Cultivator of the End: I Refine My Own Death-Chapter 108 – Ash in the Bones

The air had changed. At first, it was subtle—a flicker of movement, a stain of ash on a once-vibrant leaf. But soon, it became undeniable. Rin could no longer look at the world without seeing the rot that festered beneath it. Everywhere he turned, there was decay. The vibrant colors of life were no more. His senses, sharpened by his cultivation and the power within his Death Core, began to overrun him. The living, the breathing, the walking—each was now a wretched echo of something far darker.

The whisper of the wind carried the scent of decay, the faintest hint of charred bones that never fully disintegrated. The trees no longer seemed alive, their leaves twisting in the wind as if being eaten from the inside. The ground beneath him was no longer solid earth; it felt as though it were crumbling into fine dust, crumbling into nothing. Ash. Everywhere, ash. And even when he closed his eyes, he could still feel it. It clung to his skin like dust, it filled his lungs, it twisted in his gut.

He had thought himself above the influence of his Death Core. He had thought the power he wielded could be tempered, that he could use it without consequence. But now, it was as though the very essence of death had seeped into his being, rooting itself in his soul, and was slowly consuming him from the inside.

Visions came to him unbidden, like specters from a world he no longer belonged to. He would close his eyes, and there it would be again: ash, creeping into the edges of his vision. A river of blackened dust flowing through the streets. Trees twisted into gnarled things, their trunks carved with skeletal patterns. His mind recoiled as he saw the faces of the living—those he had met, those he had killed, those he had forgotten—morphing into the same rot, the same corruption, until all he could see was the skeletal remains of everything.

It was inescapable. No matter how far he walked, no matter how deep into the darkness he ventured, the ash followed. His world had become a funeral pyre.

And then, it happened.

It wasn't intentional. It never was.

Rin had been walking through a small village, one that he had passed many times in his travels. It was quiet, serene, untouched by the storms of battle that usually followed him. A young cultivator had approached him—innocent, perhaps even naïve. The boy had offered a polite bow, speaking in reverence of Rin's growing legend.

Rin had nodded, acknowledging the boy, his thoughts still clouded with the ash in his mind. But when their hands brushed, it was like a flame licking at the skin, a coldness that made Rin's blood freeze.

The boy's body went rigid, as if struck by an invisible force. His face twisted, and his breath caught in his throat, the color draining from his cheeks. Rin's heart slammed in his chest, but before he could react, the boy crumpled to the ground, his body burning with the fever of death that Rin had unwittingly unleashed. His skin blistered, his veins blackened as the life drained out of him in an instant. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. The boy was dead.

Rin stood frozen, his hand still extended, his touch still lingering in the air, as though he could still feel the boy's pulse in his palm. His body trembled as the realization hit him, a sickening rush of horror. He had done it again.

The boy had not been a threat. He was no enemy, no cultivator seeking to use Rin's death-forged power. He was just a child of the earth, a mere mortal, and yet Rin had killed him without even meaning to.

It wasn't just the death that shook him. It was the sheer ease with which it had happened. One moment, a living being, and the next, nothing more than a corpse—his body consumed by the force of Rin's presence, by the Death Core's aura. It wasn't supposed to be this way. It wasn't supposed to feel so easy.

Rin fell to his knees beside the boy's lifeless form. His vision blurred, his breath ragged. His fingers twitched, but he couldn't move, couldn't bring himself to touch the boy again. His mind raced with panic. How could he control this? How could he live in a world where every step, every breath, might bring death to those around him?

He had to do something. He couldn't allow this to happen again. He couldn't let the death he wielded consume the world.

But how? The answer came to him not as a thought, but as a sharp, sudden realization: he needed to isolate himself. To contain the very aura of death that radiated from him. It was no longer enough to hide in the shadows or distance himself from those who sought him out. He had to sever the connection between his death essence and the world itself.

The idea was both terrifying and exhilarating in its implications. The process would be dangerous, excruciating. But Rin had crossed the point of no return. There was no going back. He could not live with this power without facing its consequences.

So, he set to work.

The process of sealing his aura would not be easy, nor would it be painless. Rin knew that. To even begin, he would have to perform a ritual, a horrifying act of self-dissection that would bind his soul to his body in ways that could never be undone. He had studied the arts of the Fleshcrafters, and though they dabbled in body modification for their own dark purposes, their knowledge could be useful. The first step was simple: he would need to sever the flow of death from his core, to suppress the waves of power that caused his death aura to spill over into the world.

The second step, however, was far more complicated.

Rin had to mark himself—brand himself—with an anti-aura seal that would block the overflow. But this seal couldn't be simply drawn or tattooed. It had to be etched into his flesh, woven into his body through a process of self-inflicted dissection. The Death Echoes, those fragmented whispers of the souls he had consumed, guided him through the dark ritual. They whispered not words, but concepts, ideas that felt more like emotions—despair, agony, numbness, isolation. Each thought, each echo, wove into his consciousness, instructing him, pulling him deeper into the abyss of pain he needed to endure.

The first incision was agonizing. His knife, a thin, delicate blade crafted from the bones of an ancient death god, bit into his skin. Rin did not flinch. He had long since learned the art of suppressing pain, but this was different. This was not just a wound. This was a rending, a disembowelment of his very essence. His flesh parted, and the sharp scent of blood filled the air.

He carved the first symbol of the seal into his flesh—slowly, meticulously—feeling his breath quicken with each movement. The deeper the incision, the more he felt the death aura pulsing out of him. Each layer of skin he cut away seemed to take part of his soul with it, leaving him more hollow than before. But he pressed on. He had to. He could not afford to fail.

The Death Echoes swarmed in his mind, whispering louder now, guiding his hands, urging him onward.

With every cut, every slice, the world around him seemed to twist. He could feel the weight of death pressing on his chest. His heart raced as he finished the first portion of the anti-aura seal. It was far from perfect, but it was enough. His power—his death aura—began to diminish, like a fire slowly starving for fuel. The pull of his Death Core weakened. The ash in the air began to fade, as though the world was exhaling a long-held breath.

But this was only the beginning. Rin's soul screamed in the silence of his mind. His hands, slick with his own blood, shook as he moved to carve the second symbol—the mark that would bind his very being to the seal.

This was a choice. This was a price Rin would pay to control the death he wielded. A price he would never be able to undo.

He could never return to what he once was.

As the final mark was made, the seal fully etched into his back, Rin collapsed, his vision fading. The pain had become unbearable, the death essence that flowed through his veins trying to rebel against the binding force of the seal. But slowly, agonizingly, the world began to calm. His senses dulled. The ash in the air dissipated, and the suffocating weight of death lifted from his shoulders, if only just enough for him to breathe.

The world was quieter now.

But Rin knew what this meant. He had locked himself away. He had severed the last tie to his humanity.

He could never return to the life he once knew.

He had become something beyond it.

To be continued...