Deep in the Eastern Sea, on a nameless island, black tides battered the reefs, throwing up spray thick with the smell of rust and brine as they roared and surged.
The island's reef caves twisted deep into the rock, where rows of stone chambers had been carved out. One held no light, only seeping walls and the ceaseless sound of the tide. It came from every direction, day and night, like a knife shaving away a person's will, cut by cut.
Yun Ying was imprisoned here.
Her body was covered in wounds, old and new overlapping. Some had scabbed over only to be rubbed raw again; others still oozed pus. Her wrists and ankles were shackled with soul-devouring black iron specially made on Unknown Island, the chains as thick as a child's arm and dragging heavily across the ground.
These chains were no ordinary ones. Cold seeped in where the iron rings touched her flesh, eating into her marrow without pause, like countless fine needles burrowing between her bones. It constantly suppressed the true qi within her and sealed every major acupoint in her body.
Two guards stood outside the door like stone statues. Their breathing was heavy and slow, keeping the same rhythm as the waves beyond the island, as though they were two stone spires that had grown from its rock.
Their leader's command had been a single sentence: torture her to the brink of death until she submitted.
The islanders excelled above all at the countless arts of torture. Flesh could heal and bones could mend, but a person's will could not withstand such endless destruction, day after day.
One day, she would submit.
Today's appointed hour came again. A guard pushed open the door, carrying a cowhide whip soaked in seawater. A blow from that whip