Buried alive by the sect he once served, he awakens in the tomb where the dead whisper secrets no one should know.
****
Darkness wasn't black—it was wet.
The soil crept into his mouth like worms made of rot, clogging his throat, scraping his gums. He couldn't scream. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Because they had buried him alive.
Above him, six feet of dirt. Beyond that, a slab of stone. And beyond that—the sky he'd never see again.
His ears rang with the echo of their voices, their betrayal still hot in his chest.
"Cast Caelum into the Tomb of Silence.""He defied the Grand Elder. There can be no mercy.""Seal the grave. Let the worms finish what we couldn't."
Caelum had been loyal. A prodigy of the inner sect. A core disciple. He'd bled for them. Killed for them. Cultivated with a fire that should have lit the path for generations.
And they left him here like trash.
But they had forgotten one thing. Something all cultivators feared, yet never believed.
Some graves were deeper than death.
His fingers twitched.
One breath. Just one, forced through clenched teeth.
That's when he heard it.
Whispers.
Not from the world above… but below.
"You are not the first.""We have been waiting…""Feed. Break. Become."
Bones surrounded him. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Pressed into the earth like a hidden crypt. Their marrow pulsed with something old. Something forbidden.
He didn't recognize the feeling at first—it wasn't spiritual energy. It was colder. Hungrier.
It wanted to be devoured.
A broken femur scraped against his ribcage. It vibrated faintly, whispering in a tongue he didn't understand—yet somehow knew.
"Take me."
His stomach screamed. Not with hunger, but need.
And so, with numb fingers, Caelum clawed a sliver of ancient bone to his mouth.
It shattered on his teeth like brittle candy.
Blood poured from his gums.
And the Dao screamed.
Visions struck him like lightning—warriors locked in sky-splitting battle, empires drowning in ash, beasts of bone ripping reality open.
The voice inside him shifted.
"One. You have eaten One.""Eat more.""We will make you more."
His veins ignited. His skin cracked. His eyes bled.
He wasn't dying.
He was ascending.
From the earth, the bones chanted in unison—dead mouths calling out across ten thousand years.
"YOU SHALL BE OUR VESSEL."
The soil above began to quake. Far above, unseen by him, a single stone trembled off his sealed tomb.
Wind howled across the cemetery.
A lantern flickered.
A child passing through the graveyard froze in place. Her torchlight illuminated a jagged crack in the stone.
From the center, a sound.
A heartbeat.
BOOM.
Another.
BOOM.
Then—a whisper. Low. Cold. Inhuman.
"I'm not dead yet."