Cultivator of the End: I Refine My Own Death-Chapter 116 – Tomb of Crawling Nails

The air in the valley stank of death, a pervasive odor that clung to the soul itself. It was the smell of corruption, the fetid aroma of the dead rising from the very earth. The valley stretched wide before Rin, the horizon a sickly green, and the land seemed to pulse with something unnatural. It was as if the earth itself had been infected, and all that stood upon it was doomed to rot.

This was the domain of the rogue corpse cultivators, a group that had long been whispered about in the darkest corners of the world. Cultivators who had abandoned the natural laws of life and death, choosing instead to bind their souls to the bodies of the dead, gaining power from the decayed flesh and the lingering essences of the fallen.

Rin could feel their presence long before he laid eyes on the heart of their domain. There was a thick, oppressive aura that hung in the air, like the weight of a thousand gravestones pressing down on his chest. He was no stranger to death, but this was different. This was a place where death had become a way of life, and the very bones of the earth had been twisted into a grotesque mockery of existence.

It was here, in the midst of this death-saturated land, that Rin found himself standing before the gates of the rogue corpse cultivators. The gates were made of bone—gigantic, blackened ribs that arched high above him, forming an entrance that seemed to swallow the light itself. A chill ran through his spine as he passed beneath them, the sensation of being welcomed into a tomb.

The cultivators had been watching him for days, observing his every movement. They had sent out emissaries, those who had fallen into the grip of the corpse cultivation arts, seeking to make contact with him. Their offer was simple—join them. Become one of them. Share in the power they had gained by merging with the dead.

But Rin had no intention of joining them. He was not like them. He was not some twisted mockery of life and death. He had his own path to walk, and their domain of rot and corruption had no place in it.

Yet, he would play their game. He would pretend. For now, their trap was necessary. The time to strike was not yet right, but it would come. Soon.

As he entered their domain, the sights before him were enough to make his stomach turn. The landscape was dotted with massive, decaying corpses, their bloated bodies anchored to the ground by iron chains. The dead were everywhere—twisted, mutilated, and reshaped into grotesque living relics of forgotten wars. The corpse cultivators had made their home in these husks, and they had used the flesh of the dead to create a moving, living tomb.

The titanic corpse that served as the foundation of their domain was a thing of nightmares. It was an immense, rotting body—flesh turned black and slick with decay, but still somehow moving, its arms and legs shifting with unnatural life. Its eyes were hollow sockets, its mouth a jagged maw. The corpse was a titanic foundation, a body that stretched for miles, with living tunnels that carved through its insides, twisting through layers of rotten organs and decayed skin.

It was an abomination, a twisted temple of death.

Rin was led through this monstrous labyrinth, the sounds of distant whispers echoing through the vast halls of decaying flesh. He could feel the eyes of the cultivators watching him, calculating, waiting to see what he would do. They wanted to test him, to see if he was worthy of their corrupted order. They thought he would bend to their will.

But they had no idea who he was.

The leader of the corpse cultivators—a gaunt man with hollowed eyes and a voice that sounded like the wind through dead trees—met Rin at the center of the corpse's chest. His presence was like a weight, the air thick with his malevolent power. He looked at Rin with an almost predatory gaze.

"You've come, as we expected," the leader said, his voice low and rasping. "We can feel the death in you. It calls to us. The Hundredfold Dying Intent you wield... it is a gift. Join us, and together we can reshape the world. Our domain is built upon the bones of the dead. Here, we are eternal."

Rin's gaze hardened. The leader was right about one thing—he did feel the death in this place. It was thick, dense, like a living thing that pulsed in the air around him. But this was not the kind of death that Rin sought. This was the death of stagnation, of endless decay. It was a death that sought to prolong itself, to feed off the fallen and continue its grip on the world. Rin had no interest in that kind of power. He was going to burn it all down.

"I'm not here to join you," Rin said coldly, his eyes narrowing. "I'm here to end you."

The leader's eyes flashed with amusement. He stepped closer, the flesh of the corpse beneath his feet groaning and shifting with each movement.

"Fool," the leader said, his lips curling into a smile. "You think you can oppose us? You are nothing but a child, playing with death. But here, in the Tomb of Crawling Nails, we are the true masters of the dead. The corpse is our home, our sanctuary. You cannot escape it. You cannot defeat us."

Rin's eyes flickered with cold intensity. His Death Core flared to life within him, dark energy swirling in the pit of his stomach. The Hundredfold Dying Intent began to stir in the depths of his soul.

"You think you control the dead," Rin muttered, his voice low, the words laced with power. "But you're just parasites, feeding on the corpses of those who came before you. You don't understand death... you don't understand true death."

With a sudden surge of energy, Rin slammed his hands together, and the air around him seemed to crack with the force of the technique. Hundredfold Dying Intent erupted from his core like a tidal wave, sweeping through the room, cascading into the very bones of the corpse that served as the foundation of their domain.

The leader's expression faltered, confusion flickering across his face as he felt the technique take hold. His power—based on the twisted corpse arts—was nothing compared to the raw force of true death. The air grew thick with a suffocating darkness as the technique bore down on the corpse cultivators, infecting their very souls.

The Hundredfold Dying Intent was a technique unlike any other. It wasn't just the death of the body—it was the death of the soul, the obliteration of all that one was. It was an annihilation of all things, a storm of death that crushed the spirit and body alike. Rin had perfected the technique through the constant refinement of his Death Core, pushing himself to the limit. Now, he unleashed it with all his fury, intent on obliterating everything in its path.

The corpse cultivators screamed as the technique washed over them, their bodies contorting and decaying as their souls were pulled into the storm of death. Their cultivation, their twisted rituals, were nothing before the might of true death. Their bodies fell to the floor in heaps, disintegrating under the weight of their own corruption.

The leader, still standing, staggered backward, his eyes wide with disbelief. He was powerful, yes, but not powerful enough to withstand the fury of Rin's death technique. Rin moved swiftly, drawing his dagger—Mourning Fang—and thrusting it deep into the leader's chest, absorbing the essence of his soul with a single, fluid motion.

The leader's body crumpled as the soul was consumed, the last vestiges of his life slipping away into Rin's blade. The Cultivation Soul Core, a vessel of immense power, was now Rin's to command.

Rin's chest heaved as the power surged through him. The leader's soul fused with his own, and the technique blossomed in his hands, a new surge of dark energy that made his body pulse with newfound strength.

The Tomb of Crawling Nails was no longer a place of power for the corpse cultivators. It was nothing more than a tomb now, empty and silent, save for the echoes of the dead. And Rin stood victorious, a conqueror in a land of rot and decay.

He looked around at the ruins of their domain, his eyes cold, the echoes of their screams still ringing in his ears. He was no longer just a cultivator of death. He had become its master.

And with the Cultivation Soul Core in his hands, Rin knew that this was only the beginning.

To be continued...