The Mortal and the Abyss

Xu Lian ran.

The wind howled like a living beast, clawing at her robes, biting into her skin, dragging her toward the abyss below.

Her breath came in ragged, uneven gasps, her body half-stumbling through the treacherous labyrinth of 归墟山脉 (Guī Xū Shānmài), the Mountains of the Returning Void. Around her, the jagged peaks loomed, silent sentinels of stone and shadow.

These mountains had swallowed empires.

They were older than memory, their spires a monument to a war long since forgotten, where the heavens had clashed with the earth, and neither had won. The dead had never left this place. Their whispers rode the wind, murmuring through the valleys, pressing against Xu Lian’s ears like the ghost of a half-remembered lullaby.

She had entered this cursed land seeking a legend.

Now, she was running for her life.

Behind her, the shrieks of 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo), the Soul-Devouring Demons, split the night. Their cries, high-pitched, ragged, echoed through the rock passages, warping and twisting, making it impossible to track their movements.

She didn’t need to see them to know they were closing in.

Her legs burned, her chest heaved, but she wasn’t fast enough.

Xu Lian bit down on her lip, tasting blood as her boot slipped on loose stone. She barely caught herself against the sharp surface of a crumbling rock wall. Pain seared through her shoulder, the deep claw wound on her back pulsing with fresh agony.

Still, she ran.

The path was narrow, winding, treacherous. The 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) were relentless. They flickered in and out of sight, moving with an erratic, unnatural grace. Their limbs bent at impossible angles, their forms shifting like ink dispersing in water. They did not hunger for flesh.

They craved the soul.

She knew what would happen if they caught her.

They would tear her essence from her body, dragging it screaming into the 阴间 (Yīn Jiān), the Shadowed Realm, leaving behind nothing but an empty husk, a hollow shell that would never rot, never decay, only stare blankly at the sky until the end of time.

The thought sent a surge of panic through her veins.

She had come here seeking an immortal, a man who had severed all ties to heaven and earth, who resided at the peak of this cursed mountain. A cultivator whose power defied even the will of the gods.

But now, as the shadows crept closer, as the demons’ whispers slithered through the darkness, she wondered,

Had she chased a myth straight into the mouth of death?

A deafening shriek.

Too close.

Xu Lian spun, fingers reaching for the talismans tucked inside her sleeve. Her hands trembled, but she managed to pull one out, a fragile ward inscribed with crimson sigils.

She flung it toward the creatures.

A pale golden light flared against the darkness. For a single, fragile moment, the 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) hesitated, recoiling from the burst of spiritual energy. But it was too weak, too faint. The light faded within seconds.

Her vision blurred. The loss of blood was too much.

"Keep moving. Keep moving!"

The path ahead twisted into darkness. The ground beneath her shifted, uneven and cruel. She could no longer hear the shrieks behind her, only the frantic pounding of her heart.

Then,

Her foot caught on something. A root? A jagged stone? She couldn’t tell.

The ground vanished beneath her.

She fell.

Rubble tore at her skin as she tumbled, crashing against cold stone. Pain exploded through her ribs, and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

She gasped for air.

Above, in the abyss of the mountains, white, glowing eyes peered down at her from the shadows. The 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) were waiting, their twisted forms crawling over the cliffs, their movements unnatural, hungry, relentless.

Xu Lian’s chest heaved. The cold of the mountain seeped into her bones.

She had nowhere left to run.

And then...

Through the swirling mist, beyond the ruined passage...

She saw it.

A temple, standing against the wind, ancient and unmoving.

A flicker of hope flared in her chest.

"The Immortal... if he exists, he must be there!"

She forced herself up, staggering forward. Pain flared in her side with every step, but she moved. The 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) were closing in, their whispers thick in the air, their hunger palpable.

But Xu Lian did not stop.

She would not die here.

Mo Chen lifted his gaze from the scattered scrolls before him.

A disturbance.

At first, he ignored it. His fingers rested lazily against the hilt of Beidou, his mind far from the world beyond these stone walls.

But then...

The sound of something human.

A presence struggling against the night, breathless, desperate.

Then came the familiar shrieks of the 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo).

Not trespassers, then.

Prey.

Mo Chen exhaled, long and slow. He had no interest in saving a stranger. What happened beyond these walls was no concern of his.

And yet...

His fingers flexed, a mere whisper of movement. The air around him stirred. A subtle aura, pale blue and ethereal, unfurled like mist, shimmering faintly in the dim light.

Outside, the wind howled.

And then, a figure staggered through the temple’s overgrown garden.

She was drenched in rain, soaked in blood, barely clinging to consciousness. The 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) moved with flickering speed, their empty eyes glowing as they descended upon her.

Xu Lian raised a talisman, her breath hitching...

But the ink vanished from the paper before she could activate it.

She had nothing left.

And then the air around her changed.

A wind colder than death itself pressed down. The shadows recoiled.

With nothing more than a flick of his hand, Mo Chen’s chi stirred.

A whisper of power, unseen, unmeasured, before it ripped through the night like silent death.

The 噬魄妖 (Shì Pò Yāo) froze.

Their monstrous cries choked into strangled gasps. In an instant, their bodies withered, imploding into nothingness. The darkness swallowed them whole, erased from existence by the force of his will.

Silence.

The storm raged, but inside the temple, there was only stillness.

Mo Chen remained unfazed. A minor inconvenience. Nothing more.

A thud.

His gaze flickered downward.

At his feet, a mortal lay crumpled on the cold stone floor.

Drenched in rain and blood. Trembling. Barely alive.

Then, her eyes met his.

Amber-brown, wide with pain.

For the first time in centuries, something stirred in Mo Chen’s chest.

A whisper of a presence buried beneath centuries of solitude.

A delicate shadow of her, whose face he could no longer recall.

Her lips parted, but no words came.

Only a crimson blossom of blood, spilling across her chin.

Then, the darkness claimed her.

And Mo Chen did not look away.