There was no light.
Only the stench of liquefied bone and ancient screams, buried in the soil like broken prayers. Li Shen floated somewhere between death and dream, body torn, mind fractured, soul flayed open. The rot had not just tested him.
It had consumed him.
Somewhere deep beneath the Garden, beneath the roots of the dead god-tree, he hung in a womb of infection. His limbs were suspended in congealed filth, his wounds sealed with scabbed ichor. Every heartbeat echoed like a war drum. He did not breathe, yet something moved in him.
He dreamed of voices.
Whispers. Some familiar—his master's voice, his clan, his own younger self—but warped, drowned beneath gurgling rot. They did not speak in words, but in intention. And all of them asked one thing:
"Will you survive this?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The thing growing inside him answered for him.
The cocoon split.
With a wet, unnatural crack, Li Shen's eyes shot open. Pale, burning—not gold, not crimson, but something between the living and the damned. He fell from the cocoon and landed on his knees, vomiting blood, bile, and something blacker than shadow.
Steam rose from his flesh.
His wounds were healed, but wrong. Flesh too tight over muscle. Veins pulsing with a Qi that was no longer just his own. His bones clicked with every movement, as if the Garden had rebuilt him from things that were never meant to fit together.
He stood.
Around him was the Heartchamber of the Garden—the corpse-tree looming above, shriveled now, its branches twisted into the sky like arms that had finally found rest. Beneath it, a pool of still, black water reflected his image.
He almost didn't recognize himself.
His skin was the color of frostbite. Veins pulsed like ink beneath the surface. His left arm bore a brand now—three jagged lines etched like rot scars across the muscle. And in his chest, where once his core had pulsed with golden light, there was only a void.
A void that hungered.
A message echoed, not aloud, but deep in his mind.
> You have consumed the Trial of Rot. The Garden bows to you. The Fourth Seal is broken.
Power unlocked: Devourer's Embryo.
New Skill: Black Pulse Qi.
New Trait: Graveborne Resilience.
New Title: Heir of the Dead Root.
Li Shen staggered back. The voice had come from within—not the system voice he knew. This one was older, colder. Like it came from the rot itself. And it whispered not just of power, but of cost.
He touched his face.
His flesh felt real. But his soul did not.
"...I'm still me," he muttered.
But even the words sounded foreign.
A low rumble echoed through the chamber.
From the roots of the corpse-tree, they came—the Rotborn Champions, echoes of the strongest beasts he had slain in the Garden. Not mindless like before. These moved with purpose. With memory.
Three hundred enemies had died.
Now their remnants rose to test his rebirth.
Li Shen took one breath.
Then moved.
The first Rotborn lunged, mouth split wide with bone-saw teeth. Li Shen ducked beneath its strike, drove his heel into its jaw, and ripped the monster's head clean with his bare hand. Black blood sprayed in a geyser. He turned, flinging the skull into a second creature's face before blasting it with a surge of Black Pulse Qi.
It exploded like a bag of meat.
Another charged from the left—a quadruped beast stitched from flesh and armor. Li Shen dashed forward, faster than before, and drove his new blade—blackened, curved, forged in the rot—through its heart.
The rot welcomed him now.
Where before he burned it away, now it obeyed.
He clenched his fist.
Roots surged from the ground, impaling a swarm of insectile Rotborn, lifting them into the air before detonating them in a burst of acidic spores.
One by one, he felled them.
Not with desperation, but with clarity. He moved like a man dancing on the edge of madness, every strike calculated, every kill feeding something deeper inside him.
And when it ended—again—it ended in silence.
The chamber was soaked in black blood. His body ached. But he did not fall.
A final message echoed:
> Trial Complete.
You have survived death. You have consumed rot.
You are no longer the same.
Li Shen stood in the stillness.
Alone.
But stronger.
And far, far closer to something he couldn't name.
The black blood hadn't even begun to dry before the rot began to shift again.
Li Shen's breath came slow and deep as he stood amidst the mountain of corpses—his rebirth trial concluded, his soul burning with new power. His arm still smoked with Black Pulse Qi, veins glowing faintly like embers caged beneath the skin. He had changed—body, mind, soul—but there was no euphoria. No celebration.
Only silence. And then...
A sound.
Wet. Fleshy. Wrong.
He turned sharply.
The flesh beneath the Garden of Rot trembled like it was trying to crawl away from something even it feared. The corpse-tree above him let out one final groan, then snapped in half, releasing a burst of moldy breath. From the chasm in its ruined roots, something began to rise.
Not a beast.
A memory given form.
It had his face.
Twisted. Bloated. Unblinking white eyes bulging from black sockets, mouth stretched too wide, the jaw cracked open like a dislocated mask. Its body was an abomination—stitched together from every Rotborn he had killed, muscle like coiled rope, organs visible beneath translucent flesh.
> [Final Trial: Face Thyself.]
The Garden rejects the impure reborn.
You must kill the reflection to ascend.
Li Shen's grip on his blade tightened.
So this was the Garden's final act—a mockery born of his own hatred, regrets, and rage. He took a step forward, eyes narrowing.
"Then I'll kill what I was," he muttered.
The monstrosity shrieked and lunged.
It moved faster than any beast he'd fought before. Its arm—a cluster of bone and thorns—slammed into the ground beside him, sending rot-soaked stone flying. Li Shen spun, sliding beneath the strike, and countered with an upward slash across the creature's gut.
The flesh parted—and immediately stitched itself back together.
It laughed. His laugh. Distorted.
"Not enough," it hissed in a voice that was both his and not.
Li Shen responded by igniting his new Qi.
Black Pulse surged from his core like a tidal wave. Shadows ripped from his limbs, forming tendrils of corrupt energy. He vaulted into the air, spun, and launched a barrage of dark spears toward the reflection.
Five struck. Three missed. One exploded in the creature's throat.
It staggered. And grinned.
A new arm burst from its shoulder. Then a second. Then a third.
It roared—a gurgling, echoing sound that caused the entire Garden to tremble.
Then the real fight began.
They collided like titans.
Steel met bone. Qi met curse. The very ground beneath them cracked, liquefied, reformed. Each blow was a storm—each parry an earthquake. The reflection lashed with mutated limbs, vomited bile that melted stone, and stabbed with blades formed from its own ribs.
Li Shen ducked, weaved, slashed. He absorbed damage that should've killed him. Called on Graveborne Resilience to stand back up. He let the creature rip open his side—only to drag it in close and detonate a pulse of Qi directly into its chest.
They battled for hours. Days. Or perhaps seconds.
Time didn't exist in the rot.
At last, the reflection faltered.
Its limbs sagged. Its eyes dimmed. Li Shen, bleeding from a dozen wounds, pressed forward with a final roar—driving his blade through its skull and pouring every last drop of his Qi into the core.
The reflection convulsed.
And screamed.
Not in rage.
In relief.
It smiled—genuinely—for one heartbeat before its body collapsed into ash.
Silence fell.
Then a system chime.
> [Final Trial Complete.]
You have devoured your former self. Ascension unlocked.
Skill Gained: Hollow King's Will
Trait Gained: Shadowborne Evolution
System Integration: 98% Complete.
Li Shen dropped to his knees.
Not from pain. From sheer weight.
He could feel it—the vast power crawling inside him, struggling to stabilize. His body was a cage now, barely able to contain what festered within.
He rose slowly.
Above him, the corpse-tree began to dissolve into dust. The Garden folded in on itself, the ceiling of bone vanishing into void. A path opened behind him—not carved by hand, but formed by sheer submission.
The Garden had acknowledged him.
He turned once, glancing back at the rot-soaked battlefield.
"I survived," he whispered.
But the cost was still unknown.