[You dug a grave for the body before you.
Laid it to rest, filled the pit, and planted a wooden plank as a marker.
You didn’t know their name, so naturally, there was nothing you could carve upon it.]
[You remained silent.
Silently, you gazed at the grave.
Then, silently, you turned away and walked back in the direction you’d been digging before.]
[And at your back stretched a graveyard without end…]
Xianzhou Luofu.
Cloud Knight Reserve Academy.
“Who is she?
I’ve never seen her around before.”
“Shh, keep your voice down.
I heard my dad say she came from the Cangcheng!”
“What?!
Wasn’t the Cangcheng destroyed by those damn Abominations of Abundance?”
“I heard she’s one of the few survivors from the Cangcheng.”
“How sad…”
“Probably best not to get too close to her, then.”
“…Yeah.”
Jingliu lowered her head, a little self-conscious, and focused every bit of her attention on the assignment the teacher had left behind.
Not long ago, she’d been taken in by the Cloud Knight elder sister who had rescued her.
The woman had said Jingliu’s talent was promising and that she was willing to take her on as a disciple.
Jingliu, for her part, had resolved to become a Cloud Knight herself one day.
So her master had pulled some strings to enroll her in this academy.
She understood that her classmates didn’t mean any harm.
It was simply that many of the survivors from the Xianzhou Cangcheng had become psychologically unstable in one way or another.
That was why everyone kept their distance.
Though truth be told, she hadn’t planned on spending much effort on socializing anyway…
Hmph.
Come to think of it, this is all Qiong’s fault!
Telling me to just lean on him—saying he could handle all the social stuff, the studying, the martial training, everything.
Now look at me…
it’s like I don’t know how to do anything on my own…
If only Qiong were here…
No, no.
I can’t keep thinking about relying on Qiong for everything.
I’m amazing too!
Jingliu shook her head and forced her attention back onto the assignment.
But before long, her eyes grew moist once more…
[Year 11.
Two years of mechanical, numbing existence had blurred your memories.
Now, all you remembered was that you had to find your parents—and then lie down at their side and sleep, deeply and well.]
[You were so tired.
Your body had long since wasted away to little more than skin and bone.
Despite the blessing of Abundance that all Xianzhou natives carried, after two full years without a single drop of water or morsel of food, you should, by all logic, have been dead long ago.] This story is hosted at novelping dot com.
[But every time you felt yourself on the verge of death, that distant pillar of radiant white jade would cast faint streams of light toward you, keeping starvation at bay.]
[Over the past two years, you had tried walking toward that luminous white jade pillar.
But each time you felt yourself drawing close, it would suddenly reappear somewhere terribly far away.]
[In the end—and to conserve what little energy you had—you gave up on satisfying that so-called curiosity.]
[Today, while excavating the ruins, you finally made a new discovery.]
[You stared at the two bodies before you.
Their flesh had been mutilated beyond recognition.
You were frozen in place.]
[Dust and dried blood had fused together.
You could not identify either of them by their facial features.
What remained of their bodies were little more than broken limbs and shattered remains.
Yet the two of them clung tightly to one another.]
[You could say with absolute certainty—these were not your parents.]
[But…
but why did they feel so intensely familiar?]
[You stared blankly at them for a long, long time.
You had no way of knowing how much time had passed.
After all, on this planet—and throughout the entire surrounding stretch of space—the only source of light was that radiant white jade pillar.]
[You pressed your cracked, dried lips together.
Then, you hoisted both bodies onto your shoulders.
Though your frame was small, your strength, at least, remained considerable.]
[Dig the pit.
Lay them to rest.
Fill the grave.
Raise a marker.]
[These mechanical motions had been carved into the very marrow of your bones.]
[You wanted to write something on the wooden tablet.
But after extending your finger, you no longer knew what to write.]
[Your heartbeat told you that these two people had been important to you.
Yet within your memories, there was only a blank, empty void.]
[You scavenged through the ruins until you found the most intact, the cleanest, and the tallest wooden plank.
You planted it before the grave.]
[You sat before the grave for a long, long while.
You wanted to speak.
But your vocal cords could only produce hoarse, rasping, broken sounds.]
Perhaps…
all things in the universe are inherently meaningless…
[This thought surfaced abruptly in your mind.
A line of small text appeared before your eyes.]
—[Walker of Paths] (Activate)
You were somewhat at a loss.
But in the next instant, the shadow of Nihility enshrouded this region of space.
The world was stained black and white.
At the far end of the void, a black sun manifested into existence.
[You set foot upon the Path of Nihility.]
[In other words, you became a Self-Annihilator.]
[At the same moment, your mind was, for a time, swept clear.
Fragmented shards of memory began to surge toward you in a flood.]
It was still alive.
And what was more, it had been continuously interfering with your cognition.]
[To put it plainly—the blurring of your memories was, in part, its doing.]
[But now, wrapped in the energy of the Path of Nihility, you no longer needed to worry about its interference.]
[You came before the grave of Uncle Jing and Aunt Liu.
With your finger, you carved their names into their headstone.]
Xianzhou Luofu.
Aurum Alley.
“Grip it tight.
As a Cloud Knight, you must never let your weapon leave your hand!
Never let your form falter!”
“Yes, Master!”
Under the banyan tree, Jingliu swung her sword with fierce determination.
Her clothes had long since been soaked through with sweat.
By now, she was persevering almost entirely on willpower alone.
Her master watched from the side.
There was a hint of heartache in her eyes, but she knew—softness now would do her no favors.
Since the girl had resolved to set foot upon the battlefield in the future, her training could not afford to be anything less than brutal.
If she did not push herself to the limit now, that would be the true cruelty.
[Year 12.
Shrouded by Nihility, you felt nothing particularly unusual.
On the contrary—your speed at excavating the ruins had increased.]
[Year 13.
You continued to dig through the ruins.]
[Year 14.
You were still digging through the ruins.]
[Year 15…]
[Year 23.
You found the remains of your parents.
Judging from the shattered remnants of furniture scattered nearby, these were, without a doubt, their bodies.]
[You buried them beside the graves of Uncle Jing and Aunt Liu.]
[Year 24.
Digging through the ruins.]
[It wasn’t that you had dug for so many years that it had become a habit.
Rather, you believed that those who had died deserved to be laid to rest.]
[Not the kind of “rest” that meant being buried beneath rubble.
The kind of rest that meant, at the very least, having a grave.
Having a headstone.]
Xianzhou Luofu.
“Next, you will undertake your respective end-of-term assessments.” The Cloud Knight examiner addressed the assembled group with stern solemnity.
“You will be linked into the virtual combat network.
What you will face are the simulated combat data of prodigies from across the cosmos—or ferocious Abominations of Abundance.”