The Risen Ghost: Master of the Chaotic Origin

Chapter 2 (Rebirth in the Abyss) Chen’s POV

I drew my last breath and fell into the abyss.

A place where even death refused to let me rest.

I was floating when I heard a voice pierce the darkness.

"Wasteful," the voice rasped.

It wasn't a human voice. It sounded like grinding stones, echoing directly in my mind.

I felt a cold hand grip my collar and the rest of my sanity blurred.

When my eyes finally fluttered open, the acidic bite of the mist was gone. I was in a cavern lit by the faint, gentle glow of spirit moss.

An old man sat across from me in a wooden armchair draped in faded grey fabrics. He was a spectral figure covered in robes that seemed to have clothed him for decades. His eyes were pits of absolute darkness, and even though my vision was still clouded, I knew he wasn't human.

“Who knew I would be having a young guest?” His voice was light and steady but it sent chills down my spine.

“You slept long enough, it's been seven days” He added without moving from his seat, but I felt like he was standing right beside me.

“Who are you?” I stuttered as I tried to pull myself up.

“Even your soul won't survive if you have knowledge of whose presence you are in. You would address me only as Grandmaster Mo.”

Every word from his lips made cold seep deeper into my skin.

“Why are…” The question died in my throat when he stood up.

He towered over me, far taller than any man I had when stepped into the light, his cracked porcelain skin illuminated.

“Have some of this,” He stretched a bowl of dark liquid towards me.

“I can't drink it. I don't even know… who you are?” I stammered pulling away from him.

“Now you're scared of drinks?” He scoffed.

Grandmaster Mo lifted the bowl with his mind, his aura rippling through the air. Before I could resist, his spiritual force seized my limbs, the bowl pressed to my lips. My mouth was forced open, and the liquid poured down my throat — without him even touching me.

As soon as he freed me a harsh, burning cough tore from my throat making me gag violently.

“How dare you…..” I charged at him, but a powerful force struck me back, pinning me in place.

That was when I noticed my limbs were revived. The last sound I heard before I died was the cracking of my bones.

The memory of Wei Jue's crushing grip flooded my mind.

“Where’s Mei Ling?” I asked, suddenly aware of who I was.

I struggled to get out of Grandmaster Mo’s mind grip but couldn't.

“Let me go! My sister needs me, my clan needs me,” I yelled, still struggling.

“Of what use is a dead man? Your clan is gone and so is your sister, your gift has been taken. There is nothing you can do,” Grandmaster Mo stated coldly, his grip tighter.

The reminder did more than anger me. It burned my inside.

“I will kill Wei Jue. I will tear down his clan and let him watch will make him suffer! Just let me go!” I yelled with every ounce of strength I had left and unexpectedly Grandmaster Mo’s restraint shook.

It was impossible.

My energy core was gone.

My primordial marrow was stolen.

I was a mediocre man.

How then…. How..?

“That is all you can do. You can’t even kill a stray dog with that energy. You won't survive your journey back home. If you step out of this cave with that energy, you would be crushed into nothing by the mist.” Grandmaster Mo’s voice was calm and steady, like a father advising his son.

“Long Chen, if you dream of revenge, you still have a lot to learn. But if you want to lead an ordinary life in a faraway empire with a new identity, I can make that happen too,” As comforting as his voice was, it burned me.

Ordinary?

That was a word I detested with every life force in me.

I would rather die than let Wei Jue reign.

“I will kill him,” I spat, blood bubbling at my lips.

I had bitten them without realizing.

“Are you ready to give up the last piece of humanity in you?” Mo’s voice turned predatory.

“I am already a ghost,” I pushed.

"I can give you a path. The Chaotic Origin Scripture. It does not use the heavens' mercy. It feeds on the heavens' remains. You will not cultivate Qi; you will devour the lingering, rotting spirits of the gods buried in this valley. You will become a monster to kill a monster. But it's not a path I would advise you to choose.”

I didn't hesitate. “I want his head. I don't care what I have to become to get it.”

Two days after that, my training started.

The training was not a practice; it was a slaughter.

The first year of my training was basic according to Master Mo.

I learned how to stabilize what little energy I had left— how to breath, circulate, and restrain power without a true core.

How to reduce my weight as I walk or jump and achieve light landings. Later I mastered sword fighting and archery.

The next year, I learned to breathe the poison. My lungs turned black, then hardened. Master Mo drowned me with several poison herbs and each time I almost died breathing the poison out of my system.

Until the fourth year.

Then the real training started.

The first lesson of the chaotic origin scripture was simple: do not die.

Grandmaster Mo chained me to the cave floor and shattered the seal suppressing the valley’s dead deities. The moment he stepped back, the spirits came screaming.

They were not souls, they were remnants —bearing grief of slaughter, extinction, and forgotten worship. They tore into me like starving beasts, clawing at my body in search of energy but found nothing, rather, they were trapped.

I learned quickly.

I bit back.

With no dantian. No meridian — I opened myself, the only way to attract spirits — through emptiness. Grandmaster Mo taught me to treat pain as a gateway to pour out my anger until the only thing left in me was hunger.

I devoured my first pantheon of god-spirits, screaming into my soul.

It burned and it froze me at the same time. My bones shattered from the inside and rebuilt themselves. My spine split open again and again as the void gnawed at my marrowless body, carving new pathways where the old ones had been stolen.

I died times without number that year.

But each time, Master Mo dragged me back from the brick and forced another spirit down my throat.

By the end of the seventh year, the mist no longer devoured my flesh.

After my final training on the Heaven devouring void script, the valley no longer tried to kill me.

It feared me.

I stood at a pool the morning I was leaving my training ground. Ten years had passed already and I had changed.

My reflection in the pool of dark waters was unrecognizable. I wasn't the Long Chen I used to know.

Ten years had beaten humanity out of me. What walked out of the valley was no longer a man bit a beast unleashed on the world.

I stepped out of the mist and onto the scorched earth of the borderlands after giving my final bows to Grandmaster Mo.

"Wei," I whispered. The name felt like a curse on my tongue.

The hunt had begun.