Three days later, the summons came.
A red seal burned into the wall of Bone-Wash Hall at dawn. No messenger. No voice. Just five words, burned into stone.
"Ninefold Offering. Trial candidates summoned."
The workers froze. Even the guards stiffened.
No one wanted to be chosen.
The Ninefold Offering wasn't a reward. It was a spectacle. Once a year, the Crimson Soul Sect pulled nine of its lowest-ranking disciples and laborers into a public trial. On the surface, it was framed as a chance, a rare opportunity for the forgotten to ascend.
In truth, it was blood sport.
Nine enter. Only one walks out.
And the one who walks out… doesn't walk out unchanged.
Lu Tian already knew all of this. He'd read the account in the novel. He knew the names of past winners. He remembered what they became.
Tools. Blades. Broken champions with power bought in blood and identity ground into dust.
Still.
He packed his things.
Tied Shidu to his side.
And walked when they called his name.
No fear. No performance. Just silence.
Let them think what they wanted. He wasn't entering for show. He wasn't entering to survive.
He was entering to kill the path they had planned for him.
The trial grounds sat at the base of the Sect's execution cliff, an arena carved into the bones of a long-dead spiritual beast. The walls were jagged ribs. The sky overhead was open, but always gray, as if even the heavens didn't want to see what happened below.
Lu Tian stood with eight others.
Six were laborers, like him, skin like ash, eyes hollow from long work.
The seventh was a young disciple, clearly punished by demotion. Arrogant. Angry. Already scanning the others like he'd already won.
The ninth-
Lu Tian looked twice.
A girl. Younger than the rest. Thin as a thread of smoke. But her eyes…
They weren't afraid.
They were hungry.
She glanced at him. Said nothing. But her gaze lingered.
They didn't speak.
Then the elders arrived.
Draped in silk. Floating above the ground. Dozens of them.
And at the center. Elder Shanxue, the current master of the Outer Division.
His voice echoed, cold and clear.
"The Ninefold Offering begins now."
No preamble. No blessing.
Just a gesture.
And the arena shifted.
Stone sank. The ground fractured. A spiral pit opened below, swallowing all nine of them.
Lu Tian fell with the rest.
Darkness. Dust. Silence.
Then light.
They landed in a chamber lit by spirit fire. Circular. Carved with ritual glyphs. Nine stone doors lined the edge. One for each contestant.
A voice echoed from nowhere. Elder Shanxue again.
"You each have until the third bell to clear your trial gate. The first one to finish may choose the final test. The last one to finish will become it."
Then silence.
Lu Tian stepped toward his gate. It opened.
Behind it is a room that looked like his old world.
Concrete walls. Flickering lights. A single door, locked with chains made of memory.
And in the center-
His father.
Alive.
Bleeding from the stomach. Hands clutching the same envelope. Whispering the same words he never got to say.
Lu Tian froze.
This wasn't an illusion.
This was a scar trap, a technique that forced Abyss cultivators to confront not the memories they used, but the ones they ran from.
He took one breath.
Stepped forward.
And sat down.
"I'm not here to fix you," he said to the figure.
His father didn't speak. Just wept.
Lu Tian closed his eyes.
"This shame... it wasn't mine. I carried it too long."
He reached inside himself. Called the Spiral. Called Shidu.
And with one word "Release." He cut the memory.
Not in hatred. Not in anger.
In truth.
The chains shattered.
The door opened.
And Lu Tian walked through.
Back into the arena chamber.
He wasn't first.
The girl was already there.
She looked at him, blood running down her arm. One eye blackened. Still smiling.
"You're the quiet one," she said.
Lu Tian nodded. "And you're the one who came here to kill."
She smiled wider. "Only the ones who deserve it."
Then she reached out a hand.
"Name's Yan Xue."
He took it.
"Lu Tian."
The bell rang once.
They looked toward the doors.
Five had opened.
Four were still closed.
The next test would come soon.
And the real trial was just beginning.
The second bell rang.
The arena floor shifted again, stone gears grinding as the spiral chamber transformed. Doors closed. Walls sank. New platforms rose from below, each with a different trial carved in blood-red script.
The second phase had begun, combat trials.
Lu Tian stood beside Yan Xue. Neither of them spoke. Neither needed to.
They understood something the others didn't.
This wasn't about fighting each other.
Not yet.
It was about surviving what the Sect found amusing.
Elder Shanxue's voice echoed from above, cold as winter wind.
"Each of you will face a reflection. A fragment of your path, drawn from your own spirit. You cannot defeat it by strength."
"You can only defeat it... by understanding what it is."
The floor cracked.
Circles of light formed beneath each contestant.
Lu Tian's vision blurred.
When it cleared, he stood alone again.
Not in a stone room this time.
But in a desert. Endless gray sand beneath his feet. Sky the color of old parchment. Wind howling like a song sung too late.
And across from him, stood himself.
Not just a copy.
A perfect reflection.
But this Lu Tian didn't carry wounds.
Didn't carry guilt.
This version smiled.
"You're the weight," the reflection said. "I'm what you could've been. If you'd just let go."
Lu Tian didn't draw Shidu.
He couldn't.
The blade was still, silent in his mind, waiting.
Because it knew this wasn't a battle of flesh.
This was the Abyss, testing his foundation.
He remembered this trial.
He remembered what the main character in the novel found after it.
A ring.
An artifact older than the Sect itself.
The Ring of Silent Remnant.
In the book, the protagonist only found it by accident, after losing control in this very trial. After breaking down. After doing something unthinkable.
Lu Tian breathed in.
He didn't want to lose control.
But maybe he didn't have to.
Maybe he just had to let go of something else.
He looked at the reflection again.
It was smiling. It didn't care. It wasn't angry.
It pitied him.
"You carry shame like armor," it said. "But armor rusts. You think pain gives you shape. But it's just a cage."
Lu Tian closed his eyes.
He reached inward.
Not for power.
For silence.
And then he spoke, voice quiet, honest.
"I'm not proud of who I am. I don't like what I've done. But I did it."
"I chose this path."
"And I won't let you rewrite it."
The reflection stopped smiling.
Cracks spread across its body. Thin, at first. Then deeper.
Lu Tian stepped forward.
"I'm not the version that hurts less. I'm the one who remembers more."
He raised his hand.
Didn't strike.
Just placed it on the reflection's chest.
The copy shattered like glass.
The world dissolved.
He woke in the arena chamber, breathing hard, sweat pouring down his back.
Another platform had formed nearby.
A pedestal. Stone. Cracked. Forgotten.
Most contestants wouldn't look at it.
But he remembered.
The ring wasn't given. It was buried inside the broken pedestal. Bound by a seal that fed on silence and loss.
Lu Tian stepped toward it.
Every instinct told him to stop.
The seal twisted as he approached. A silent scream echoed in his skull. Not sound, but pressure, emotional pressure.
To unlock it, he would have to give up something.
Not a memory.
Not a skill.
Something worse.
A part of his identity.
He could feel it, clear as breath. The seal was asking for a trade.
He had to surrender a truth about himself.
A piece of who he had been before the Abyss.
He knelt in front of the pedestal.
Closed his eyes.
And whispered the words:
"I was kind. Once."
The seal pulsed.
Something in his chest tore.
Not pain. Not agony.
Hollowing.
The stone cracked.
The ring rose.
Simple. Dull metal. Etched with a single mark: a closed eye.
[Silent Remnant Ring]
• Passive: Conceals emotional intent and spirit fluctuations.
• Active: Nullifies all detection for three seconds. Cannot be used twice in succession without mental strain.
• Abyss-bound: Resonates with scar-weapons and Spiral techniques.
Lu Tian reached out with shaking hands.
Took the ring.
It felt colder than ice, and heavier than guilt.
He slid it onto his finger.
And felt the Spiral react.
The rings spun faster. More stable.
Even Shidu stirred, whispering approval.
But something else had changed.
A part of him, quiet, kind, almost forgotten, was now gone.
Sacrificed.
Not erased. Just... sealed.
He stood.
And Yan Xue was waiting across the chamber.
She looked at him. Eyes sharp.
"What did you give up?" she asked.
Lu Tian didn't answer.
Because he couldn't.
Not anymore.