The Strange Immortal of the Dao

I woke up with no memory, and an “immortal seed” had already been planted in my abdomen.

They told me this was the path to ascension, one that devoured bone and spirit.

That was, until I saw

Fingernails from fellow disciples mixed into the “pills,” and every copy of the “cultivation manual” described a different way to die.

A shadow stands at my bedside in the dead of night, smiling as it offers me a bowl of “soothing soup.”

And the being that split an entire sect in two with a single sword strike

is waiting deep in the mist,

for me to refine my own bones into pills.