Back at Malevolent Path Hall’s headquarters, Malcolm stood before the Door of Reincarnation with his hands clasped behind his back. The door’s bone-white surface writhed with living runes, each glyph squirming like a trapped centipede under his pallid gaze. Behind him, a black-robed elder knelt, forehead pressed to cold stone.
“Spread the word! Anyone in level twelve who bends the knee to Malevolent Path Hall shall be spared, and we will grant them the blessing of eternal life through the Door of Reincarnation,” Malcolm ordered, his voice rattling like gravel across frost, yet every syllable rang with a promise both terrible and seductive.
Now that Jared had joined forces with the three great sects against the Malevolent Path Hall, Malcolm knew he could not afford to be careless. After all, those three sects were powerful, and Jared even had Gerald by his side.
“At once!” the black-robed elder replied and swiftly vanished into the corridors’ gloom.
The summons flew on black wings. Within hours, the rumor of immortality blazed across every sky-bridge and market square of level twelve. Soon, rivers of cultivators were pouring toward Malevolent Path Hall’s fortress like moths to flame.
The black-robed elder returned, trembling with barely contained excitement. “Mr. Vayne, three days have passed since the news went out. Over thirty-seven sects and nearly a hundred wandering cultivators have pledged their allegiance. Among them, eleven are old elites at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine or higher.”
A thin smile cracked Malcolm’s lips. “Immortality… Resurrection… They make for such exquisite bait,” he said as he stroked the door’s skeletal frame, and the runes quivered as though savoring his touch. “What do these old cultivators fear the most? It’s neither defeat nor disgrace. They fear the dark beyond breath. They crave time… Time to mend mistakes that gnaw at their hearts.”
“Indeed,” the black-robed elder replied. “And now, we have given them hope. Even if the hope is false, they would still stake everything on it. Such is human nature.”
Malcolm glanced toward the courtyard, where hundreds of auras jostled in restless devotion. “Bring in the first flock. Let them witness a miracle with their own eyes.”
“Yes, Mr. Vayne!” Beyond the fortress walls, a wasteland once stripped bare of life now roared like a carnival. Scholars in tattered robes, warriors whose beards were older than kingdoms, and mothers clutching cracked memorial tablets all pressed forward until the crowd became a single heaving creature.
Every face tilted toward the gray-white pillar soaring from the plains, and in every eye burned the same desperate fever.
“That Door of Reincarnation—tell me, can it truly bring my son back?” a woman asked, her voice raw, knuckles white on the splintered memorial tablet she hugged to her chest.
“Lorian, you have lingered on this earth for forty-eight thousand years,” a gaunt elder uttered to his friend, his voice thin yet sharp. “Your final grains of life are sliding away; why not stake everything on one last roll of the dice?”
“Malevolent Path Hall has sworn it: render distinguished service, and the Door of Reincarnation will open to you. Step through, and you may claim eternity… I have cultivated for fifty thousand years, yet I’ve been stuck at Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine for twenty thousand of them. Breaking through seems impossible, and I have less than a hundred years of life left…”
The man called Lorian wavered for a moment, then his hesitation turned to iron resolve. “Okay, okay! That’s enough. I guess it’s better to gamble everything than to vanish into nothingness!”
Scenes like theirs echoed everywhere, one fevered negotiation after another rippling through the crowd. A deep bronze bell tolled from the direction of the Malevolent Path Hall, its single note stretching like a chain across the plains.
“The hour has come! Followers, enter the hall and witness the miracle of rebirth!”
Hundreds of Soul Hunters in sable robes marched from a pillar of ashen light, lining themselves into two silent phalanxes that formed a corridor toward the hall’s shadowy heart. The supplicants arranged themselves by cultivation levels like students before an exam, then stepped into the passage one by one.
At the far end, Malcolm lounged on a throne of interlocking bones, the Soul-Devouring Puppet standing beside him, its eyes vacant, posture perfectly still. The first to be ushered forward were three decrepit titans of cultivation, each trapped at the precipice of Top Level Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Nine, each hearing death’s breath in his ear.
“Greetings, Mr. Vayne!” the trio chorused, bowing so low their spines creaked. Awe warred with naked longing in their clouded eyes.
“Rise… Since you come in earnest, I shall let you behold the Door of Reincarnation with your own eyes,” Malcolm said, lifting two languid fingers. Sigils spun between his hands; a ribbon of gray-white aura shot toward the monumental doors.
The doors parted a hair’s breadth, revealing a lifeless expanse the color of dust and bone. Yet, in that instant, a dazzling panorama burst through: crystal pavilions, birds swirling among rosy clouds, and countless figures strolling in serenity; every face belonged to a cultivator long believed dead.
“T-That’s my senior, Azuryth!” the green-robed elder shouted, his voice cracking. “Didn’t he die from a heavenly tribulation five hundred years ago?”
“Look! That’s Violetta. Didn’t she vanish in a secret realm a thousand years ago?”
“My partner… She is there as well…”
Tears instantly flooded their eyes, their frail bodies shaking as though the weight of longing alone could crush them.
“The Door of Reincarnation spans life and death, past and future,” Malcolm intoned, each syllable soaked in hypnotic power. “Serve faithfully, earn merit, and you may regather your own souls and flesh, and even petition the Lord of Reincarnation to return those you mourn.”
With a muffled thump, the three elders collapsed to their knees, foreheads striking the black stone. “Mr. Vayne, your grace is boundless. We pledge our lives to the Malevolent Path Hall!”
Malcolm’s smile was slight, but satisfaction glittered in his eyes. “Excellent… From this day forth, you are the first elders of reincarnation. Go, tell the masses what you have witnessed.”
Trembling with fervor, the trio sprang up and raced out of the grand hall, shouting the promise of eternity to anyone who would listen. Almost at once, voices from beyond the hall burst in, so charged with emotion that every syllable trembled like a plucked bowstring.
“It’s true! It’s absolutely true! I just saw Azuryth myself!”
“The Door of Reincarnation can summon the dead back to us. It can grant eternity!”
“Join Malevolent Path Hall! This is our last chance to attain immortality!”
The courtyard detonated like dry tinder struck by a spark. Moments earlier, there had been doubts. Now, watching three revered elders quake in open rapture, every reservation dissolved to smoke.
“I’m in! I’ll surrender every magical item I own!”
“As long as they can bring my daughter back from the dead, I’m willing to do anything!”
“Grant me immortality! Give me one more chance to ascend!”
Hysteria spread through the assembly like a fever impossible to contain. Within half a day, the number of converts doubled. Two wavering mid-tier sects arrived en masse and bent the knee. The news cracked across level twelve like distant thunder. Yet the shock that would truly rattle every sky still waited in the wings.
