Ashes To The Peak

Chapter 2: A Heartbeat in the Slums.

Twenty years later...

"Zareth..."

"Zareth..."

A heavy, rough, and bossy voice echoed out through the cramped, suffocating space of a tiny leaky room.

Outside, a relentless torrent of pouring rain hammered against the decaying roof, sending persistent streams of cold water leaking through the cracks.

Droplets fell rhythmically, splashing onto the stained wooden floorboards.

The room was wretchedly shabby, a crude, makeshift shelter built from rotting wood and rusted iron, hidden deep within the dark belly of the slums.

Inside this space, two men stood beside a crude, makeshift wooden bed.

Upon the thin, filthy mattress lay a young man, completely motionless. His skin was deathly pale and completely lifeless.

"Zareth!" one of the two men barked again.

He leaned over the bed, his massive, calloused hand pressing hard against the young man’s cold, chest, trying to force a reaction out of the corpse-like frame.

"Wake up, you useless bastard! The boss still requires your duties! You still have a massive debt to pay!" the man roared, his voice hoarse and raspy from shouting over the sound of the rain.

He shoved the young man's chest more aggressively, shaking the entire wooden bed, but the body remained stiff and unresponsive.

Growing increasingly pissed off, the rough man spun around toward the second individual in the room.

This second man was far better dressed, wearing the relatively fine, clean robes of a scholar or practitioner, a distinct contrast to the surrounding.

Clutch!

"Bastard!!" the rough man roared, stepping forward and violently gripping the man by his fine collar, crumpling the fabric in his fist. "Did you try to scam us, you fraud? Do you dare to scam the Red Panda Gang, huh?!"

He shook the man back and forth aggressively, his face contorted in a terrifying snarl. "Why is he so cold, huh? He feels as if he was buried under a mountain of ice!" the gang member barked again, spittle flying from his lips. "What kind of a physician are you? Answer me!"

The aggressive interrogation only grew more intense as the thug leaned into the terrified man's face.

"We paid you a lot of coin! A damn fortune! And you came here and fed him that pill! Half a year ago, you swore that he would recover within three months! Now, we leave him alone for just one month, and he ends up in this bloody state?!"

The physician trembled violently in the thug's iron grip, his face turning pale as he raised his hands in a frantic attempt to placate the violent man.

"I... I don't know what happened!" the physician stammered, his voice laced with absolute terror. "My pill works! I swear it works! And I haven't been here for a month either!"

Panicking, the physician tried to pull back, his eyes darting toward the lifeless body on the bed as he pleaded for his life.

"I told you the situation was already hopeless when we first came to this miserable place! You forced me to give a pill to what was practically a corpse!" the physician yelled in his panic, desperately trying to defend his professional reputation while saving his skin.

"This child has been dead for weeks! I checked his pulse the moment I walked in! There is nothing! No breath, no heartbeat, no warmth! Thanks to the cold rain outside, this place is freezing; otherwise, his decaying body would be reeking throughout the entire slums right now!"

Terrified as he was, the physician chose absolute honesty over false hope, knowing a lie would get him killed the moment the corpse began to rot.

"A corpse?! A corpse?!" The gang member’s eyes widened in fury.

His grip on the physician’s collar tightened until the fabric tore slightly. He pulled the trembling man closer, leaning in until his breath fanned across the physician's face, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low growl.

"Do you want to walk back with me to the boss and tell him that yourself? Huh? Tell him that this brat is dead? This brat owes the gang more money than you've ever seen in your life! He helps the gang with specialized tasks, he's the absolute best at what he does, and the boss only trusts him with those matters! And now you stand here and tell me he's a damn corpse?!"

With a furious roar, the man shoved the physician away with immense force, sending him flying across the small room toward a nearby makeshift table.

Thud!!!

The fragile wooden table collapsed instantly under the weight of the physician's body, splintering into pieces as bowls, jars, and wooden tools crashed loudly across the damp floorboards.

"Bastard! If you didn't know your damn job, you should have just said so!" the thug roared, pointing a heavy finger at the physician, who was groaning on the floor, trying frantically to scramble back onto his feet among the debris.

Suddenly—

The thug froze.

Out of the corner of his peripheral vision, he caught a sudden, subtle motion on the makeshift bed. The thin, threadbare rug covering the lifeless young man had twitched ever so slightly.

The thug swung his head so fast his neck nearly cracked, his sharp gaze locking onto the bed. His heart skipped a beat. He stood rooted to the spot, his breath catching in his throat.

Deep within the young man's seemingly dead body, something extraordinary was occurring.

In the pitch-black void of his dormant, frozen conscious sea, a tiny, buried ember sparkled once.

Twitch!

Once again, the young man's fingers twitched against the rough fabric of the rug.

Without wasting a single second, the moment the gang member realized his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, he scrambled forward. He moved so fast he nearly tripped over his own boots, lunging toward the side of the makeshift bed. He dropped to his knees, staring intently into the pale, frozen face of the young man.

"Zareth..." the man whispered, his rough voice faltering slightly. "Zareth!"

Then, right before his eyes, a miraculous sight unfolded.

From the corners of the young man's eyes, clear tears welled up and began to overflow, dripping down each side of his pale, cold face, trailing into his hair and onto the filthy pillow.

A massive wave of relief washed over the thug in an instant. The tension in his shoulders melted away, replaced by a surge of harsh excitement.

"Come here, you bastard physician! Come and check him right away!" the thug yelled over his shoulder, grabbing the physician by his shoulder and hauling him toward the bed. "A dead man cannot shed tears! Hurry the hell up before I break your neck!"

The physician, still trembling from his fall, stumbled forward. He stared in utter disbelief at the weeping face of the young man.

Hastily, he grabbed the boy's cold wrist, pressing his fingers firmly against the pulse point while circulating a thread of his own Qi into the young man's body to inspect his internal meridians.

The moment his energy entered the boy, the physician froze.

He felt it, a heartbeat.

At first, it was as faint as the strike of a feather, nearly unnoticeable beneath the freezing cold of the skin. But with each passing second, the rhythm grew stronger, faster, and more pronounced.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

"Impo... Impossible!" the physician muttered, his eyes bulging as he nearly dropped the boy's wrist. "I swear... I swear this was nothing but a cold corpse when I checked it earlier!"

His frantic gaze swept rapidly across the young man's body, examining him from head to toe, then darting back down to the wrist he was holding in his trembling hand. He could feel the coldness rapidly receding as a surge of hidden warmth spread from the boy's chest outward to his extremities.

Meanwhile, deep within the dark, endless void of his own consciousness, the young man lay suspended in nothingness. Faint, distorted noises began to bleed through the dark realm, accompanied by the muffled exchange of harsh words between two unknown people.

"What... what is going on here?" a voice thought within the vast, echoing void of his mind.

"Who is speaking? Who are these people making so much noise?"

Slowly, painfully, as if lifting the weight of a thousand mountains, the young man parted his heavy eyelids.

The perspective of his sight returned in a blur.

At first, the world was nothing more than smeared shapes and meaningless light. But gradually, the shapes sharpened, revealing two heads staring directly down at him. One was a young adult with a rough, scar-marked face and an aggressive expression, while the other was an older, refined-looking man with a face pale with shock.

Beyond them, past their shoulders, was the rotting wood of a low ceiling and a leaking hole through which cold rainwater steadily dripped.

"What is going on here? Who are these people? Where... where am I? What is this place?"

He tried with all his might to move his arms, to sit up, to defend himself, but his body refused to respond.

!!!

He couldn't move a single limb, a finger, or even turn his neck. He was completely paralyzed, trapped inside a vessel that felt completely foreign to him.

"Zareth! Zareth!" the rough-faced man continued to call out, a wide, relieved grin breaking across his scarred face. "You are awake, you bastard! Finally! You almost got me killed by the boss, you hear me?!"

"Zareth...?!" the consciousness inside the body thought as the name echoed repeatedly through his mind. "Who... who is Zareth?"

Then... it happened.

A violent, excruciating pain exploded through his entire body, tearing into his mind like a hot blade. It was a agony far worse than simple physical trauma, a soul-rending tearing as his consciousness was forcibly bound to a new vessel.

In that heartbeat, a tidal wave of flooded memories rushed into his brain, crashing together with unstoppable force. The memories of two distinct lives collided, shattering and reforming like pieces of a broken mirror.

Fragmented puzzles of two completely different existences merged violently: the memories of Belmoth Cross, the glorious Holy Son, the unmatched genius, the ultimate betrayal, and the agonizing agony of the Nine Heavenly Karma Flames burning his body and soul to ash, and the memories of Zareth Crow, an impoverished, sickly loner living in the bottom-tier slums, working endlessly to clear a crushing debt owed to a ruthless underworld gang.

Belmoth's memories danced vividly behind his eyes, replaying his tragic execution until the moment he burned into nothingness, seamless blending into the memory of Zareth dying quietly in the cold rain on this wretched bed.

Tears rained endlessly down his pale cheeks, mixing with the cold rainwater dripping from the ceiling.

As the realization of his rebirth, his survival, and the endless sea of hatred he had witnessed burst forth, the young man’s paralyzed body jagged violently on the bed.

His chest heaved, and he screamed out loud, a guttural, harrowing roar of rage and agony that echoed through the shabby room, cutting straight through the sound of the pouring rain outside.