Reborn before my betrayal

The Ashen March

The sulfurous fog thickens into a heavy, charcoal grease as the sixty rogue cultivators move deeper into the low-lying craters of the Ashen Basin. Nobody speaks. The only sounds are the rhythmic, metallic clinking of chipped weapons and the wet, ragged coughing of exhausted men.

Kaelen walks near the front of the line, his left side leaning heavily against a makeshift crutch carved from a petrified root. Every step sends a violent tremor of agony from his cracked ribs straight up his neck, but his posture remains rigid. He doesn't look back at the trail behind them. He knows the imperial scout ravens are already circling the upper cloud layer, their black feathers cutting through the bruised purple sky like ink drops in water.

"He's burning up," Mara whispers, her voice cutting through the heavy air as she drops back from the scouting line.

Kaelen halts, pivoting on his good leg.

A few paces behind him, Vane stumbles. The massive, barrel-chested commander collapses to one knee, his great-axe slipping from his fingers to clatter against the grey, brittle stones. The skin around his neck collar has turned a horrifying, metallic shade of green. Dark, thick fluid is leaking from his nostrils, his chest heaving as the midnight yin energy begins its peak, triggering the copper-sap toxicity inside his marrow.

"Get up, Vane," Mara growls, grabbing his shoulder armor, but her own boots slide across the loose shale under his immense weight. "The vanguard's forward riders will reach the ridge within twenty minutes. Get up!"

"Leave me," Vane rumbles, his voice lacking its usual thunder, sounding like grinding gravel. He spits a glob of black blood onto the ash. "My meridians... they’re locked. The iron-skin is turning inward. I can't move my legs."

The surrounding rogue mages slow to a halt, their eyes wide with sudden panic. If their commander falls here, the fragile alliance holding these sixty desperate exiles together will shatter before they ever see the enemy.

Kaelen hobbles over, his crutch clicking sharply against the stone. He stands over Vane, staring down at the dying commander with cold, analytical violet eyes.

"I told you the copper-sap would turn your marrow to ash," Kaelen says, his voice flat, devoid of sympathy. "Your Iron-Skin Mantra is compressing the poison directly into your liver meridian. If I don't vent the pressure now, your heart will rupture in three minutes."

Vane raises his head, his single good eye bloodshot and wild with pain. "Then bleed me... boy. Or take my axe and lead them. Don't let them freeze out here."

Kaelen doesn't touch the axe. Instead, he drops his crutch, balancing his weight precariously on his good leg. With his unbroken left hand, he reaches into his tunic and pulls out the jagged bone dagger Mara gave him.

"This is going to destroy your current cultivation tier, Vane," Kaelen says, his violet eyes locking onto the commander’s trembling pupils. "You will never wield the Iron-Skin Mantra again. But you will live to see the Azure Palace burn. Choose."

"Do it," Vane growls, his teeth grinding together until they bleed.

Kaelen moves with immediate, surgical precision. He doesn't use mana—he doesn't have any. He relies entirely on his future knowledge of Vane's specific physical anatomy. He drives the jagged tip of the bone dagger three inches deep into the soft, unarmored flesh just beneath Vane’s right armpit—the exact intersection of the liver and lung meridians.

Sssss!

A foul-smelling, jet-black stream of pressurized, toxic blood sprays outward from the wound, sizzling as it hits the cold grey stones of the basin.

Vane arches his back, letting out a raw, agonizing scream that rattles the petrified roots above them. His grey, stone-hard skin violently softens, the metallic green hue around his neck receding rapidly as the stagnant, toxic energy vents from his body. He collapses forward, panting heavily, his muscles trembling but no longer locking up.

"He's breathing normally," Mara breathes, her single eye staring at Kaelen with a mixture of awe and deep suspicion. "How did you know the release valve was there?"

"I watched him die from it once before," Kaelen says smoothly, picking his crutch back up from the ash. He doesn't offer Vane a hand. "Get him on his feet. We've reached the threshold."

Kaelen turns toward the front.

A sudden, high-pitched shriek tears through the heavy sky. Three imperial scout ravens drop out of the upper cloud layer, their eyes glowing with red tracking magic as they circle directly over the rogue caravan.

A mile back, atop the jagged volcanic ridge they just abandoned, a massive horn blares. The sound carries the unmistakable, heavy vibration of the Imperial Legion’s vanguard infantry. The three thousand mages and five thousand infantry have arrived at the mouth of the valley.

But Kaelen isn't looking at the ridge. He is looking down into the massive, hollowed-out crater of the Ashen Basin directly ahead of them.

The ground there isn't made of rock. It is made of millions of colossal, calcified skeletal remains—the ancient battlefield of the First Cataclysm. Massive ribs the size of palace pillars arch over a field of pure black sand, and in the center of the graveyard sits the Second Obelisk, its dark geometric surface humming with a deep, silent frequency that makes every rogue cultivator's light-aspected weapons instantly grow cold and dim.

"The magic... it's gone," one of the rogue mages panics, clutching his silver staff as the glowing crystals embedded in the wood flicker and die. "My core is suppressed! I can't feel my fire elements!"

"Neither can the legion," Kaelen says, his voice carrying a dark, chilling confidence as he takes his first step onto the bone-strewn floor of the basin. He looks back over his shoulder at the sixty terrified exiles, his violet eyes burning with absolute certainty. "Draw your steel blades. The hunt is over. Welcome to the slaughterhouse."