SSS-Rank 10x Reward System: Accepting Disciples to Live Forever-Chapter 192: Tragedy (II)

Each day, his comprehension of the Absolute Concealment Formation deepened. Patterns that had once seemed abstract began to reveal their logic. Threads of spiritual structure intertwined before his inner eye, and he learned how to fold presence into nothingness, how to blur existence into the background of the world itself.

In terms of cultivation realm, he remained just a step behind Rin.

But Wang Chen sensed something more subtle.

If Ni Lua were not diverting part of his focus toward deciphering the rune... if he were not constantly watching the shadows around Rin... he might have already overtaken him.

Because as Rin’s fame grew, so did danger.

The Purple Glow Kingdom was not a peaceful place beneath its surface. The rise of a prodigy meant future power. And future power threatened existing interests.

Soon, assassins began to arrive.

At first, they came in ones and twos, testing the waters. Then more followed. Masks in the night. Poisoned blades. Concealed talismans. Silent figures slipping across rooftops under the cover of darkness.

Rin remained blissfully unaware.

So did the sect.

To everyone else, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

But Wang Chen saw everything.

And so did Ni Lua.

Like a shadow within shadows, Ni Lua moved.

On moonlit nights, when the wind whispered softly through bamboo groves, he would slip out unnoticed. His figure blurred and dissolved, the Absolute Concealment Formation wrapping around him like a second skin. Even seasoned assassins, masters of stealth, failed to detect his presence.

Blades flashed only once.

Bodies disappeared before dawn.

Blood soaked into soil without witnesses.

No one knew why their hired killers never returned. No rumors circulated. No clues remained.

Ni Lua harvested their lives with an expression that held neither hatred nor pleasure. Only resolve.

Without even realizing it, he had quietly stepped off the path of his previous life. In that life, he had been pushed, cornered, shaped by circumstance. Here, he chose to act first. To guard. To cut down threats before they bloomed.

Each kill refined him.

Not just his combat instinct, but his comprehension.

With every assassin erased beneath the veil of concealment, his understanding of the Formation of Absolute Concealment surged. It was as if the act of hiding himself while hunting others accelerated his insight. The formation responded to his intent, evolving in tandem with his experience.

He stood on the threshold.

Just one step more.

Wang Chen watched all of this with a complicated expression.

A child not even seven years old... and already on the verge of mastering a formation so broken that even immortals would covet it.

He could not help the faint sting of envy that rose within him.

If I had this level of comprehension back then... would I have spent thousands upon thousands of years grinding inside that damned tower?

The thought lingered, half amused, half bitter.

Meanwhile, destiny moved forward.

On the day Rin accepted the heavenly destiny and stepped into the Foundation Building Realm, spiritual Qi descended like a luminous rain over the Purple Lotus Sect. Clouds parted. Auspicious signs filled the sky. Elders wept with joy.

And in that very same breath of time, in a quiet garden no one paid attention to, Ni Lua completed the final sequence of the Absolute Concealment Formation.

The last thread clicked into place.

His presence vanished completely.

Even Wang Chen momentarily lost sight of him before focusing harder.

Mastered.

At that instant, Wang Chen’s composure cracked.

Inside the Garden of Eternity, he was practically cheering, pacing back and forth, unable to contain himself.

"This is Ni Lua... the GOAT..."

"Come on, my boy..."

His laughter echoed softly in the vast spiritual expanse, pride swelling in his chest.

One embraced the light of destiny.

The other perfected the art of existing in darkness.

And Wang Chen knew very well which of the two would be harder to deal with in the future.

Except for Wang Chen, no one witnessed Ni Lua’s breakthrough.

There were no auspicious signs. No spiritual rain. No elders sighing in amazement.

The chrysanthemum garden remained quiet, petals trembling gently in the breeze as if nothing monumental had just occurred.

Meanwhile, Rin’s so-called main character template seemed to activate... or perhaps fate simply grew tired of being subtle.

Tragedy struck without warning.

The Purple Lotus Sect’s arch-enemy, who had endured humiliation for years, finally made their move. It was not a frontal assault filled with blazing techniques and heroic last stands. It was something far more insidious.

For ten years, they had been patient.

The food delivered to the sect had been laced—grain by grain, drop by drop—with a poison so faint that even elders failed to detect it. Each meal carried only a trace, so small it was almost laughable. A negligible amount. Something one would dismiss.

But negligence accumulates.

And so does poison.

When the final trigger was activated, the effect was devastating.

Cultivators collapsed mid-meditation. Elders fell during discussions. Disciples dropped their swords and convulsed on the training grounds. The spiritual veins of the sect, once vibrant with Qi, fell eerily silent.

Within a single night, a sect that had once brimmed with promise was reduced to corpses and cold silence.

Rin stood in the main hall, the wooden floor beneath him stained dark.

His father lay slumped against a pillar, eyes half-open, as if still trying to protect something. His mother rested nearby, her expression strangely peaceful despite the poison that had ravaged her insides. Even Ni Lua’s body lay among them, motionless.

The smell of bitter herbs and death hung thick in the air.

Reality hit Rin like a wet, sickening slap across the face.

The fantasy he had been living—the cultivation novel dream, the destined protagonist rising to glory—crumbled in an instant, like a sandcastle struck by a merciless tide.

"Father... Mother... Elder Brother..."

His voice broke.

Tears poured down uncontrollably, splashing onto the wooden boards. He stumbled forward, fingers trembling as he touched their cold skin. There was no warmth left. No pulse. No response.

"Why... why did everyone die and only I survived? Why I...?"

He could not understand it.

After living with someone long enough, even tools carry weight. A cup chipped at the rim feels familiar. A chair creaks in a comforting way. And these were not objects.

They were humans.

Not just any humans.

They were humans who loved him without calculation. Who smiled when he made progress. Who endured his childish arrogance. Who protected him from dangers he never saw.

The guilt that rose within him was suffocating.

It wrapped around his chest like iron chains, squeezing tighter with every passing breath. His thoughts spiraled. If he had been less arrogant... if he had been more cautious... if he had noticed something... anything...

He collapsed to his knees and remained there for hours.

Crying.

Crying until his throat went raw and his eyes burned red. Crying until no more tears dared to fall, as if even sorrow had been exhausted.

Strangely, no one came.

No enemy troops stormed in to finish survivors. No assassin stepped forward to silence him. It was as if he had been deliberately spared.

As time crawled forward, the raw pain inside Rin began to shift.

Despair hardened.

Grief sharpened.

What had once been confusion slowly turned into obsession.

Whoever did this would not merely die.

They would suffer.

Not the same suffering.

A thousand times greater.

In a field scattered with bodies and broken banners, a lone boy stood up. His face was still tender with youth, but the softness in his eyes had frozen into something cold and brittle.

He looked toward the sky.

"One day the Heavens will cry just like I cried today."

Inside the Garden of Eternity, Wang Chen felt an inexplicable chill crawl along his spine.

After all... inside this world, he was practically the Heavens.

Brother, calm down... your brother is still alive.

Yes.

Ni Lua had survived.

When the poison spread, he had reacted instinctively. The Absolute Concealment Formation shielded him, slowed the poison’s penetration just enough. He suppressed his breath, stilled his pulse, and lay among the corpses, his presence fading into nothingness.

He chose to pretend to be dead.

The reasons were his own.

Rin, unaware, eventually rose.

With shaking hands, he dug three graves.

Six by six.

The soil was heavy, clumped with roots and stones. His small fingers bled. His back ached. He did not stop.

Even Wang Chen felt something tighten in his chest as he watched a child not yet seven years old bury his own parents and brother.

After laying them down carefully, Rin knelt.

Three kowtows.

His forehead struck the earth with dull thuds.

Then he stood and walked away.

He did not look back.

His figure grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared beyond the ruined sect.

Only then did the earth of one grave stir. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

A pale hand pushed through the soil.

Ni Lua emerged slowly, dirt clinging to his hair and robes. His face was streaked with mud and tears he had refused to shed earlier.

He watched the direction Rin had gone, eyes trembling with pain.

The anguish he felt was no less than Rin’s.

He had wanted to rise earlier. To hold his younger brother. To tell him everything would be alright. To say that he was still there.

But he did not.

Because he understood something Rin did not.

This tragedy proved one thing beyond doubt.

Danger lurked everywhere.

Love was a weakness enemies would exploit.

If he wanted Rin to survive in this world, if he wanted his little brother never to cry like that again, then he could not remain an ordinary cultivator.

He had to become something else.

Something that did not die.

Something that watched from the dark.

Death itself.

A never-dying shadow that erased threats before they could bloom.

Within the Garden of Eternity, Wang Chen stared at Ni Lua for a long time.

He understood that mindset.

He had walked similar paths.

Slowly, he shook his head.

No, brother... this can’t do.

You will have to die.