Chapter 64 – The Bitter Fruit of Despair

Rin stood before the orchard, a sprawling field of twisted, gnarled trees that seemed to writhe with a life of their own. The trees were a sickly grey, their branches bent under the weight of unnatural fruit that gleamed like orbs of blood-streaked jade. The air was thick with a choking, acrid scent that carried the weight of countless years of sorrow and loss. It was the very embodiment of despair, a place where grief and anguish had fermented into something far darker, far more potent.

This was the Cursed Orchard, a place that grew fruits born from the very essence of suffering. The Grief Cultivators, those who lived in the shadows of death, maintained the orchard, their bodies and minds twisted by the emotional power that they harvested. They used despair, regret, and sorrow as the fuel for their cultivation, transforming the darkest parts of their souls into a wellspring of power. And now, Rin had come to partake in the fruits they cultivated. But this was not a place of simple nourishment; it was a place of reckoning, a place that demanded everything of those who sought to consume its bitter harvest.

Each tree in the orchard seemed to whisper, its rustling leaves filled with the faintest echoes of voices—mournful, broken. The fruits that hung from the branches were not mere fruits; they were reflections of a cultivator's deepest fears, their most harrowing regrets, the wounds that time could never heal. The moment one partook of the fruit, they would be forced to confront those emotions, those memories, and in doing so, they would gain clarity. But the cost would be steep. Emotional degradation, a weakening of the mind, the soul, and the heart, awaited anyone foolish enough to consume the fruits.

Rin's hand twitched at his side. The temptation was undeniable. He had come this far to strengthen his power, to refine his Death Transmutation techniques. He had battled gods, consumed the Hollow Essence, and shattered his own limitations, but this—this was something else entirely. This place was not just about death; it was about the raw, unfiltered power of emotion, of the sorrow that shaped him and every being that had ever walked this earth.

The wind whispered through the orchard again, and Rin took a step forward. As his footfall sank into the soft, despair-laden soil, a tree before him began to tremble, its fruit glowing more intensely. Without thinking, Rin approached the tree, his hands outstretched. He plucked one of the fruits, the bitter scent hitting him like a wall of sorrow, raw and pungent. It pulsed in his palm, sending tremors through his body.

He closed his eyes, steeling himself. There would be no turning back.

With a deep breath, Rin bit into the fruit.

The world shifted. His body seemed to dissolve, and he was pulled into a whirlwind of vivid hallucinations. The orchard, the trees, the air—all of it faded into a haze of sharp, stinging memories.

He stood once more in the ruins of his sect, the remains of the once-proud Tower of Eternal Night. Smoke rose from the cracked earth, black and thick with the scent of burnt flesh and ash. The screams of his brothers and sisters in cultivation echoed through the night air, their voices broken by the weight of betrayal.

And there, standing amidst the wreckage, was Yue Lan.

She stood with her back turned, her silhouette outlined by the flickering flames. She had betrayed him, had handed his sect to their enemies, to the very people he had trusted most. The memory of her eyes—those once-loving, now cold—cut through him like a blade. Her hand had been the one to hold the dagger that drove the final blow into his sect's heart.

"Why?" Rin's voice cracked, but no sound came out. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted by the weight of the betrayal.

Yue Lan turned, her expression blank, her face unreadable. The love they had shared, the bond they had formed, was nothing but an illusion, a fleeting moment lost in the winds of fate.

"You never understood, Rin," she said, her voice hollow, as if it were not her speaking but a mere echo of what had once been. "You were too weak to see the truth. The sect's ideals were flawed from the start. I did what I had to do."

Rin's vision blurred with rage, sorrow, and confusion. He reached out to her, but the distance between them grew, stretching into an infinite chasm that he could never cross. The betrayal consumed him, drowning him in its depths. The wound it left in his soul festered, and he could do nothing but watch as it all unraveled.

As he watched Yue Lan fade into the smoke, Rin felt his own emotions begin to twist, to warp, as if they were no longer his own. The fruit—the cursed fruit—was amplifying his pain, forcing him to confront not only the past, but his own weakness, his own inability to let go of the people and the memories that had once mattered most.

The scene shattered, and another memory surged forward. This time, it was the death of his master, the one who had taken him in, who had guided him through the harshest trials. The old man had been a beacon of wisdom, but now, Rin could only see his frail body, his lifeless eyes staring at him from within the remnants of his broken corpse.

His master's last words echoed in Rin's ears: "To seek power is to lose everything that makes you human."

The pain of that loss nearly crushed Rin, but as the hallucinations spiraled around him, he felt something new stirring within him. The fruit was not just giving him memories—it was showing him the very rawness of his emotions, forcing him to face them without the armor he had spent so long constructing. The feelings that had once been buried deep within him were now coming to the surface, but instead of simply being overwhelmed by them, Rin realized something crucial.

He could use these emotions.

They were not just memories to be mourned; they were tools, raw materials for his cultivation. The agony, the sorrow, the despair—they could all be transformed into something far greater. He could forge these emotions into weapons of power, using them to fuel his Death Transmutation.

The fruit's essence began to settle within him, and Rin's mind sharpened. The sorrow of the past, the despair that had been his constant companion, could now be channeled into something more. He understood, for the first time, how to mold the intangible into something real. These emotions could become the foundation of his new technique: Despair Rend.

With a surge of will, Rin focused on the emotion of betrayal—the searing pain of Yue Lan's treachery. He wrapped his mind around it, condensed it, and then released it with a single thought.

The world around him trembled. The very air seemed to split as the wave of energy shot out from him. It was raw, unfiltered, and powerful. The essence of his grief tore through the fabric of the world, a violent, unrelenting force. It was not a weapon of steel or flame; it was a weapon of pure, emotional devastation. The Despair Rend was a force that could cut into the very soul, forcing its target to relive their worst memories and unravel them from the inside out.

But Rin knew that this was only the beginning. The fruit had given him a glimpse into the depth of emotional power he could wield. With this technique, he could shatter the spirits of his enemies, turning their most painful memories into a weapon that would tear their very beings apart.

The orchard around him began to fade as the last remnants of the fruit's essence merged with his own. The hallucinations, the pain, and the torment all receded, leaving Rin standing alone in the orchard. But he was not the same man who had entered. His heart was heavier, burdened by the weight of the emotions he had harvested, but his power had grown immeasurably.

Rin clenched his fists, feeling the raw energy coursing through his veins. The burden of his humanity, the pain of his past, would never fully fade. But now, he understood. Strength came not from avoiding pain, but from accepting it, from forging it into something far more deadly than any physical weapon could be.

He had learned the bitter truth: power, true power, could only be obtained by embracing despair—and then using it to destroy everything that stood in his way.

To be continued…