not of this world. His body obeyed instinct, his mind still drowning in visions—cities crumbling, divine skeletons rising, a throne of skulls beneath twin moons...
Then—snap.
His hand crushed the attacker's skull as if it were paper.
The third one tried to flee. Zhen Hu blinked—
—and was suddenly behind him.
He didn't recall moving.
A tendril of Nytherion lashed from his spine, spearing through the cultist's chest. The man didn't even scream. His body simply unraveled.
The battlefield fell eerily silent.
And in that silence, Zhen Hu heard it—a faint ringing. Not from outside.
From within.
A bell tolling in a distant, sunless world.
"The Door is opening."
He collapsed again, this time to his knees. The exhaustion hit like a collapsing mountain—his skin pale, soaked in cold sweat, arms trembling as though a thousand lifetimes had passed through them.
He wanted to scream.
But the voice wouldn't let him.
"Your name is not your own. Your zen is not your fuel. And your future... is not your choice."
He gasped for breath, clawing at the cracked stone. Around him, corpses dissolved into soil, feeding invisible roots. The city itself was becoming him—or he was becoming it.
And for a flicker of a second, Zhen Hu saw through time.
He saw himself, countless years from now, standing alone at the edge of a realm without light, a blood sword in his grip—a sword forged from forgotten lives and the marrow of ancient bones. It dripped with crimson, hungry, as though it thirsted for more. Its blade curved like a cruel smile, its edge sharp enough to cleave souls.
And then it was gone.
He blinked.
The city returned. The air was thick and real. He was still Zhen Hu—but something else breathed beneath his skin.
He reached out—touching a wall, grounding himself.
His fingers left behind a black imprint.
A whisper passed over his shoulder:
"Welcome back, my Gravewalker."