CHAPTER 22: GRAVE NEWS

Tian Lei sat cross-legged on the hard floor of his cell, silent, eyes closed, breath steady. The suppression seal on the cell’s walls dampened spiritual energy, but not completely. He could still feel the faint rhythm of qi moving through his meridians—slow, sluggish, but there.

He simply waited while meditating.

Then—footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate. Echoing down the corridor like the prelude to a storm.

The heavy door creaked open.

A young man, perhaps the same age as Tian Lei, strolled into view. He was dressed in the inner sect’s signature silver-and-crimson robes, with a jade emblem tied to his waist that marked him as someone important. Too important for this place.

His face was handsome, but his eyes... they held the kind of disdain only born from entitlement. Arrogance wrapped around him like a second skin.

He stopped in front of the cell and looked at Tian Lei the way one might look at a dying beast—curious, but not concerned.

"So you’re the one who thought he could climb beyond his station," the young man said coldly.

Tian Lei opened his eyes, meeting the gaze without rising. His voice was calm. "And you are?"

The young man smiled—but it wasn’t warm. It was the kind of smile that foreshadowed violence.

"Xiao Feng," the young man replied casually, hands behind his back. "Grandson of Grand Elder Xiao Wei."

Tian Lei gave a respectful nod, thinking he might also work here like Grand Elder Wei. "What brings you here, senior?" he asked evenly.

Xiao Feng’s smile turned mocking. He pulled something from within his robes and tossed it into the cell. The fabric fluttered in the air, landing with a soft whump on the floor.

Tian Lei’s breath caught.

It was a strip of cloth—torn, bloodstained. But it wasn’t just any cloth.

It was Yuyan’s inner wear wrap. The one she always wore beneath her robes.

"W-What... What is the meaning of this, Senior?" Tian Lei’s voice cracked despite his efforts to stay composed.

Xiao Feng licked his lips slowly, leaning closer to the bars. "She was a virgin," he said in a low, venomous tone. "I made sure I was the last one she ever touched. She screamed at first. Eventually, she just... broke."

Tian Lei stared at him in a daze, heart thundering in his chest.

"No... no, this is just a test," he muttered, shaking his head. "You must be trying to provoke me. Trying to expose me as a demonic cultivator or something. Maybe... maybe someone’s watching. Yes. That must be it."

His voice trembled now.

"But as you can see... I am Tian Lei..."

His hands were shaking. His breathing shallow. He was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

Xiao Feng chuckled and took one more item from within his robe.

It hit the floor with a thud.

Tian Lei froze.

It was... her head.

Yuyan’s severed head. Her expression twisted in pain, eyes wide with horror, mouth half-open as if caught mid-scream.

Time stopped.

In the depths of Tian Lei’s Sea of Consciousness, Muring Yue watched in stunned silence. Her form flickered slightly. She had expected some cruelty... but not this. Not this.

She thought they’d at least keep Yuyan alive to use as leverage.

She never imagined they would dispose of her so casually.

"No..." she whispered, hand reaching out—but powerless.

Meanwhile, Tian Lei stared at the severed head, unblinking. His heart no longer beat with fury.

It beat with a numb, suffocating void.

All the moments he had imagined with her—laughing together, fighting side by side, returning to the sect in triumph... gone.

Replaced by a bloody smear on the cold floor.

Xiao Feng clicked his tongue. "Tsk. How disappointing. I was hoping you’d roar at me, charge at the bars like some wild beast. But it looks like you’ve already died inside."

He turned, spat on the floor, and walked away, his laughter echoing down the hallway.

Tian Lei remained still.

His body leaned against the wall, eyes glazed over. Expressionless.

Stone.

Broken.

Inside the Sea of Consciousness, Muring Yue’s form flickered violently now. She called his name—over and over. Her voice trembling with urgency, with fear.

Tian Lei... wake up. Please...

But no response came.

Only silence.

He sat like a statue, lifeless. Hollow.

Outside, Grand Elder Xiao Wei paid a casual visit, peering through the bars.

He took one look at Tian Lei’s vacant expression, scoffed, and shook his head.

"What fragile mental strength. And Sect leader said, he might one day become a Core Disciple, what a waste of time. But perhaps this is better. Let the whole sect see what happens to those who cross my family."

He turned and walked away, leaving Tian Lei there—broken, grieving, abandoned.

Still, he sent a ting speck of his Qi, in his body and then Tain lei coughed up blood, his cultivation began to slip away, and within few seconds he was an powerless mortal now, the attack earlier broke his Dantian and Meridians, now he is an Cripple, with no hope of Cultivating again, atleast not until he repair the broken dantian.

And yet...No expression appeared on his face, like it was an dead body not an living person whose path to immortality was broken.

Murong Yue now fell into more despair as she saw this, as he also fall on her butt muttering " what have I done..?"

She blamed herself for this. She too gave up, but somone else didn’t.

Deep in the center of Tian Lei’s soul—beyond the numbness, beyond the pain—a faint spark flickered.

A faint spark flickered.

And then it ignited.

The hidden core buried within him—the [∞] Infinite Fortune Core—shuddered awake, pulsing with celestial light. Reality fractured.

His consciousness was torn from the present and flung into the soulstream beyond time.

He appeared elsewhere.

In a world wrapped in dusk, where ash fell like snow. A ruined village sprawled before him, homes burned to cinders, bodies scattered like broken dolls.

And in the center of the carnage...

A small child knelt beside a blood-soaked corpse.

His mother.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he cried, hands tugging at her robes in vain.

"No... mama, wake up... don’t leave me..."

Tian Lei’s heart clenched. The scene was too real, too raw. This wasn’t a memory. It was... a life.

His? Someone else’s?

He didn’t know.

But it pulled him in all the same.

Time blurred. The child was found by mages from a distant academy. Kind strangers wrapped him in warm cloth, took him far away.

He lived.

He grew.

He studied magic like a man possessed. Laughed little. Slept even less.

By age ten, he took a vow.

"I will destroy all demons."

By twenty, he had killed the Demon King.

By thirty, he had wiped out the entire demon race.

But he didn’t stop.

No... he kept climbing, growing colder, darker. Not out of vengeance anymore.

Out of clarity.

He saw the gods playing games—seeding worlds with heroes and demons, watching them clash like entertainment.

So he slaughtered them too.

And when there was no one left to fight, no purpose left to chase...

He sat alone on a ruined throne, surrounded by stars and silence.