Riven walked slowly through a bustling street filled with people.
Vendors called out their wares, carts rolled across stone roads, and cultivators moved through the crowd with quiet confidence. Yet none of it truly reached his mind.
Everything felt… unfamiliar.
When he had first awakened, he had found himself lying in a mist-covered forest. The air had been damp, the ground cold beneath him, and towering trees surrounded him on all sides.
He had no memory of how he arrived there.
The only familiar thing was the brush lying beside him.
His brush.
The brush that had accompanied him since he began walking the path of immortality.
Once, it had been flawless, its wooden body polished and smooth, its bristles vibrant and filled with spiritual power.
Now it looked old and worn, as if centuries had passed over it. The once pristine surface was dull and cracked, and the spiritual aura that had once surrounded it had faded almost entirely.
Seeing this, Riven understood something immediately.
A long time must have passed.
The world had changed, and he had awakened in an era far from the one he remembered.
After exploring the forest for a while, he had discovered a small river. Kneeling beside the water, he washed away the dirt and blood from his body.
Then he saw his reflection.
The face staring back at him was not the one he remembered. It was younger.
Much younger.
For a moment, confusion flickered across his mind, and then he realized the truth that this was not his body.
He had awakened inside the body of another person.
Looking down, he noticed the torn clothing covering his pale body. Parts of it were burned, exposing skin beneath.
His gaze moved toward his left hand.
It was completely black.
At first glance, it looked as though it had been burned by intense flames. But when he examined it more carefully, he realized something different was happening.
The discoloration wasn't from fire.
It was blood.
Dirty, infected blood had accumulated in the arm, poisoning it from within. The rest of the body had grown pale from blood loss, while the corrupted blood remained trapped in the left arm.
After carefully circulating the body's remaining vitality, Riven slowly forced the infected blood out.
Even so, the arm remained black.
The damage had already settled deep into the flesh.
...
Now, after spending some time in the city, Riven had begun to understand this era a little better.
He found the cultivators here… weak.
Extremely weak.
Even during the lowest period of his cultivation journey, he had rarely encountered cultivators of such poor strength.
He frowned slightly.
"What kind of place is this?"
Putting those thoughts aside, he entered a decent-looking inn.
The moment he stepped inside, the girl at the front desk greeted him with a bright smile.
"Welcome, esteemed guest—"
But when she noticed his burned clothes, her expression stiffened slightly.
Then her gaze fell on the insignia embroidered onto the fabric.
Her eyes widened.
Drifting Mist Pavilion.
One of the ten most powerful sects in the region.
A sect that had stood strong for over five hundred years.
'He must have returned from a dangerous mission,' she thought, and her smile quickly returned.
She stepped forward politely.
"Welcome to our inn, honored guest."
Riven had been observing the surroundings quietly. When he heard her voice, he turned toward her.
The girl froze when she saw his appearance his pale complexion, messy hair, and deep blue eyes created a strangely captivating presence, and even with his ragged clothing, there was something about him that commanded attention.
She found herself staring.
Riven waved a hand in front of her face.
She snapped out of her daze, blushing deeply.
"S-sorry, sir. I was distracted."
Riven simply nodded.
"It's fine. Just give me a room."
"Yes!"
She hurried back to the desk and grabbed a key.
"This is the best room in the inn, sir."
Riven took the key and walked upstairs.
After he left, a middle-aged man approached the desk.
The inn's manager.
He glanced at the stairs, then at the girl who was still staring absentmindedly in that direction.
"Who was that?"
No response.
He sighed and lightly shook her shoulder.
"Stop daydreaming."
"Who was it that you didn't even ask him to pay?"
She blinked and returned to reality.
"Manager… he was from the Drifting Mist Pavilion."
The manager raised an eyebrow and looked toward the stairs again.
"Is he really that handsome that you forgot to charge him?"
The girl turned away, pretending to focus on her work.
But quietly she murmured,
"It's just, he felt… different."
"He had a cool air around him."
"And those blue eyes..."
"They were deep like an ocean."
The manager stared at her for a moment, surprised, and he returned to his work.
...
Inside the room, Riven looked around calmly. The room was comfortable and well-maintained.
He placed the key on the table and walked into the bathing area and soon sank into a tub filled with warm water.
Closing his eyes, he focused on his left hand. Although he had expelled the infected blood, the arm remained black.
Something else was happening, so after carefully sensing the internal circulation, he discovered something unusual.
Within the arm flowed blood that was different from his own and did not belong to this body.
It moved in a strange pattern, one he knew very well.
Understanding dawned on his face.
He opened his eyes and looked at the brush resting nearby.
"You still carried my blood essence after all this time."
He washed the brush gently.
Then he frowned.
"I feel no spirituality from the brush, so..."
"How did it complete the blood essence method itself?"
He examined the bristles closely.
His eyes narrowed.
"The spiritual root threads are dead."
He considered the possibilities.
"Have they died after the process was completed?"
"Maybe."
Perhaps the threads had died during the revival process, or perhaps the centuries had simply drained their vitality.
"Most likely the blood essence was exhausted."
He gently pulled the threads free from the brush.
The moment they separated, the threads crumbled and turned into fine ash.
Riven stepped out of the bath and wrapped himself with a towel.
Then he sat cross-legged on the bed. Taking a deep breath, he raised his right hand, and qi slowly gathered around his palm.
The energy condensed, forming a thin blade of ice.
Holding the knife, he slowly raised it.
He cut upward between his eyebrows, and before the blood could flow from the cut, he pressed the brush against the wound. Feeling nothing happen for some time, he looked at the brush and whispered, "Fractured Union."
His nerves surged.
If anyone had been present, they would have seen an ethereal thread emerging from his head and attaching itself to the brush.
Riven slowly pulled the brush, and pain exploded through his mind.
His pupils vanished, leaving only white.
He screamed as the spiritual roots began separating from his consciousness.
...
Hearing the scream, one of the workers in the inn frowned as he looked in the direction of Riven's room. Suddenly thunder rumbled across the sky.
Looking out of the window, he saw that the weather had changed and the sky had turned completely dark, and lightning flashed.
He then started to walk towards Riven's room with vigilance.
A huge thunderbolt descended from the sky, hitting a mountain not far from the city, causing the city to light up for a moment, followed by a moment of darkness.
The worker was surprised by this, and not only he but also most of the people of the city were by such an advancement.
After the lightning, the city became silent for a moment.
BOOM!
The loud sound of thunder when it reached the city made the whole city tremble. The glass on some buildings even shattered.
The storm left as soon as it came.
The worker, now fearing for his life, quickened his pace and reached Riven's door. He cautiously knocked. "Esteemed guest… is everything alright?"
Silence.
He knocked again, louder this time. "Sir?"
Still silence.
A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, and then he slowly pushed the door open.
The room was dark, the only light filtering in from the crack under the drawn curtains. The air felt heavy with an unsettling energy. He could hear the faint crackling of residual energy, like the aftermath of a lightning strike.
"Sir?" he repeated, his voice barely a whisper.
"What is it?" a calm voice said.
The worker nearly jumped in relief.
"Sir… I heard a scream and came to check."
"It's nothing. Return to your work."
"Y-yes, sir."
Riven was lying in the tub, floating in the water unnaturally. He lifted the brush and looked at it with a smile on his face.
The brush shimmered briefly with radiant light, then the glow faded slowly.
The bristles slowly turned white once more.
Alive again.