The air hit him. The scent of blood, the sensation of decay, the melancholic humming of the perished. It crashed against him like a boulder, washed over him like a tidal wave as it tried to crush his very existence. He couldn’t even feel it with his nose, it reverberated throughout his entire being as it tried to drag him down to its own level of misery.

This place was hell. This entire land was the abyss that swallowed the souls and joy of men. And this building, this towering tomb, was one of the clearest manifestations of that reality. And now Yin Long had arrived here, but he couldn’t brighten this tomb, he could only empty it.

Plip.

Plop.

Murky oil fell from his face, a tear from his eye and a drop from his mouth. The prayer was uttered, the dead vanished, and he shed unearthly tears for them. But this grave was dark, bleaker than his curse and blacker than his tears, so when the drops finally splashed against the stone ground they simply vanished from sight as they became part of the misery.

"Don’t worry, my dear Young Master. No matter how much something looks to be a part of the darkness, they will never be one. Just look, it’s right here, isn’t it?"

A voice snuck down his spine as he looked into the uniform darkness that was the floor, the tomb. Lan Yun had seemingly crept up behind him as he prayed for the seven corpses he made just beyond the door. He could feel her breath on his neck as she leaned against his back, a finger tracing and lifting part of the murky tear he had just shed.

"So, my dear Young Master…"

The finger that rose up was painted black, stained by ashen oil that was almost too thick to run down her hand. Her arm rose as she whispered oh-so softly into his ear, soft fingers smearing black oil onto his neck as her fingers gently gripped his throat.

"…So you must keep going, Young Master. Can’t you hear them, crying for salvation? Can’t you feel them, clutching at your throat and robes as they beg? Save them, Young Master. We must save them and be better."

The hand coiling around his throat became one of the hundreds that were already latched onto him, a silenced scream drowned in blood. Her touch was gentle, but it felt as if her fingers dug into his flesh and choked him, digging from this throat and to his chest so that she could grab hold of his heart, or at least the cold lump of kindling that it had become.

His own arm rose to cradle the hand that held his throat, that clenched his heart. It hurt. It was different from getting stabbed or cut, the illusory wound on his throat was cold, like ice that killed his nerves as it lulled him to sleep. It hurt. He should push it away, tear apart the pain so he could be at ease.

"Yes… Don’t worry, I’ll keep going. I’ll keep going until there isn’t a single one left."

But he held the hand gently, embraced the lack of air and welcomed the pain as he would his dearest friend. Lan Yun’s hand slowly slipped from his grasp after he embraced it, a stained finger extending, pointing deeper into the darkness and despair of this hell.

"Then go, Young Master. They all wait."

A pair of murky eyes rose to peer into the darkness, the gaze darker than despair, blacker than this hell, emptier than this tomb.

At first, there was nothing in front of Yin Long, simply a black curtain that swallowed the light that the open door finally allowed in. But ever so slowly, his eyes got used to it, and then his eyes could finally see what his senses had shown him earlier.

A somewhat small room that led to a short hallway, a grand hall extending beyond it. It was large enough to belong to a mansion, but barren enough to fit the description of prison. The previous Resting Stations he’d visited at least contained simply, if uncomfortable, stone beds for the deceased to rest on as they experienced their miserable eternity.

But there was no such thing here, be it by human hands or something else. No, here the dead were simply stacked. Thrown on top of each other like bales of hay, tagged and marked like cattle as they shed formless tears and sobbed voiceless cries.

Life in hell had no value, and the dead had even less of it, least of all their dignity.

"That’s them. If you can rem… Save all these people, and those on the second floor, then you’ll have stabbed a nice and pointy thorn into the Pavilion’s side. But first, we should take out the guards on both floors, it would be terrible if the ones above attacked us while you did your thing."

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Another voice came from behind, Li Mei Yen stepping up to his side, her eyes blazing as she peered into the dark hall. White knuckles, quivering pupils, wriggling toes hidden by her shoes. Anxious. Eager. Desirous.

Her blade was already in her grasp, the three others in her group spreading out around her as they clutched their own weapons. Subdued rattling of moving steel, fingers tapping hilts, soft grinding of teeth. Anxious. Eager. Desirous. As one was, so were they all.

"13 rather than 10, we can probably expect the same number above. Dao Goh, we’ll take the western side. Sheu, Dong, you take the eastern side. Long, you just go where you please."

Subdued and rushed, words like a whisper so that the guards watching over the stacked dead wouldn’t hear them. Four of them were turned towards the entrance, but they were sitting on chairs and seemed more engrossed in their own business than anything else, be they books or games. There was nothing here but the dead, there was nothing to be gained for others so there was no point in attacking. They were nothing but a formality, guards thrown aside here because they were too useless to be given another task.

For their eyes to have become so accustomed to the darkness that they could read books here… Yin Long could not even guess how long they must have been forced to stay here. But stay they did. Were they that desperate for whatever the Pavilion could offer them? Were they that desperate to become ‘useful’?

Clack.

A soft click came from behind them, the fresh slivers of light swallowed as the door was closed. There could be no escapees, no messages leaked to the Pavilion. So the prison would become a true tomb, and then it would become empty.

The four people rushed forward with only a quiet whoosh, the sound of death quickly echoing through the hall as they struck the four guards closest to the hallway. The remaining guards sprung to attention almost immediately, their weapons already in hand. Evidently, they weren’t as useless as they first seemed.

"Int…!"

One of them tried to scream out an alarm, but purple chains crept out from the air around her head and sealed it off. She clutched at the chains, and the solid orb that had become of the air around her, but they wouldn’t budge. Her mouth flapped like a fish stuck on land, but no sound leaked past the sealed sphere so her screams became as quiet as those of the dead.

And where no sound could escape, no air could enter. She screamed and screamed, so the air in the orb was used up within seconds. And a body without air… How long could it last in this world?

Limbs became limp, eyes slid shut, screams died down. What was once a life became another lump of misery as it fell to the floor, the purple chains unfurling before slithering over to Yin Long, sinking into him as they crept up his legs. The law of Sealing… It was surprisingly useful for killing.

Five were… no, it became eight as he was moving, so only five were left now.

A sword flashed as it cut through the darkness, his own shattered reflection staring at him from the stained blade. Metal clashed with metal and sparks illuminated the darkness for a second, a fearful face swallowed by Yin Long’s murky eyes. One blade was pushed away and the other moved forward unabated, metal tearing through flesh and scattering blood. The blade was stained further, but the broken reflection still gazed at Yin Long, no amount of blood seemed capable of drowning it out.

Nine.

Crack.

Ten.

Squelch.

Eleven.

Thud.

Twelve.

"Visrama."

Thirteen.

One storage room of the dead became nothing more than a tomb, the scent of blood and air of death growing a bit thicker as it washed against Yin Long. Lan Yun stayed close to Yin Long as they walked, gently staying out of his way while wrapping her scent around him, mixing with the abominable air that tried to drown him. When he looked at her, she smiled at him as comfortingly as she always did, a finger still stained by oil-like tears pointing towards the dark spiralling stairs that led to the second floor.

"Ever onward."

His gaze followed her finger and his feet followed her order, his body moving as if dragged towards the stairs.

"Yes, ever onward."

Clank.

Thump.

Thud.

His footsteps echoed throughout the hall as he ascended the stairs, which were apparently made of metal. There was no sound from above, but you would have to be a fool if you thought that the guards above hadn’t noticed anything. The ones below hadn’t gotten to scream, but the sounds of death were still evident enough, and that alone should be enough.

And sure enough, by the time his head poked past the opening to the second floor, attacks were already raining down. Murky eyes rose slightly, a gleam of stained crimson rising beyond him as bloody feathered wings extended from his back.

Squelch.

Despite their feathered appearance, the sound when the weapons clashed with the wings was more akin to swords sinking into mud. The wings sank and twined around the weapons like a mire, gripping them tighter than the dead latched onto Yin Long.

But while Yin Long held onto the dead like a curse, his wings were not as kind with these weapons. They sucked them in, a swamp of blood wrangling them out from the attackers clutches. And then they were returned, crimson feathers coating each weapon as they burst out and rent flesh and bone alike.

Once there were 13 up here, now there were but six. And they were only alive because there hadn’t been space for them around the opening of the stairs.

Finally, Yin Long got to fully ascend the stairs and enter the second floor, another storehouse where the dead were no more than cattle. But there was one thing different about this floor, there was something emitting a soft light here.

It hovered at the centre of the room, a dim light that morphed unstably between various colours leaking out from it. It looked like a piece of a diamond, a small fragment as clear as water. It gave off some light and hovered there on its own, but it didn’t radiate even an ounce of energy, it felt more as if it wasn’t there at all.

It was at this time that Li Mei Yen and the rest of her group also ascended the stairs, stepping over the corpses with gusto. But they faltered slightly when they saw the hovering object, an expression somewhere between dumbfounded and confusion hanging on Li Mei Yen’s face.

"Eh? A Fragment of God?"