Jian Vareth — The Forbidden Blood Emperor

Eps 6

The air in the hall became heavy, a crushing pressure that made it difficult to breathe. "Jian Vareth. You have been a guest of the Sky Cloud Sect for two years. We gave you shelter, we gave you a purpose. You have repaid that generosity with the blackest of betrayals."

"Generosity?" Jian whispered, though no one heard him. You used me as a footstool. You fed me scraps and called it a gift.

"The Sky Cloud Sect does not tolerate those who disrupt its stability," Mo continued, his voice echoing from the very stones of the hall. "However, the Sect Leader has decreed that we must show a measure of mercy, lest we be seen as tyrants."

"Mercy?" Xiao Feng muttered, his face falling.

"The prisoner's sentence is as follows," Mo declared. "First, his existence shall be wiped from the scrolls of the sect. He is no longer a disciple, a handyman, or a human in the eyes of the Sky Cloud. Second, since he sought to steal a treasure meant to enhance spiritual power, he shall be stripped of the very capacity to ever hold such power again."

Jian’s eyes widened. "No..."

"And finally," Mo’s voice grew cold as a tomb. "He shall be cast into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. If the heavens truly believe in his innocence, they will let him survive the poison and the beasts. If not... then he shall simply return to the dust from which he came."

A collective gasp went up from the disciples. The Valley was a death sentence. No one had ever returned. It was a place where the air was toxic and the earth was made of the bones of those who had failed the sect.

"Grand Elder, please!" Jian cried, his voice breaking. "Kill me! Just kill me now!"

"Mercy is not always kind, Jian Vareth," Mo said.

The Grand Elder raised his hand. A blinding, golden light began to gather in his palm. The Qi in the room surged, a vortex of energy that made the torches flicker and die.

"By the authority of the Sky Cloud Sect, I shatter your foundation!"

Mo struck out with a palm. A bolt of pure, white energy slammed into Jian’s chest.

It didn't feel like a hit. It felt like his entire nervous system had been set on fire. Jian screamed, a sound so primal and agonising that several of the younger disciples in the galleries covered their ears. He felt something inside him—the tiny, flickering spark of his defective spiritual root—being gripped by an invisible hand and crushed into powder.

The pain was beyond anything he had ever imagined. It was as if his very soul was being shredded. His meridian channels, thin and fragile as they were, were flooded with a destructive force that burned through his flesh from the inside out. He collapsed, his back arching, his fingers clawing at the jade floor until his fingernails tore and bled.

The golden light faded, leaving Jian a crumpled, broken mess in the centre of the hall. He couldn't move. He couldn't even weep. His body felt hollow, a discarded husk.

"The sentence is carried out," Mo said, sitting back down. "His root is destroyed. He is a waste of spirit. Guards, take the trash to the precipice. Let the valley have what remains."

Jian felt the guards' hands on him again, but he didn't fight. He was barely conscious. Through the haze of pain, he looked up one last time.

Ling Tian was smiling. It was a small, almost imperceptible curve of the lips, a look of absolute triumph. He had won. He had erased the one person who knew the truth of his cruelty.

And Lin Xier... she was still looking away. She refused to even witness the destruction she had allowed to happen.

I hate you, Jian thought, the words a silent, bloody vow in his mind. I hate all of you. I hate this hall. I hate these elders. I hate the very air of this mountain.

As they dragged him toward the exit, his blood left a long, smeared trail across the pristine white jade. No one offered a hand. No one spoke a word of protest. The 'righteous' disciples of the Sky Cloud Sect watched him go with nothing but cold indifference or mocking amusement.

The doors of the Hall of Justice closed behind him with a final, heavy thud, sealing him away from the world of light forever.

The guards didn't speak as they carried him through the outer gates. The night air was biting, but Jian couldn't feel the cold. He couldn't feel anything but the void where his spirit used to be. They reached the edge of the mountain, where the earth simply ended in a jagged, terrifying drop into a sea of roiling, purple mist.

This was the Maw of the Valley.

"Well, Vareth," Xiao Feng said, appearing from the shadows of the gatehouse. He looked down at Jian's broken form with a sneer. "I have to say, you were more entertaining than I expected. But all shows must come to an end."

He walked over and kicked Jian's leg, hard. Jian didn't even flinch.

"Is he dead already?" one of the guards asked.

"Not yet," Xiao Feng said, reaching down to grab Jian by the collar of his ruined tunic. He hauled Jian's head up, forcing him to look into the abyss. "Do you see that mist, Jian? That’s the breath of the dead. In five minutes, your lungs will start to melt. In ten, the Kera will find what’s left of you."

Jian’s eyes flickered. He looked at Xiao Feng, and for a second, the sheer intensity of the hatred in his gaze made the bully hesitate.

"You... will... burn," Jian rasped, the words thick with blood.

Xiao Feng’s face twisted in anger. "Still talking? Let's see how well you talk on the way down!"

He gave a sharp nod to the guards. They stepped to the very edge of the cliff. The wind howled, a mournful sound that seemed to welcome the sacrifice.

"On three," the guard said. "One. Two."

On 'three', they swung Jian’s body out over the void and let go.

For a moment, Jian felt weightless. The air rushed past his ears, a deafening roar. He saw the stars above the mountain, cold and distant, completely indifferent to his fate. Then, the purple mist rose up to meet him, cold and smelling of decay.

If there is a god in the heavens, Jian thought as he plummeted into the darkness, let me live. Not for love. Not for honour. Let me live so that I can tear this mountain down stone by stone.

The darkness swallowed him whole.

The fall felt like an eternity. He hit something—a branch, perhaps, or a jutting rock. Pain exploded in his shoulder, but it was a dull spark compared to the fire in his soul. He hit another ledge, his body tumbling like a ragdoll, before finally slamming into something soft and yielding.

It was a pile of bones.

Hundreds of years of 'mercy' lay beneath him. The skeletons of thieves, rebels, and innocents, all discarded by the Sky Cloud Sect, had formed a macabre cushion for his fall.

Jian lay there, staring up at the tiny, distant circle of the moon far above. His breathing was shallow, each gasp a struggle against the toxic fumes that were already beginning to sear his throat. He tried to move his hand, but his fingers only brushed against a cold, smooth object half-buried in the remains.

It was a scroll. Not of paper or silk, but of dark, weathered bone, glowing with a faint, malevolent crimson light.

As Jian’s consciousness began to slip away, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. It wasn't the voice of a god, or an elder. It was a voice that sounded like the grinding of teeth and the spilling of blood.

Do you want to live, little worm?

Jian didn't answer with words. He reached out with his last ounce of strength and gripped the bone scroll. His blood, still flowing from his torn fingertips, began to seep into the ancient carvings.

The crimson light flared, illuminating the valley of death in the colour of a fresh wound.

***

The world dissolved into a cacophony of rushing wind and the primal scream torn from Jian's own throat. He was a stone cast from a giant's hand, plummeting into the roiling, purple abyss of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.