"No Dao is born from the light.My Dao... was born from the abyss — where only the last breaths of unaccepted souls still linger."
Beneath the altar – An ancient nameless caveLâm Mạc awakened for the second time.But this time, he was not lying on a blood altar, nor drifting in a hazy sea of consciousness — but deep within a dark, damp place, bone-chilling cold clawing at his very marrow.
All around were stone walls smeared with dried bloodstains. Wind whistled through cracks, sounding like ghosts wailing in sorrow.This place... was not meant for the living.
"The Abyssal Prison." — an ancient name erased from the maps of Nam Vực thousands of years ago.It once served as the exile ground for cultivators of forbidden arts, cast out by the heavens and all races, forever severed from the cycle of reincarnation.No one had ever left here alive.
He had been thrown down from the altar — not as mercy, but secretly buried alive by the Lâm Clan's patriarch to suppress the awakening of Thái Sơ.
Within his mind, a stream of ash-gray runes emerged — illegible to anyone else, yet each word burned clearly into his blood and flesh.
"The Path of Life does not begin with living.It begins with Annihilation — of everything that once made you afraid."
Memories surged like a tidal wave:• The night his spirit vein shattered• The white-robed girl pulling her hand away as flames roared• Friends laughing: "No spiritual root? What's there to cultivate?"• His mother's tearful voice: "Stop living, Mạc Nhi…"
His body convulsed. Blood dripped from ears, nose, and eyes."I don't want to remember anymore...""You don't need to remember. You only need… to destroy."
Suddenly, a rift opened within his sea of consciousness.From within, a faint ash-gray flame ignited — then took the form of a skeletal arm.
It was the primordial form of the "Thái Sơ Heart-Origin" — the root of a power sealed since the beginning of time.
"You may choose:• Forget everything, and live as a cripple forever.• Or… step into the abyss, never to return."
Lâm Mạc gritted his teeth.In the darkness, his eyes suddenly lit up. Ash vapor rose from his body, merging with the air.
"I… do not need to turn back."
The entire Abyssal Prison trembled.
An ash-gray spiral surged from beneath Lâm Mạc's feet, engulfing his body like the scales of an ancient god.
Throughout his body — the broken meridians were reconstructed not with spiritual energy, but with Will itself.
This wasn't cultivation.This wasn't a breakthrough.It was—His soul... transforming.
In a hidden corner — someone was watchingFar away, in the deepest part of the Abyss, a pair of crimson female eyes glowed.She wore mourning robes, her face veiled in black silk.On her forehead was a strange mark — a teardrop falling in reverse.
"Thái Sơ... has opened once more," she whispered — and vanished into the dark mist.
"No spiritual root, no sect, no Dao…But I have one thing: a will that no longer bears the shape of man."
"If this abyss has no exit,Then I — will tear the earth open,Forge a Dao, and walk out!"