Cultivator of the End: I Refine My Own Death-Chapter 104 – Blood of My Blood

The wind howled through the jagged peaks of the Valley, its chilling gusts clawing at Rin's skin as he trudged deeper into the labyrinth of the mountain pass. The shattered remnants of the heavens still trembled in his chest, an ever-present echo of the terrible power he had absorbed. It was a burden and a blessing, one that could both unmake and remake the world, depending on how it was wielded. But now, with every step he took, the weight of the past grew heavier, pressing down on him like a stone.

The Valley had long been forsaken, a place where the echo of death hung thick in the air. This was the land where cultivators' ambitions had led to their destruction—where the fallen whispers of the dead had become his greatest teachers. But today, as Rin's boots sank into the blood-soaked earth, something felt different. There was life here, hidden beneath the layers of sorrow and ruin.

A village.

It wasn't large, perhaps no more than a few dozen people, their homes crudely built into the rock itself, as if they had grown out of the mountain like twisted roots. But what drew Rin's gaze wasn't the village itself—it was the scent. The smell of fresh food, of life. It was a scent that made his heart beat faster, as if it had been too long since he had felt something so... ordinary.

As he walked closer, he noticed the people were strange. They moved in slow, unnatural unison, their eyes hollow, their faces gaunt, as if some primal life force had been drained from them. They wore robes that once marked the Azure Echo Sect, but now, they were little more than tattered remnants of their former glory. And yet, Rin could feel it—there was something alive here, something that pulsed with ancient energy.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw her.

A small child, no older than six or seven, wearing a simple tunic of faded blue, was running towards him. Her face was smeared with dirt, her hair disheveled, but her eyes—they were wide with recognition.

"Elder Brother Rin!" she cried, her voice full of joy and innocence, as she threw herself into his arms.

Rin staggered back, his breath caught in his throat as he looked down at her. The weight of her words slammed into him like a hammer. Elder Brother Rin.

He had heard those words before—so many years ago, from the lips of a child no older than this girl. A child who had once held his heart in her small hands. It was... impossible. He could barely remember her name, but he knew her. His thoughts began to unravel as the memories flooded back—his old life in the Azure Echo Sect, the days before death had consumed him, before his path had led him to this place, this fate.

The child's innocent smile seemed to pierce through the heavy wall of his emotions. She was so familiar, yet so strange. It was as if she had never left his side. She wasn't the girl he had known, but she was still his past—still a piece of himself that he had buried beneath his hatred and ambitions.

"Elder Brother Rin, where did you go? Why did you leave us? We've been waiting for you."

Her words stung, far sharper than any blade. They were the cries of his past—of the promises he had made, of the bonds he had broken. In this child, Rin saw the face of everything he had lost, everything he had chosen to sacrifice for power.

His heart wavered, and for a moment, the idea of simply turning away, of leaving her behind, felt impossible. She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to be alive. Not in this twisted form.

But as he held her, something flickered in his senses. There was a sickly undercurrent to the child's warmth—a wrongness that coiled around his mind, gnawing at him, like an itch he couldn't scratch. The village, too, felt wrong. The people—so pale, so drained of vitality—were they really alive? Or were they nothing more than husks, vessels for something else?

The child pulled back, her small hand reaching for his. "Come," she said softly, her voice lilting with a kind of innocent command. "You'll see."

He followed her instinctively, drawn by the force of nostalgia, by the need to understand what had happened. They moved through the village, past hollow-eyed survivors who barely acknowledged his presence. Some turned their heads to look, their faces briefly flickering with recognition, but they did not speak. Their eyes were glazed, their movements deliberate but devoid of true thought. They were like puppets, and whoever had crafted them held their strings tightly in hand.

At the heart of the village, Rin found the source of the disturbance.

There, standing tall above the village, was a man cloaked in the remnants of the Azure Echo Sect's robes. His aura was suffocating, oppressive—almost like a presence that had overrun the very air around him. It was a familiar presence, one Rin had not expected to encounter in this place.

It was his former junior brother, Yan Shui, who had once been a bright, eager disciple, eager to learn the ways of cultivation. Rin remembered him as a young, carefree boy, full of potential. But that was long ago, before the skies had split, before the truths of the world had been revealed, before Yan Shui had tasted the darkness of power.

Now, Yan Shui stood at the center of a strange ritual, surrounded by crude, glowing talismans, their power resonating with the very air. His eyes, once warm, were now cold, filled with something darker—something twisted.

"Rin," Yan Shui's voice was like a knife scraping across a stone surface. "You have returned. You must see what we've built."

The child at Rin's side tugged at his sleeve. "Elder Brother, you'll help, won't you?" Her voice was pleading, her wide eyes full of hope.

Rin turned back to the girl. Her innocence was deceiving. Her gaze, her words—they were all meant to pull him into this nightmarish creation. She wasn't truly his sister, not anymore.

The truth hit him like a spear.

They weren't cultivating here. They were being cultivated into.

The villagers were not practitioners—they were vessels, and Yan Shui was the cultivator. The once-innocent children, the elders, the families—they had been twisted into something else entirely. They were being transformed into spirit constructs, animated corpses whose souls had been devoured and replaced with something darker, something designed to obey.

And now, Rin realized the full extent of the horror that had unfolded in the shadows of his past. Yan Shui had abandoned the teachings of the Azure Echo Sect, seeking to forge a path of power that led to the creation of this unholy dominion. He had turned his fellow sect members into tools of his twisted ambitions. These people—these children—were nothing but puppets now.

Rin's fingers tightened into fists. His body shook, the Death Refinement Dao surging through him in a torrent of grief and fury. His former junior brother had become something unrecognizable—a parasite, feeding on the very essence of life to create a new, perverse form of cultivation.

The child at his side was the final straw. She wasn't real—she was a vessel, a tool to draw him in, to remind him of what he had once held dear. She was no different from the others—no different from the rest of the souls Yan Shui had devoured.

"You have to choose," Yan Shui's voice interrupted Rin's thoughts, his cruel smile stretching across his face. "Will you destroy this place, burn it all to the ground, and condemn these souls to the void? Or will you join me, as we ascend together, becoming gods of a new world?"

Rin's heart twisted. The memories of the past—of the sect, of his former life—flooded his mind. But this was not the life he had chosen anymore. This was not the world he was meant to protect.

The child reached up to him once more. "Elder Brother... please. Save us."

Rin closed his eyes. The decision was clear, but it was not easy. He had never been one to shy away from sacrifice, but this... this was different. These were the people he had once called his family, the ones he had sworn to protect. And now, he had to decide: could he kill the remnants of his past?

His fingers trembled as they moved toward the hilt of his blade.

"I'm sorry," Rin whispered.

And then, with a single, devastating strike, he began the cleansing.

To be continued...