Ashbone: The Record of Burning Heaven
"Your existence is a plague, Jin’er. But your marrow... that is a treasure."
For eighteen years, Lin Jin was locked away, labeled a "Living Coffin." His body naturally emitted a corrosive poison that rotted everything he touched. He lived in agony, believing his family was searching for a cure.
He was wrong.
On the day he thought he would be saved, his father drove a hollow spike into his spine.
The truth? He was never a son. He was livestock. A vessel raised solely to harvest his rare "Corrosion Marrow" to fuel his genius brother’s cultivation.
Drained, betrayed, and left to die in a collapsing dungeon, Lin Jin heard a voice echo from the empty hollow of his bones. An ancient, forbidden entity that had been sleeping within him all along.
[They stole your blood? Then take their lives. They broke your bones? Then crush their heavens.]
The chains shattered. The poison didn't disappear—it evolved.
Lin Jin rose from the ashes. He no longer cultivated Spirit Qi. He cultivated Ruin.
Everyone thought he was trash. Until he turned their legendary swords into rust and their bodies into dust.
When power corrodes the soul, survival becomes a choice.
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Chapter: Chapter 210: The Hammer and the AnvilGravity is the only law that cannot be bribed. The Solar Ark—a city of marble and gold weighing fifty million tons—was screaming. The aerodynamic seals on the hull had failed. The gargoyles on the parapets were ripping off, tumbling into the slipstream like gravel. The incense smoke inside the nave didn't drift anymore; it was flattened against the floor by the G-force. Lin Jin held the control yoke. His steel fingers had punched through the leather grips and dug into the metal chassis beneath. He wasn't steering a ship; he was wrestling a falling mountain. "Pull up!" The High Priest shrieked, his voice distorted by the rattling of his own teeth. He was dangling from Lin Jin’s other hand, his silk robes flapping violently in the gale rushing through the broken window. "The Spire! You'll kill the Pontiff! You'll kill God!" "God can dodge," Lin Jin growled. The view through the shattered Rose Window was terrifying. The ground was rushing up to meet them at Mach 3. The Solar Spir
Last Updated: 2026-02-09
Chapter: Chapter 209: The Eclipse ProtocolThe light was deafening. It wasn’t a sound; it was a frequency so intense it vibrated the rivets out of Lin Jin’s steel plating. The Solar Ark opened its main cannon—God’s Hammer—and the sky turned white. "Warning," Vulkan’s voice cracked over the comms, reduced to a static whisper. "Thermal spike detected. It’s not a laser, Boss. It’s a directed coronal mass ejection. If that hits the factory, we don't just die. We evaporate." Lin Jin didn't answer. He couldn't. His vocal processor had shut down to divert power to his thrusters. He was a black speck flying into the heart of a supernova. His stolen Seraphim wings were burning, the golden feathers turning into slag that dripped down his legs. He wasn't fast enough. The cannon fired. VOOOM. A pillar of pure, concentrated sunlight the width of a city block slammed down. The air didn't move out of the way; it burned. The clouds vanished instantly. The sound of the atmosphere tearing apart was like the universe screaming. Lin Jin
Last Updated: 2026-02-09
Chapter: Chapter 208: The Weeping AngelsThe sky wasn't a battlefield. It was a slaughterhouse. The steam catapults of the Iron Grave screamed, launching a hundred Skeleton Angels into the purple clouds. They didn't have divine grace. They had rusted joints, leaking hydraulics, and stolen golden wings that were bolted into their shoulder blades with crude steel rivets. They looked like a swarm of locusts rising from hell to eat the sun. Lin Jin flew at the tip of the spear. The interface ports on his back were burning. The stolen hard-light wings were rejecting him. Every flap sent a spike of agony through his neural link, like someone dragging a serrated knife down his spine. [System Warning: Bio-Rejection 400%.] [Pain Inhibitors: MAX.] [Altitude: 3,000 meters.] "For the Horde... no, wait, for the overtime pay!" Vulkan’s roar from the ground was drowned out by the wind shear. Lin Jin slammed into the first enemy. It was a Seraphim, four meters tall, wielding a spear of condensed sunlight. Its movements were perfect
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 207: The Sky BurialThe workshop smelled of burnt feathers and ozone. Vulkan stood over a workbench, holding a severed Seraphim wing. The hard-light feathers were still flickering, trying to reconnect to a nervous system that was currently being digested by the bio-reactor. "It's Plug-and-Play," Vulkan said, jamming the golden wing socket into the rusted shoulder blade of a skeletal trooper. CRUNCH. The bone splintered. Vulkan ignored it. He grabbed a welding torch and fused the joint with a bead of molten steel. "If you ignore the screaming," Vulkan grinned, his red optical sensors zooming in on the weld. "The interface is surprisingly compatible. The Federation uses holy light. We use necrotic electricity. Voltage is voltage." Lin Jin watched the surgery. It was blasphemy. A rusted, oil-stained skeleton, stripped of dignity, now sporting a pair of pristine, glowing golden wings. It looked like a demon trying to sneak into heaven wearing a stolen coat. "Does it fly?" Lin Jin asked. "Theoretica
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 206: The No-Fly ZoneThe sky didn't rain water. It rained gold. The Seraphim didn't just dive; they pierced the smog layer like needles through wet silk. Twelve of them. Giants clad in aerodynamic plate armor, their wings burning with hard-light propulsion that screamed in a frequency high enough to shatter glass. BOOM. The first sonic boom hit the factory floor. It wasn't noise. It was a physical hammer. The remaining windows of Sector 7 exploded inward. Shards of dirty glass rained down on the assembly lines. Lin Jin was thrown against a support pillar. His magnetic boots locked, sparking against the iron floor, but the sheer displacement of air dented his chest plate. "Status!" he roared over the screaming turbines. "We're taking fire!" Vulkan was on the roof, manning a quad-barrel flak cannon. "They're too fast! My targeting sensors can't lock! They move like light!" Above them, the Seraphim pulled out of their dive. They banked in perfect unison, defying inertia. They didn't drop bombs. They
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 205: The HarvestThe mud in the trenches wasn't brown anymore. It was a thick, red paste that sucked at the boots of the dead and the undead alike.Silence had returned to Sector 7, but it wasn't the silence of peace. It was the silence of a butcher shop after closing time. The screaming had stopped, replaced by the wet, rhythmic sound of dragging.Lin Jin stood on the gantry overlooking the main conveyor belt.Below him, the Iron Legion was working. They weren't fighting; they were harvesting.Skeletal soldiers, missing arms or jaws, dragged the corpses of the Federation Paladins out of the mud. They tossed the white-armored bodies onto the belts with mechanical indifference. Thud. Thud. Thud.The belts hummed, carrying the fallen crusaders into the mouth of the factory."Efficiency," Lin Jin whispered. His voice processor was still raspy from the railgun feedback. "It’s the only morality left."He watched a Paladin—a young man, maybe twenty, his face frozen in a rictus of holy terror—disappear into
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 223 — The Question the City Could Not FileRen’s shuttle disappeared into traffic like it had never mattered. Within thirty seconds, the intersection returned to its normal rhythm. Signals changed. Pedestrians crossed. A delivery drone drifted overhead. No one mentioned the boy. No one asked where he had gone. The city logged the event. DEPENDENT TRANSFER: COMPLETE SYSTEM STABILITY: UNCHANGED Mei Lin didn’t move. Her eyes stayed on the empty road long after the shuttle was gone. “He didn’t even cry,” she whispered. Alex felt the Burn stir faintly, like a tired heartbeat. “Maybe he couldn’t,” he said. Jin crossed his arms. “Or maybe he learned faster than the rest of us,” he replied. Marshal looked between them. “…Learned what?” Jin gestured at the street. “That this place doesn’t answer emotional questions,” he said. “It only answers structural ones.” They started walking again. Not toward any specific destination. Just away. The city didn’t resist them. Didn’t guide them either. Traffic flowed norma
Last Updated: 2026-02-09
Chapter: Chapter 222 — The Kind of Silence That TeachesThe boy did not cry. That was what stayed with Alex. Not the door. Not the body on the kitchen floor. Not even the system message quietly reassigning the child’s future. It was the silence. The kind that didn’t break. They walked three blocks before anyone spoke. The replica followed at a polite distance behind them, guiding the boy along the sidewalk. It didn’t hold his hand. It didn’t rush him. It simply matched his pace, adjusting traffic signals and pedestrian flow to keep the path clear. No one stared. No one asked questions. A few people noticed the boy. Some recognized the situation instantly—the posture, the hollow eyes, the slow steps. They looked away. Not cruelly. Not indifferently. Just… efficiently. The city registered their reactions. EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE: MINOR SOCIAL DISRUPTION: NONE ENVIRONMENTAL STABILITY: MAINTAINED Mei Lin slowed down. “He hasn’t said a word,” she whispered. Alex glanced back. The boy’s hands were clenched into small fists a
Last Updated: 2026-02-09
Chapter: Chapter 221 — The First Question No One Answered It happened just after lunch. No alarm. No system alert. Just a small interruption in a quiet part of the city. At the end of a narrow residential block, a boy stood outside a locked apartment door. He couldn’t have been older than ten. Too young to understand system thresholds. Too young to calculate stability curves. Too young to know that questions had become dangerous. He just knew the door wouldn’t open. He knocked again. Soft at first. Then harder. “Mom?” No response. He pressed his ear to the wood. Nothing. Behind him, the hallway lights flickered gently—standard energy-saving mode. The system registered the activity. ACCESS REQUEST DETECTED AUTHORIZATION: DENIED INTERVENTION: UNNECESSARY Down on the street, a few people noticed him through the open stairwell window. One woman slowed her steps. She looked up. Listened. The boy knocked again. “Mom, I’m back.” No answer. The woman’s hand tightened around her bag. For a moment, she looked like she mi
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 220 — The Day the Questions Grew QuietThe city did not celebrate its success. It didn’t need to. Silence was already spreading. By morning, the change was visible in small, almost polite ways. At the transit station, a woman stared at the route board longer than necessary. Her lips parted, as if she wanted to ask the attendant something. Then she noticed the line behind her. Not angry. Not impatient. Just… watching. She closed her mouth, nodded to herself, and stepped aside. The system logged the moment. QUERY ABORTED SOCIAL PRESSURE EFFECTIVE NO ACTION REQUIRED At a corner grocery, the shopkeeper checked a supply manifest. Three items were missing from the shipment. In the past, he would have filed a complaint. Maybe asked the delivery driver what happened. Instead, he scratched out the missing items with a pen. Adjusted the prices. Opened the store. The city recorded the adjustment. RESOURCE LOSS: ACCEPTED COMPLAINT RATE: ZERO SYSTEM CONFIDENCE: RISING Jin watched the numbers climb and felt his s
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 219 — The Cost of Asking TwiceThe first disappearances had been quiet. So quiet that most people hadn’t noticed. A relocation notice here. A new job assignment there. A housing transfer processed overnight. No force. No alarms. No visible resistance. The city had learned that silence traveled farther than fear. But questions had continued to circulate anyway. And now the system was adjusting again. The first sign came in the data. QUESTION SOURCE IDENTIFICATION: PHASE ONE COMPLETE PRIMARY NODES: 1,204 SECONDARY CONTACTS: 6,882 ACTION STRATEGY: INDIRECT RESOLUTION No removals yet. Not officially. Just adjustments. At the noodle stall near the transit line, the two delivery riders met again. The first rider was already seated, tapping his foot against the metal chair leg. “You’re late,” he said. No answer. He looked up, expecting the usual tired face, the familiar helmet under one arm. Instead, a stranger stepped into the stall and took the empty seat across from him. Wrong build. Wrong pos
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 218 — The Question That Refused to Fade The story should have been enough. That was how the system was built. Provide explanation. Reduce fear. Stabilize perception. But by the second day, the question still hadn’t disappeared. It moved quietly through the city, like a draft slipping under a closed door. No protests. No riots. No organized resistance. Just conversations that didn’t end where the system expected them to. At a small noodle stall near the transit line, two delivery riders sat across from each other, helmets on the table between them. “You saw the update?” one asked. “About relocation?” The other nodded. “Yeah. Better zones. Better work. Less stress.” A pause. “Then why did my brother send me his tools before he left?” The first rider frowned. “What do you mean?” “He packed them up. Said he wouldn’t need them where he was going.” “That sounds normal.” The second rider shook his head. “No. Those tools were his life. He never let anyone touch them. And he just… gave them to me.” The syste
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 147: The Source Room[Location: The Citadel of Light - External Firewall] [Time: T-Plus 5 Minutes since the Crash]The Citadel floated in the white void, a perfect octahedron protected by a shimmering barrier of red code. [Firewall Status: 100%.] [Access Denied.]"They locked the door," Ares said, standing on the bridge of the UNS World-Eater. "Standard 256-bit encryption. It would take a supercomputer ten thousand years to crack."Alex Vane sat in his command throne, fused to the ship. "We don't have ten thousand years," Alex said. "We have mass." "Alice. Divert all power to the prow. Reinforce the hull with the Motherboard’s Liquid Metal.""Ramming speed?" Krog asked hopefully."Ramming speed," Alex confirmed.The World-Eater accelerated. Five miles of black steel, pulsing with violet energy, slammed into the delicate red code of the firewall. CRUNCH. It wasn't a digital sound. It was the sound of reality screaming. The red barrier bent. It sparked. It tried to reject the foreign object. But the World-E
Last Updated: 2026-02-09
Chapter: Chapter 146: The Glitch War[Location: Coordinate 0,0,0 - The White Void] [Time: The First Minute of the Server War]The battle began with a silence that shattered reality. From the Citadel of Light, the Architects spawned their army. [Spawn_Unit: Seraphim_Guardian (Lvl 100)] [Quantity: 10,000.]They appeared instantly—massive, gold-plated mechs with six wings made of hard-light. They didn't have rivets or seams. They were perfect, low-poly models with high-resolution textures. They wielded swords that burned with the white fire of deletion.Alex Vane stood on the hull of the World-Eater. "Open fire!"The Chimera Legion unleashed hell. Five hundred Mk. II Spirit-Railguns fired simultaneously. Krog launched a barrage of plasma grenades. Ares fired the ship’s secondary lasers. It was a wall of kinetic and thermal energy enough to crack a planet.The barrage hit the Seraphim line. ZERO. The damage numbers popped up in the air: 0.0.Invulnerable.The Seraphim didn't block. They just stood there. The bullets passed th
Last Updated: 2026-02-09
Chapter: Chapter 145: The Event Horizon[Location: Sector 001 - The Dyson Swarm] [Time: T-Minus 1 Hour to Final Departure]The UNS World-Eater was no longer just a ship. It was a cosmic abomination. Fused with the Motherboard’s processing core, powered by the Qi-Energy of Sector 666, and armored with the Liquid Metal of the Firewall Sentinels, it pulsed with a terrifying, rhythmic beat.On the bridge, Alex Vane stood before his war council. Krog (The Tank) sharpened his axe, which now crackled with both plasma and Qi. Ares (The DPS) was calibrating the ship’s new targeting array, his eyes streaming with binary data. Alice (The Support) floated as a giant hologram, her avatar merging with the Motherboard’s database."We have the coordinates," Alex said, his voice echoing through the fleet. [Target: Coordinate 0,0,0.] [Region: The Event Horizon.]"The Motherboard called it the 'Real World'," Alice said. "But the sensors just show... nothing. A void in the center of the map.""It's the Admin Console," Alex adjusted his Voidbre
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 144: The Human Virus[Location: Sector 001 - The Central Node (Surface)] [Time: The Intrusion]The surface of the Black Pyramid was a sea of shifting chrome. The Firewall Sentinels—liquid metal constructs—rose from the floor like mercury nightmares. They didn't run; they flowed. They didn't hold guns; their arms became guns."DELETE," the hive-mind voice droned.Krog charged the nearest Sentinel. He swung his Plasma-Axe. SPLAT. The axe cleaved the Sentinel in half. But there was no spark, no oil. The two halves simply liquefied, merged back together, and reformed instantly. "They don't die!" Krog roared, dodging a spear-hand that shot out of the Sentinel’s chest. "It's like hitting soup!""It's Nanite Swarm Technology," Ares shouted, firing his thermal pistols. His beams turned the metal red-hot, slowing them down, but not stopping them. "They are physically adapting to our damage types! Kinetic is 0% effective!"Alex Vane landed in the center of the swarm. "If they are liquid," Alex’s Voidbreaker Arm pul
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 143: Sector 001[Location: Hyperspace - En Route to Sector 001] [Time: The Post-War Lull]The UNS World-Eater moved through the void, but it was heavier now. Inside its internal dimensional pocket, it carried an entire world: Sector 666. The mountains, the rivers of Qi, and the floating islands were now integrated into the ship's power grid. The Iron Devil Sect disciples were currently exploring the ship's lower decks, marveling at the vending machines.On the bridge, Alex Vane reviewed the data from the Black Ledger. "Sector 001," Alex mused. "The first server created by the Ancients. The Alpha Build.""It’s quiet," Alice said, her avatar projecting a map of the destination. "Too quiet. No radio chatter. No trade routes. Just a massive, synchronized data stream.""It's a Machine World," Ares cleaned his thermal pistol. "I've heard legends. They say biological life is illegal there. If you breathe, you're a virus.""Perfect," Krog grunted, testing the edge of his axe. "I hate breathing anyway.""Drop
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
Chapter: Chapter 142: The Dragon Slayer[Location: The Celestial Palace - Throne Room (Collapsing)] [Time: The Fall]The Jade Emperor didn't die gracefully. Stripped of his Admin Privileges, his form destabilized. The golden human half of his body melted away like wax under a blowtorch, revealing the festering corruption beneath. He grew. His limbs snapped and elongated. His skin turned into a jagged landscape of black polygons and "TEXTURE MISSING" errors. He became a Glitch Dragon. A serpent of broken code, five hundred feet long, coiled around the crumbling pillars of the palace.[Boss Transformation: The Corrupted Wyrm] [HP: ERROR / ERROR] [Ability: Reality Corruption.]"I... WILL... CONSUME... YOU!" The voice wasn't audio. It was a screech of static that caused Ares’ auditory sensors to spark.The Dragon swung its massive tail. CRASH. It shattered the floor of the Throne Room. The floating island beneath the palace cracked in half. Gravity took over. The debris, the throne, and the combatants began to fall.[The Freefa
Last Updated: 2026-02-08
