Chapter 5 Captive of the War Tomb
1099 Words
From the moment Henry arrived at the War Tomb, he found himself mysteriously conscripted as a graveyard caretaker.
The Sanctuary had always forced its most dangerous prisoners to tend these hallowed grounds, so the Soldiers of the War Tomb viewed caretakers like him as nothing more than convicts.
The War Tomb dwarfed the Wraithrealm of Shattered Souls in scale.
An ocean of gravestones vanished into the misty horizon.
Towering pines stood like eternal sentinels beside obsidian monuments, while silver streams wound through the landscape like serpents.
Despite the breathtaking mountain vistas, the endless burial mounds radiated palpable loneliness beneath the open sky.
Henry's existence here consisted of just two grim duties:
Carry coffins. Bury bodies.
Just like the Wraithrealm—only the scenery had changed.
Unlike that cursed place, bodies didn't arrive daily at the War Tomb.
So between these morbid tasks, Henry spent his days sweeping leaf-strewn paths and conducting memorial rites.
To his own surprise, Henry found he didn't resent this forced labor.
A nation's true character showed in how it honored its dead—even an immortal sect like the Sanctuary.
Every fallen warrior received their final rest here, whether they'd been mighty cultivators or lowly initiates.
Such reverence made the Radiant Phoenix Sanctum utterly unlike the cutthroat Cultivation World Henry knew—where blades spoke louder than words and bloodshed stained every sunrise.
He preferred this quiet work. The dead asked fewer questions than the living.
The Tomb-Burial Sect had earned its independence through unique arts.
Pacifying souls! Dissolving grudges! Ferrying coffins! Digging graves for rebirth!
Master practitioners could even glimpse the dying wishes of the departed—a sacred state called Spirit Resonance.
Without the Wraithrealm's unique energies, soul ferrying was impossible. With his cultivation sealed besides, Henry couldn't perform it even if he tried.
Laying spirits to rest wasn't particularly challenging for him.
With a white porcelain bowl, three palm-sized green tiles, and a bamboo broom held upside-down, Henry stood before the tombstone chanting sacred verses as three slender incense sticks burned upright. To bystanders, it looked like the wild gesticulations of village shamans performing exorcisms.
But for coffin-bearers of his lineage, there were esoteric techniques guarded by their sect.
Henry first bowed three times with the incense before placing the deceptively plain sticks before the tablet. The porcelain bowl slid to the monument's center with supernatural precision.
As the incense smoke twisted skyward like living serpents, he tapped his fingers rhythmically, forming arcane mudras before his chest. With an almost imperceptible flick of his left wrist, the bamboo broom stirred—
—and the wispy smoke began spiraling along the broom's path, swirling in an endless dance within the porcelain vessel.
Maintaining the hand seal, Henry watched as the smoke divided after several rotations.
One tendril caressed the epitaph like a lover's final caress before dissipating.
The other strand behaved like a playful sprite, darting about Henry's forehead. Only when the first wisp vanished did it suddenly shoot up his nose.
Stranger still, the nearby guards remained completely oblivious to this otherworldly ritual.
Meanwhile, internal changes began within Henry. The Tomb-Burial Sutra began circulating spontaneously, channeling that wisp of smoke through his nasal meridians.
A dark gray energy—unique to the Tomb-Burial Sect—coalesced inside him. No thicker than a silken thread, this Nether Mausoleum Force crept upward through his meridians before nesting deep within his Sea of Consciousness, joining a swirling vortex the size of his thumb.
By the Cultivation World's standards, this energy accumulation marked his advancement to the Middle Stage of Qi Condensation.
"Damn it, if only I hadn't drained my power in the Rebirth Cave..." Henry seethed inwardly, frustration boiling in his chest.
These threads of Nether Mausoleum Force were his only glimmer of hope for escape.
Beyond some strange kinship with the War Tomb, his tireless obedience had one purpose—to seize any chance at freedom!
"Quit your dawdling, maggot! Another one of your witchy acts, and I'll skin you alive with this whip!"
The guard's icy snarl shattered Henry's moment of triumph. His brow twitched—this jailer, assigned seven days prior, was a rabid cur far worse than his predecessors. Previous guards had done their duty with cold indifference, but this one? Snapping at every imagined slight, lashing out at the slightest provocation.
Henry's forced submission only fed the beast's cruelty.
Whoosh!
The subtle crease in Henry's forehead ignited the powder keg. The whip struck faster than sight—
CRACK!
Lightning pain lanced across his back as the lash carved a fiery stripe from right shoulder to left hip. Blood bloomed instantly, the searing stripe fading to a dull, spreading burn that soaked his waistband. Even pulling the blow, it would have crippled a lesser man—six decades of shouldering coffins had toughened Henry's body, but still tore a ragged gasp from his throat.
Other grave-diggers circled like jackals, faces twisted in malicious glee.
Slowly, deliberately, Henry lifted his gaze. Eyes like glacial iron locked onto the guard's.
"Mind your f*****g eyes," the guard sneered, thumb jabbing toward his own sockets, "or I'll gouge them from your skull."
Facing Henry's searing glare, the guard snarled with contempt, his lips twisting in undisguised mockery.
Henry's fury burned hotter. Clenching his jaw against the pain, he took a fierce step forward, his predator's gaze locked onto the guard—deep within those savage pupils lurked a beastly bloodlust.
"Even your master didn't dare touch me," he spat. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
Henry was gambling.
True, he'd never had proper cultivation training.
But that didn't make him stupid.
He was betting everything on one truth: that madwoman claiming to be the Radiant Phoenix Immortal Emperor wouldn't have sealed and dumped him here without reason. Until she got what she wanted, his life was probably safe. After all, with her power to storm the Rebirth Cave and stop the Soul Passage Coffin, crushing him would've been easier than squashing an ant. The colossal palm, lightning sword, and azure cauldron from the Wraithrealm that day hadn't even managed to finish him off!
As for her motives? Henry had his suspicions. Beyond the coffin and Lawrence, what else did he have that she'd want?
"You've got a death wish!!" The guard saw red at Henry's taunt. With a furious roar, he snapped his whip overhead.
But just as the strike was about to land—
"HALT!"
The command cut through the air. Though distant at first, by the time the word faded, a white-armored youth had materialized between Henry and the descending lash.
- Writer
