The Soul Well has an imposing presence; pillars of voidstone darker than night rise up against the heavens, adorned with arrays that defy comprehension. It is both a vault and a prison, protecting the Lin Yan plane from the dangers of its contents.

Souls drift aimlessly around the immortal artifact, bleached of color and purposeless. Centuries of imprisonment have stripped away whatever humanity they had left, their wails sound animalistic than sapient.

The Grand Elder watches wistfully as the souls orbit the well, each one a comrade, a teacher, a student. On another occasion, perhaps he would have drifted into their collective consciousness, swimming through their thoughts. But today, he seeks a different prize.

In antiquity, the souls of his comrades and forebears had been quick to pass on their wisdom, but the Great Culling had taken its toll. Without new souls to replenish it, the artifact lay on its deathbed.

He is the only soul alive who remembers.

In the midst of his solemn lamentations, it appears. He casts out his right hand, pale and bleached like the souls surrounding him. Gently, he pushes aside soul after soul, slimy residue clinging to his fingers. All this, he does to form a pathway for a single jade soul to float into his open palm.

A jade cable of fate links him to the soul, thick and resilient. It feels light and delicate in his palm, a light breeze nearly toppling it. It sends tendrils of energy and will into his mind, but he doesn’t resist. His eyes flutter closed as it pulls him into its memories.

It had no face. It had no name. It had long ago forsaken the needs of the flesh, replacing its humanity with the singular desire to accomplish its mission. It tracked its target relentlessly, through verdant valleys and carrion-crowded battlefields, never once revealing itself to its quarry. It watched as a boy grew into a man, raised children of his own, and buried them. Plague, war, famine; these were the causes the man had come to terms with. Not once did he imagine that something more sinister was at play.

Even as the village he’d come to call home scorned and shunned him, he carried on. But mortals are superstitious and his many years of life make them fearful.

He lays down roots elsewhere, only for them to be plucked from the earth, burnt and poisoned.

Alone again, the man wanders the lands, hairs graying with the summers. Back to his ancestral home. Back to his youth. Back to the days before death and tears and dust.

His journey was sluggish, old bones struggling to support atrophied muscles. A cultivator he may have been, but immortal he was not. Nevertheless, he makes the trek without rest or complaint. And as hope blossoms in his heart once more as his eyes gaze upon his home, the assassin acts.

As the midday sky is devoured by the void, a slender, glistening blade pierces his back, exiting through his chest. He coughs blood in disbelief, but the Void is imperious and uncaring.

So ends the man’s tale, yet another victim of the insatiable Void. Neither wind, nor fire, nor lightning, nor water can resist its power. Only the earth fights back, indomitable will locked in a stalemate with ravenous hunger. Eventually, earth gives in too, the last bastion before nonexistence. And as nothingness swallows his home, the screams of its inhabitants too are consumed until nothing remains but a flattened plateau.

But his life served its purpose, honing the skills of a nameless assassin who would slay kings, emperors and challenge the heavens themselves.

When his eyes open once more, the jade soul is gone and his own soul is stronger than before. The Elder pays respect to his fallen comrade, as he does to all his comrades sacrificed to further the endless ambition of the Void.

Such was the life of a Void Sectarian. They’d gladly give their life, their soul, and their very humanity. Power was unattainable without sacrifice. When that tenet was ignored, when the sect’s ideals were corrupted, disaster struck.

The Void Sect’s infamy arose from their legendary skill. But wealth and fame hadn’t saved his predecessors, those old men drunk on their own power and influence.

He still remembered the day the united forces of the Four Heavenly Sects, the Demon Lords, and the Crimson Empire had razed his home to the ground, some seven centuries ago. Then, he’d been too weak to resist.

“Never again,” he’d vowed to himself, even as his brethren’s restless souls wandered aimlessly, rejected by the Yellow River and the seven hells both.

Even the powers of Sin rejected the Void.

The cool desert air greets Weimin fondly when he finally leaves the dungeon. He closes his eyes, drinking in the world.

Dryness assaults his nose, robbing moisture from within. His enhanced hearing picks up the night’s predators, flights of warm-blooded fliers that hunt other, smaller fliers. Scorpions traverse the desert sands, avoided by any who know better. He unfurls his Soul Sense. The darkness fades away, every dune recorded to the last grain of sand.

And then the moment is gone. A numbing sensation worms through his body, making the hair on the back of his neck stand straight. He knows the origin of the feeling, but it puts him on edge regardless.

“Stop stalking me, assassin.”

No response.

The world grinds to a halt. Gone is the fluttering of leathery wings, the incessant buzzing of nocturnal insects. Quiet is a word that cannot describe this feeling. It’s as if all the light, sound, existence in the world has been… devoured.

This is the Moonless Night Technique.

Our Instructors would have killed for a demonstration like this, he thinks. What he’d faced earlier in the dungeon was a formation, a simple additive matrix handled by weak acolytes. This is an entirely different animal. Where the latter had been a wall, this is an impenetrable fortress. They shared a purpose, but that was where the similarities ended.

Weimin’s logic trumps his unease. The only users of the technique hailed from the Void Sect, and other than the ritual he’d interrupted, they’d have no reason to suspect his loyalty.

“You’re wasting my time. Show yourself,” he demands, his words hiding his agitation.

A sigh resounds, swamping his senses as if it surrounds him.

“You never let me have my fun.”

The technique collapses at its wielder’s command, and the world returns to life, revealing the pouting visage of the second prince.

“Why are you here?”

“Must I have a reason to check on my dear brother?”

Hong Chinglin had never been familial. A jester at times, executioner at others, he remained distant even as his siblings perished.

What does he want now?

Then the screaming begins. It’s a distant cry, back from the palace whence he came. He activates his qingong. Somehow, defying all logic and comprehension, Chinglin shatters his technique, ripping him out of the wind. Blood trickles from his nose, his body protesting the qi backlash.

“So quick to leave brother? After I just arrived? You wound me.”

Weimin lays prone for a moment to recover his faculties. He rises to his feet, dusting off the irritating desert sand and scorpion that clings to his robes, its stinger crushed on impact with his flesh. Last to return is his ability to speak, so several heartbeats pass before he can respond.

“As if you care.”

At this, Chinglin looks genuinely hurt.

It’s still an act, Weimin reminds himself. After all, normal people didn’t implant qi receptors into their siblings to make them susceptible to emotional manipulation.

Weimin begins to walk away, his confidence increasing with every step. The next thing he knows, he’s on his back, a high pitched ringing in his ears, quickly fading to reveal the sound of Chinglin laughing.

Weimin ignores his disorientation, putting on the airs of an affronted aristocrat. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Oh, stop, you. We both know you don’t care for the aristocracy. Why do you burden yourself so?”

“As a royal prince, it is my duty to protect my subjects. Stop me if you dare.”

Chinglin sighs with exasperation before explaining himself. “If you must know, I’m here to prevent your interference. I- WE cannot afford another failure because of your petulant whims.”

“Excuse me for being unable to stomach the corruption of the dao,” Weimin bites back.

Chinglin’s smile is as frigid as his skin is pale, and his gaze promises violence. But he says nothing.

Weimin knows he has no chance of beating Chinglin. Eight years of dedicated cultivation and training made the gulf between their abilities impassable, despite his senior’s poor- relatively speaking- talent.

Aware of his entrapment, he gives up resistance. Instead, he watches curiously as Chinglin pulls corpse after corpse from his storage ring, throwing them nonchalantly on the ground in front of his levitating body. But Weimin doesn’t ask, unwilling to give him the gratification.

Next, the assassin empties a jar of steaming blood over the corpses, much of it splashing onto the ground.

If this is a ritual, it’s not one Weimin has ever seen.

Severed legs, arms, eyes and ears flow out of his ring in abundance, though they don’t belong to the- mostly- intact cadavers.

After an incense time, Chinglin sees through his feigned indifference.

“Oh, stop pretending, little brother. I can see your curiosity. What do you wish to know?”

For a moment, Weimin says nothing, surprised by the second prince’s casual observation. Regardless, he has to maintain the facade of an imperious noble; years of instruction at the Burning Palace have etched this into his mind.

A moment later, curiosity trumps embarrassment, and he speaks. “Why?”

Chinglin just shrugs. “Dead men make for excellent scapegoats.”

When Chinglin finally leaves, it is well past midnight. Despite his cultivator’s stamina, Weimin falls asleep as soon as his head graces his silken sheets, no time spared to investigate the source of the earlier wails.

It isn’t til morning that he learns of another contender's death.