All Chapters of Ashbone: The Record of Burning Heaven: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
35 chapters
Chapter 1: The Cure Called Death
The cold in the Bone Prison was absolute, but it was the only thing that kept the burning inside Lin Jin’s marrow from consuming him alive. Lin Jin sat on a bed carved from Thousand-Year Black Ice. Chains the width of a man’s arm, inscribed with suppression runes, shackled his wrists and ankles. He wasn't a criminal. He was the Young Master of the Lin Family. But to the world, he was something else. A monster. A plague. Creak. The heavy stone door groaned open. A beam of warm light cut through the freezing darkness, illuminating Lin Jin’s pale, gaunt face. "Father?" Lin Jin’s voice was hoarse, scraping against his throat like sandpaper. A middle-aged man in luxurious violet robes stepped in. It was Lin Xiao, the Patriarch of the Lin Family. Behind him followed a withered old man carrying a rusted, blood-stained wooden box. "Jin'er," Lin Xiao said, his voice unusually soft. "How is the pain today?" "It hurts, Father," Lin Jin whispered, clutching his chest. "It feels
Chapter 2: The Touch of Ruin
The smell of rotting flesh filled the ice chamber. It was coming from Elder Gu, who was currently rolling on the ground, clutching the stump of his shoulder. His severed arm lay a few feet away, already reduced to a pile of white dust. "You... you devil!" Elder Gu shrieked, his face twisted in horror. "What kind of demonic art is this?!" Lin Jin didn't answer. He looked at his own hands. Pale. Veiny. Surrounded by a faint, distorting grey mist. He felt light. The crushing weight that had sat on his chest for eighteen years was gone, replaced by a cold, hungry current flowing through his veins. Is this power? "This is merely a taste," the ancient voice echoed in his mind, dripping with arrogance. "Now, look ahead. Your 'dear father' seems upset." Lin Xiao, the Patriarch of the Lin Family, was indeed upset. But he was a veteran warrior. His shock lasted only a second before his expression turned to ice. "I knew it," Lin Xiao said, his voice vibrating with Spirit Qi. "I s
Chapter 3: The Hunger
Splash. Cold, foul-smelling water filled Lin Jin’s mouth. He gagged, coughing violently as he dragged himself out of the muck. His lungs burned. His body felt heavy, like it was filled with lead instead of blood. He looked around. Towering, twisted trees blocked out the moonlight. The air was thick with the scent of sulfur and decay. He knew this place. The Blackwater Swamp. It was the dumping ground for the Lin Family’s failed experiments and executed prisoners. It was a place of death. And now, it was his sanctuary. "I... I'm alive," Lin Jin wheezed, collapsing onto a patch of relatively dry moss. He tried to circulate his breathing to heal, a habit from his days of trying to be a cultivator. But the moment he tried to draw in the world's Spirit Qi, a sharp, tearing pain ripped through his chest. "Argh!" He curled into a ball, clutching his heart. It wasn't a wound. It was emptiness. A hollow, gnawing void in his bones that screamed for sustenance. It was a hun
Chapter 4: The Furnace of Bones
The thrill of the kill faded, leaving only the damp cold of the Blackwater Swamp. Lin Jin dragged his feet through the sludge. The energy he had stolen from the Rot-Tooth Wolf was swirling inside him, wild and chaotic. It felt like he had swallowed a ball of hot iron. "It burns," Lin Jin gritted out, leaning against a dead cypress tree. "I thought... I thought you said this was food." "Raw meat gives you strength, but it can also give you parasites," the Entity replied lazily. "You consumed the wolf's essence, but it is impure. It is mixed with the beast's rage, its fear, and its filth. If you don't refine it, you will turn into a mindless monster." Lin Jin shivered. He didn't want to become a beast. He wanted revenge. To get revenge, he needed a clear mind. "How do I refine it?" "Sit down." Lin Jin found a relatively dry patch of roots and sat cross-legged. "Forget everything the Lin Family taught you," the voice commanded. "They taught you to draw Spirit Qi from the
Chapter 5: The Art of Breaking
"Delivery?" The scarred mercenary blinked, then burst into laughter. "Did you hear that? The cripple has gone mad from the pain!" He stepped forward, swinging his machete casually. The blade was chipped but heavy, infused with a faint yellow glow of Spirit Qi. "Look, kid," the mercenary sneered. "Your father wants you dead. But he didn't say how. If you come quietly, I’ll make it quick. One chop to the neck. No pain." Lin Jin didn't move. The grey mist swirling around his fingers was invisible in the thick swamp fog. "I have a better offer," Lin Jin said, his voice flat. "Leave your arms here, and I’ll let you crawl away." The other two mercenaries chuckled, shaking their heads. They thought he was bluffing. They thought he was still the trash of the Lin Family. "Enough talk," the scarred leader growled, annoyed. "Die!" He lunged. It was a simple, brutal overhead chop. A Body Tempering Stage 4 cultivator could split a boulder with this strike. Lin Jin watched the bla
Chapter 6: The Path of No Return
Lin Jin knelt in the mud, sifting through the piles of clothes that no longer had owners. The Ashbone force was terrifyingly efficient. It destroyed flesh and bone, but it left inorganic matter like leather, cloth, and metal mostly intact—unless Lin Jin specifically willed it to corrode. "Three pouches of gold coins. About 150 pieces," Lin Jin muttered, pocketing the heavy sacks. Money was power in the mortal world. But here, in the depths of the swamp, it was just dead weight. He found a dagger on the leader’s belt. It was a decent steel weapon. Lin Jin picked it up. Tzzt. Immediately, faint spots of rust appeared on the hilt where his skin touched the metal. "Damn it," Lin Jin cursed softly. "I can't even hold a weapon?" "You are a furnace," the Entity reminded him. "Until you learn to completely retract your aura, everything you touch will eventually decay. Wrap it in leather. Thick leather." Lin Jin ripped a strip of leather from the dead mercenary’s armor and wr
Chapter 7: The Taste of Iron
"NO! Get away!" Su Qing screamed, her voice cracking with desperation. In her eyes, the scene playing out was pure madness. A ragged, emaciated boy—who looked more like a walking corpse than a warrior—had just thrown himself onto the back of an Iron-Back Crocodile. That was a Stage 2 Spirit Beast. Its scales were as hard as refined steel. Even her Senior Brother, a cultivator at the peak of the Spirit Gathering Realm, had failed to pierce its hide with his sword. This boy had no weapon. No armor. No visible Spirit Qi protection. "He's suicidal!" the injured male disciple cried out, clutching his bleeding leg. "He's just feeding it!" The crocodile roared, feeling the weight on its back. It didn't even bother to bite; it simply thrashed, whipping its massive body to throw the pest off. The force was enough to shatter a boulder. Lin Jin was thrown sideways. His grip slipped on the slimy, moss-covered scales. “Hold on, you fool,” the Entity hissed in his mind. “Do not let
Chapter 8: A Snake in the Grass
The last crocodile collapsed into a pile of grey ash. Lin Jin stood amidst the bone dust, his chest heaving. The grey mist retracted into his pores, leaving his skin looking like cold, polished marble. [System Notification: Iron-Rust Body (Stage 2) - Saturation 80%] The feeling was incredible. The heavy, metallic essence of the Iron-Back Crocodiles had filled the cracks in his foundation. He felt heavy, grounded, as if he could stand still and let a bull ram into him without moving an inch. "Barely passable," the Entity scoffed in his mind, though its tone betrayed a hint of satisfaction. "These lizards had a trace of Earth Dragon blood. Thin, diluted trash... but enough to patch your flimsy mortal frame." Lin Jin ignored the insult. He turned to leave. The hunger was gone, and he had no interest in humans. "Wait! Please, wait!" Su Qing, the beautiful Senior Sister of the Cloud Crane Sect, stumbled forward. She was clutching her side, her white robes stained red with bl
Chapter 9: The Silent Kingdom
The boundary of the Dead Zone was not marked by a wall or a sign. It was marked by silence. One moment, the swamp was filled with the croaking of poison frogs and the buzzing of blood-mosquitoes. The next, there was nothing. No sound. No wind. Even the mist stopped moving, hanging in the air like a frozen grey curtain. Lin Jin stepped across a fallen, petrified log. Crunch. The sound was deafening in the stillness. He looked down. The ground here wasn't mud. It was a thick, grey powder. "Ash," Lin Jin whispered, scooping up a handful. It was dry and cold. "Not just ash," the Entity’s voice resonated, sounding clearer and stronger than it ever had before. "Dust. Of mountains. Of trees. Of armies. This is the aftermath of a 'Corrosion Storm'. A small hiccup from my era." Lin Jin looked ahead. The trees here were stripped of bark and leaves, standing like bleached skeletons reaching for the sky. The water in the pools was pitch black and motionless, reflecting no light. To a norm
Chapter 10: The Harvest of Blood
The ash forest was silent, save for the heavy footsteps of the intruders. There were four of them. They wore crimson robes embroidered with screaming skulls—the mark of the Blood Soul Hall. "Are you sure this is the right way?" the youngest disciple grumbled, kicking a petrified skull into dust. "We’ve been wandering in this soot for hours. The toxicity is eating through my protective talisman." "Quit whining," the leader, a scarred man with a blood-red saber, spat on the ground. "The compass is reacting. The aura of the 'Ancient Evil' is strongest here. If we find the entrance to the Tomb first, the Blood Elder will reward us with a Marrow Cleansing Pill." "Heh," a female disciple licked a dagger. "I hope we run into those Cloud Crane Sect brats. I need fresh blood to refine my 'Crimson Needle' technique." They laughed. It was the laughter of those used to being the predators. They didn't notice that the grey mist around them had stopped moving. High above, perc