At the edge of the swamp, upon a lonely ridge.

  Li Chan stood clad in plain white mourning clothes, gazing blankly into the depths of the marsh. The habitual, flippant smirk was gone, replaced by a hollow silence.

  He stood frozen for a long time, two sobs rolling in his throat like stones. Finally, he reached into his storage ring and produced the shriveled corpse of a centipede. It was crimson, all hundred of its legs severed, its body a map of hideous scars.

  He hugged the cold insect husk to his chest, trembling. Guilt and indignation twisted together in his eyes. He could no longer hold it back; a jagged, hoarse cry ripped from his throat toward the silent corpse.

  "Master Jiang!"

  "We were born into an age where the Path of Insects is crumbling and the 'Orthodox' sects run rampant. You and that fox spent centuries struggling for life amidst a sea of spiritual blood... and now, at last, a true successor has been found..."

  His voice cracked with weeping.

  "Chan never dared to slacken! Since my Foundation Establishment five hundred years ago, I haven't rested for a moment. Recently, even after exhausting my life's essence to refine the remnants of Red Maple Valley into a Human-Pill, I still could not glimpse the Nascent Soul stage!"

  "Chan... cannot cross the mortal tribulation. Master!"

  His white undergarments were stained black and grey by the swamp mud. Clutching his master’s remains, he stumbled, his silhouette shattered by the dark light emanating from the swamp's depths. He muttered bitter smiles to the evening wind, then wailed into the twilight.

  "Must a single grudge be filled with the lifeblood of our disciples for generations?"

  "Master... Lu Zhaozhao has awakened from her Great Dream. She is truly invincible within her realm... I am at the late stage of Gold Core, yet I was no match for her at the early stage..."

  "It is well that I found Gensheng... otherwise, our lineage would have truly met its end."

  "Chan has laid the final move. I have severed the dream-threads to ensure his Immortal Path remains untainted... Master... Gensheng no longer has any burdens behind him."

  "You may go in peace..."

  Li Chan’s hair was a tangled mess against his face. The last rays of the setting sun etched themselves into the deep wrinkles of his grief. Slowly, that sorrow began to melt, replaced by a harrowing sense of liberation.

  "I am coming to find you and Mistress..."

  He suddenly produced the three thousand spirit stones he had "swindled" from Junior Brother Gensheng. Beside them, the wounds on the red centipede corpse began to glow with a faint, pulsing light. This light swallowed the stones and crawled up Li Chan’s arms, merging into his body.

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  Li Chan’s form began to turn translucent.

  His mud-stained feet dissolved into golden dust, scattering in the wind. Then his legs, his waist, his chest. The speed of his Bingjie (Spiritual Disintegration) was terrifyingly fast. He opened his mouth as if to say one last thing, but no sound could escape.

  His life's essence, his obsessions, and his indignation were all channeled through a mysterious, metaphysical resonance. They crossed the void of the swamp to settle upon his Junior Brother. This was the final act he could perform for their lineage: using his own life to shield his brother from a heaven-sized Karma.

  As Li Chan’s head turned to motes of light, no Golden Core manifested—a rarity for a cultivator of his rank. His small eyes cast one last look at the pillar of black qi piercing the sky. In them remained only a thick, unyielding expectation.

  'Gensheng. Do not be a coward like me.'

  The wind blew. Upon the ridge, only a mud-soaked white robe remained, with a centipede husk resting quietly upon it. Li Chan was gone.

  On the other side of the hill.

  A wisp of red light came from nowhere, silently sinking into Gensheng’s chest. He felt a sudden, inexplicable hollow in his heart. It felt as if he had forgotten something vital.

  An important person? An important event?

  The thought flickered for a microsecond before he returned to refining the Human-Pill.

  Time flowed. Seasons bled into one another. The isolated island became a true "Zone of Death." The green miasma grew ten times thicker than it had been five years ago. Above, a cloud of three thousand wasps patrolled; below the water, a hundred Ashen Butterflies lay dormant.

  Five years passed.

  In the center of the island, Chen Gensheng sat like a stone statue. He had been consolidating his power, familiarizing himself with the explosive strength in his veins. Li Simin stood by him, never moving an inch. Nourished by the dense corpse-qi, her body was now at the Late Foundation stage in strength, while her spirit touched the threshold of the Early stage.

  On this day, Gensheng finally opened his eyes.

  They were no longer human. Deep within his black pupils, thousands of tiny compound eyes shifted silently. There was no emotion, only a pure, chilling indifference.

  He stood, his bones popping like a string of firecrackers. "Five years..."

  His voice dropped. He opened his mouth wide, inhaling every spiritual insect on the island into his internal Casket. Suddenly, the flesh on his back writhed, and a pair of hideous, ink-colored insect wings tore through his skin.

  He crouched. BOOM!

  The ground cratered as he transformed into a bolt of black lightning, shrieking through the toxic fog and flying toward the edge of the swamp. Li Simin struggled to keep pace just below him.

  He landed on a ridge outside the swamp. The soil here was solid, unlike the mire within. His wings folded back into his flesh. Having reached Foundation Establishment, his control over his biology was absolute—he had manifested a pair of Life-Bound Wings.

  The sunlight was blinding after five years in the dark. Gensheng shielded his eyes, squinting.

  On a nearby slope, a splash of white stood out against the grim landscape. It was a plain mourning robe, soaked in mud and dried stiff by the wind. Beside it lay the shriveled corpse of a red centipede.

  Gensheng recognized it instantly. He knelt, picking up the white garment with two fingers. The fabric was coarse—the kind worn for funerals in the mortal world.

  Who would wear mourning clothes here?

  He stood up and surveyed the empty hills. There was nothing but the whistling wind.

  "Did Master come to see me?"

  He tossed the robe aside and picked up the centipede husk. It was cold and hard as iron. Though its spirituality was gone, its shell might make a decent snack for his wasps.

  As for the eyesore of a white robe, he didn't have the slightest interest in looking at it twice.

  He signaled Li Simin to shoulder the coffin while he climbed to the summit of the ridge, gazing out at the distant horizon.