"What is this place?"
Han Suwen felt the chill run across his body. He was floating, like being on water but heavier, more solid, and so comfortable that his consciousness drifted between sleep and waking without him noticing the shift.
"What was I doing again?"
He tried to rember but his mory was fog. He couldn’t recall anything, just fragnts like a dream already fading. All he wanted was to go back to sleep. He drifted lower and lower, sinking into the stillness that held him.
But then sothing called out to him.
"Suwen!"
A girl’s voice. It scread like she was about to burst into flas.
This voice. It was iyi’s voice.
He started to rember. His mind surfaced slowly and the mories stitched themselves back together piece by piece.
Then he rembered what happened.
He was fighting. Fighting against soone.
Wu Han, his wife’s sworn nesis. And he lost.
But if he lost, why wasn’t he dead?
Or maybe he already had. Maybe that was why it felt so peaceful here. Maybe he shouldn’t think so much, should just let it all go. It felt so nice to just lie here and not think about anything anymore. And if this was really death, maybe he could finally be with his mother again.
"No you don’t."
A cold voice ca from above.
Sothing grabbed him by the neck and snatched him up, pulled him out of that comfort. He jolted awake.
The first thing he saw was nothing.
He couldn’t see anything.
Around him was pitch black and empty.
The air had no sensation. There was no sound.
The only thing he felt was sothing hard gripping his neck, choking him, even though he didn’t need air.
"Who are you?"
Han Suwen’s eyes drifted. He still hadn’t recovered from whatever pulled him under.
The response was a loud sigh, then a finger snap.
Light blazed in front of him. Sun. A miniature sun, small enough to light the space around them and hot enough to wake him fully, to shove consciousness back into his skull.
His first response was, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!"
In front of him stood a two-ter tall skeleton. Black, terrifying, with decaying flesh and body parts hanging from its fra. He stood on an endless sea of darkness, perfectly still, stretching into infinity. Just him and the monster.
"It’s . You already forgot?"
The voice was terrifying. Each word ca out as two voices layered together. One ancient and full of dread. The other hopeless and in pain.
"You. Are you. Don’t tell ." Han Suwen didn’t want to think it, but he couldn’t deny it.
"You’re Wu Han?"
The face the skeleton wore was Wu Han’s face. But it only mimicked, only used what the owner had left behind. The face still lived, still suffered, trapped in imnse pain.
"Yes. As you know ." The skeleton’s voice was mocking.
Its grip tightened.
"Aah!"
Sothing invaded his body. Like a worm slipping inside him, starting at the neck, then swarming across his skin, crawling into his stomach, piercing his brain. His body felt like it was breaking apart.
"You really are pathetic." The voice dripped with degradation and mockery.
"To my surprise, she managed to call out to you. But you decided eternal slumber was better. Truly tragic. Even I started to feel bad for that woman."
The pain increased. His body began to break apart, bit by bit. Pain he couldn’t describe. His skin fell off. His organs spilled out and dropped into the endless abyss.
"You had talent. Wealth. Fa. You could have achieved anything. And even at the end, you still gave up." His voice carried disappointnt beyond asure. "n weaker than you fought till the end. I guess being comfortable in your own incompetence is always the easy path."
"P-please..."
Han Suwen cried for rcy. He finally understood the difference, knew what fate awaited him. He watched Wu Han’s body parts slowly fall from the skeleton, watched them dissolve into the darkness below.
Wu Han was finally at peace. Everlasting peace. Because once you got absorbed, there was no going back. Not even the hand of karma could reach here.
"No. Don’t. Let go." Han Suwen tried to resist but it was futile.
"You already had that choice. Twice. And you wasted it."
He should have burned himself away in a fight. In a blaze of glory.
If he had died in battle, the hand of karma might have held his soul. Kept it from the monster in front of him. He might have been spared this fate.
Should have done what he promised.
Then he would have at least gotten a shot at reincarnation.
But no. Instead of choosing death, he chose deletion.
"Live as a coward. Then suffer as one."
His body began to co apart, pieces drifting onto the skeleton, fusing with it.
His mories started flashing as the skeleton absorbed them.
"I’ll give you a front row seat. To what your failure will bring."
The pain was infinite. Being a vessel for sothing infinitely larger than yourself, carrying a weight you can never put down. Burned alive but unable to move. Suffocated but unable to breathe. For a human to bear the weight of the world, eternal damnation would feel like paradise.
Until the god decided he was useless, only then would the peace of nothingness co.
But for now, he would suffer the consequence of inaction.
He would see what calamity would be done in his na.
From now on, the monster’s na was Han Suwen.
"Wu Han!"
Hong Qing’s voice cried out as she rushed to his decapitated head.
She cried and cried, confused.
The sa for Han iyi as she rushed toward her husband’s corpse and held him in her arms. Tears flowed down her face. Her anger would never be quenched, because the murderer had killed himself.
Then, like a miracle, Han Suwen’s eyes started opening.
Han iyi saw it. Her tears of sadness turned to tears of joy.
"Thank you." Han Suwen’s voice was filled with gratitude and joy as he touched Han iyi’s face.
"It’s okay now. Let’s go ho. Together." Han iyi stumbled over the words and smiled.
Then.
Shhk.
A sword stuck in her abdon. Han Suwen pushed her away.
"For bringing to him."
The voice was cold and mocking. It was her husband’s voice, no mistake, but the tone and the pattern belonged to sothing else. It was closer to Wu Han.
The one who had died.
"W-what...?"
Han iyi was confused. She stumbled back in despair, her mind going numb as blood poured out. She fell to her knees, didn’t know what was happening, too hurt to think.
Hong Qing looked at him. Her first instinct was to strike. She drew her blade and scread.
"DIE!"
Dao of Slaughter Blade.
The red arc flashed toward Han Suwen’s neck. He sighed.
Rank 1 magic. Shield.
A hexagon barrier appeared and blocked the strike.
He turned and looked at Hong Qing with disappointnt.
"You can’t tell it’s ? Looks like intelligence isn’t your greatest trait."
--
He waved his hand and all of Wu Han’s belongings flew toward him. The spear. The ring.
Han Suwen pulled a severed hand from the storage ring and threw it at her.
Han iyi looked at the arm. Looked up. Finally pieced it together. Her husband’s body had been stolen by Wu Han.
No. By sothing worse. Sothing that wasn’t even Wu Han to begin with.
The real murderer. The identity of calamity that had descended upon her clan.
"Hahaha.... Hahahaha!"
She laughed uncontrollably. At herself. At the fool she had been.
She thought she had a chance. She thought she was fighting a fool who had just received a fortune. But the truth was, she had been fighting an otherworldly being that had stolen her cousin’s body from the start.
There was never a fool. Just a monster she had tried to stand against.
And the worst part was, she had helped him.
She had condemned the man she loved with her own hands.
"You used my arm. Traced it to get to him. Isn’t that right?"
She had never been alive since the day her arm got severed.
She had just been used as a pawn.
Now she understood.
There was no miracle doctor. No disciple. Probably no poison master either.
Everyone had been lied to.
And if they didn’t find out soon, they would all end up like her.
Used and discarded.
"You’re smart. If I had gotten to Han Suwen first, I probably would have married you and kept you around." He watched realization dawn on her face and complinted her.
"Sadly, that’s also why I can’t let you live."
Han Suwen walked up to her and placed a finger on her forehead.
"And for your information, your husband was begging for his own life. Not yours."
Han iyi heard it. She let out a smile as she closed her eyes and recalled a mory.
When she kicked Wu Han’s ass as a child.
When she rode on Wu Yaoshi’s back like his little sister.
When she finally married Han Suwen.
Maybe it could have turned out better.
But till the end, she was happy she had done it.
"I know."
She smiled as her life drained away from his touch. She lay down on the ground.
Death.
Han Suwen was quiet.
He watched her soul linger for a mont before it got swept by the hand of karma, back to the cycle.
This was a reward. To stick to one choice and see it through.
"In the next life, I wish you a better husband. And maybe a round two."
He smiled, then turned toward Hong Qing.
She sat there in confusion.
"Looks like I have so explaining to do. Don’t I?"
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