The wind from the northeast was unnaturally cold, a cold that did not belong to nature, but seemed to blow from some bottomless abyss.
Bai Lin stepped over scattered stones. At some point the foliage had withered; the branch tips curved like skeletal fingers, silently bending toward the rift.
The pulsing of the corpse vein in his chest was clearer than the pursuers' footsteps.
Thump.
Thump.
Low, heavy, yet perfectly regular—like a colossal heart answering him across layers of deep earth.
"Here."
Not words.
It was the direction carried by the pulse.
Bai Lin knew perfectly well this was no friendly summons, yet his body was drawn forward as if by a lodestone.
The closer he got, the lower his body temperature fell.
The lower it fell, the sharper his consciousness became.
The forest gradually yielded a path in the darkness.
Cracks began to appear in the ground ahead—
fine as spider silk, yet all radiating outward from the same source.
Bai Lin narrowed his eyes.
These were not ordinary tectonic fissures.
They were cracks that were breathing.
He crouched and lightly touched the surface with his fingertips.
The edges were ice-cold, yet beneath that cold something seemed to knock in rhythm.
It echoed, faintly, with the pulsing of the corpse vein in his chest.
His brow furrowed.
The corpse vein wasn't simply responding to a "direction."
It was responding to something of the same kind.
At that moment—
"Bai Lin—!"
The pursuers' shout exploded from the forest path behind him.
Bai Lin raised his eyes, cold intent filling them.
He stood up and stopped hiding.
The aura of the rift calmed the corpse vein inside him, giving him greater control over his power than before.
Corpse qi slowly flowed from his fingertips—smoke, mist, like a tide of death from a primordial age.
More than a dozen pursuers crashed through the trees, talisman light illuminating the night.
When they saw Bai Lin standing at the very edge of the rift, their expressions shifted from wariness to horror.
"He… he's approaching the rift…!"
"Don't let him touch it! The Sect Leader said that if any anomaly gets near a rift—"
The squad leader barked, "Shut up! Form the array first!"
The pursuers instantly spread out in a practiced arc. Talisman papers flew upward, arranging themselves into a semicircular soul-locking formation.
The open end of the semicircle faced the darkness deep inside the rift.
If Bai Lin stepped back, he would be trapped inside the soul-locking array.
If he stepped forward… he would enter the rift.
The leader spoke coldly: "Bai Lin, turn back now and you might still keep your life—"
Bai Lin suddenly asked in a low voice, "Do you even know what this rift is?"
The pursuers froze at the question.
Someone sneered, "You think you're qualified to approach a place like this?"
Bai Lin did not move. His tone was so indifferent it bordered on merciless: "Since you don't know, what right do you have… to decide how I should live?"
The pursuers' faces changed.
The next second—
Bai Lin moved.
As though pushed by the wind blowing from the rift, as though a shadow flashing through a tear.
Three points in the sealing array exploded at once.
"Stop him—!"
"Don't let him get any closer—!"
Panic seized the pursuers.
Some even abandoned protocol and unleashed killing moves outright.
Talisman arrays flared. Golden light pressed down.
Bai Lin's expression did not shift. He merely raised a hand—
Corpse qi surged like a wave and shattered the golden radiance.
The light broke into cold rain.
Bai Lin took one step forward.
The wind at the edge of the rift seemed to draw a hoarse breath.
The pulsing of the corpse vein grew more violent.
Thump—
Thump—
Thump—
He clutched his chest; his breathing faltered for a moment.
This was not pain. It was a response to a summons.
The rift was breathing.
The corpse vein was answering.
And he stood between them, like a string being pulled taut.
Suddenly—
A faint crack.
Not from the ground.
From inside him.
Bai Lin's pupils contracted.
It sounded like bone seams being pried open.
The next instant—
A wave of freezing cold swept up his spine.
Beneath the skin of his chest, two previously separate strands of corpse qi… began moving toward each other.
This was wrong.
This was a change he could not control.
Bai Lin forcibly suppressed the backlash, refusing to let the corpse vein run wild.
But the rift seemed to see through his struggle. From its depths came a second, heavier—
THUMP.
The sound rose from the very bottom of hell, the heartbeat of something asleep.
For the first time in his life, Bai Lin's vision wavered.
The outlines of the earth seemed to melt.
Light stretched.
On the other side of the rift… something was slowly opening its eyes.
He could almost hear it:
"…Come…"
Not words. A resonance of heartbeats.
The corpse vein in his chest answered: Thump—thump—thump—
with force enough to tear through his skin.
Bai Lin bit down hard, forcing himself to stay conscious.
He knew—this rift was not calling him.
It was choosing him.
And there was only one reason for that choice—
he shared the same pulse as whatever lay inside.
The pursuers also sensed the abnormality and began retreating:
"His mutation is accelerating!"
"The rift is affecting him! Seal it—now!"
"But this isn't something a normal sealing array can close—!"
The squad leader gritted his teeth: "He cannot take another half-step forward! Otherwise—"
Bai Lin said softly:
"Too late."
Just when everyone thought the rift would swallow him—
A strand of black mist shot skyward from the distant forest floor.
As though the earth had been ripped open, as though a beast chasing a scent.
The pursuers paled:
"The black mist again?!"
"Why is it always following him—?!"
"Withdraw the array! The black mist is already at the outer perimeter—!"
Bai Lin whipped around.
The black mist was not coming for the pursuers.
Its direction was—
Him.
The rift and the black mist were both calling him?
The realization sent ice through his fingertips.
The black mist shrieked as it closed in, faster than ever before—drawn by the rift, or trying to seize something that belonged to it.
For the first time, Bai Lin felt:
His existence was not a single anomaly, but the intersection of two colossal forces.
The rift.
The black mist.
Both extended their tendrils at the same time—
both fighting to claim him.
The corpse vein in his chest hurt as though it would rip itself apart.
"Hss—!"
He dropped to one knee, fingers digging into the earth.
The pursuers were in complete disarray:
"What do we do?! The black mist is about to swallow him!"
"But the rift… the rift is pulling him too…"
"If both touch him at once—"
The squad leader roared: "Fall back! Everyone fall back!!!"
Bai Lin's breathing grew labored.
He knew.
If the black mist reached him first, he would lose all control.
If the rift pulled him in first…
he would be devoured by the unknown.
But he could not retreat.
Because the moment he did—
the pursuers would strike.
Another sound came from the depths of the rift:
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The black mist closed in like a mad roar.
Bai Lin raised his eyes, cold and sharp.
Between two kinds of annihilation, he chose a third path:
Upward.
His figure shot into the air, stepping off cracked stone onto withered branches, then borrowing momentum to leap toward the higher peaks.
The black mist slammed into the ground, shredding the pursuers' sealing array.
The rift let out a low growl; the force that had been dragging him was violently severed.
Bai Lin streaked through the wind like a shadow.
Inside him, the corpse vein thundered in fury:
"You cannot escape."
Bai Lin clenched his teeth and answered coldly:
"I will not let you choose me."
He darted swiftly between the branches, a wisp of shadow.
Yet the farther he fled, the more wrong everything felt.
The cold was no longer seeping in from the outside.
It was spreading outward from inside him.
The pulsing in his chest suddenly slowed by half a beat.
Thump…
...thump.
Like a heart frozen in icy water.
Bai Lin's body faltered mid-leap; his foot nearly slipped from the branch.
This was not the first time the corpse vein had hurt, but this particular cold was new.
Not pain.
Not tearing.
More like—
death arriving early.
White mist formed with every breath from his throat—cold as though he were no longer alive.
(Can't… stop.)
He forced himself onward, but his speed had clearly dropped.
The black mist was already chasing above the treetops, a vast net of darkness.
From far away the pursuers watched, faces filled with dread:
"The mutation inside him is accelerating…!"
"The black mist seems to be forcing him to awaken something…"
"That cold… I can feel it even from here!"
Sound reached Bai Lin's ears as if through deep water.
His vision began to blur.
Cold—so cold it felt as though only dead water flowed inside him.
The corpse vein was not raging.
It was sinking.
As though pressed into the abyss.
For the first time, unease rose in Bai Lin's heart:
(This isn't backlash… this is… "awakening.")
Caught between the approaching rift and black mist, squeezed to his limit by two immense forces.
His body temperature continued to plummet.
One breath…
Two breaths…
By the tenth breath, his breathing no longer resembled a living person's—it was the breath of a corpse sealed in ice.
The black mist suddenly roared, enraged by some provocation. No longer hesitating, it—
pounced.
The entire net of mist swallowed the sea of trees.
Bai Lin had not yet regained full awareness when an enormous crash sounded:
HSSSS—!!!!
A huge swath of forest collapsed, as though scraped by a titan.
For the first time, the black mist displayed such ferocity.
The pursuers were forced to halt their chase entirely, only able to watch from afar.
"Why is the black mist acting insane today?!"
"It doesn't look like it's hunting… it looks like it's trying to snatch him!!"
"The sect has never recorded the black mist reacting like this—"
Bai Lin leaned against a tree trunk, gasping heavily.
But every gasp produced only white mist.
Ice-cold, stagnant, without warmth.
He pressed a hand to his chest and said in a low, hoarse voice:
"…Wake up."
As though commanding his own heart.
The corpse vein twitched twice, yet remained sunk at the bottom of the ice.
The black mist was too fast.
Soon he was completely surrounded.
Branches, earth, air—everything was covered in black shadow.
Bai Lin knew:
Two more breaths, and he would be swallowed.
He looked up.
The black mist churned, countless maws hungry to devour.
And right now—
he could not even summon the strength to wield the corpse vein.
I cannot die.
Even less can I let it take me.
Bai Lin clenched his jaw until his knuckles whitened.
Just as the black mist descended from above—
He did something he had never done before:
He "released" his own breath.
Not merely stopping breathing.
He ceased all signs of life.
Every last trace of warmth, flow, rhythm remaining in his body…
he forcibly crushed them all.
In that instant, he became a true corpse.
The black mist fell.
Swallowed him.
Enveloped him.
Passed through him.
—And did not detect him.
Bai Lin pressed himself flat against the tree's shadow, utterly motionless.
Even his chest did not rise or fall.
Because at this moment—
he possessed no trace of a living person.
The black mist circled, searched, tore at the empty air beside him.
So close that if he lifted a finger he could touch it.
It brushed past his cheek, cold as a blade.
Yet it never noticed.
From far away, the pursuers who witnessed this felt chills crawl over their skin.
"He… he just… vanished?"
"Not vanished… he became like the dead…"
"The black mist has the property of 'hunting the living.' It never touches corpses…"
"Could he have… turned himself into…?"
The squad leader's throat trembled:
"He did what no mortal could ever do…
He completely erased every mark of 'being alive.'"
The black mist circled three times, shrieked, found nothing, and could only retreat to the treetops.
Then it lunged once more toward the slope ahead.
It had lost him.
Bai Lin remained perfectly still.
Only after the black mist had completely left his perception…
did he slowly exhale his first breath.
In that instant, pain like a thousand blades stabbed through his chest.
The corpse vein thrashed wildly, hauling itself back from the abyss to the surface.
Cold sweat soaked his back.
He nearly collapsed.
For the first time…
to stay alive, he had not resisted with power.
He had hidden himself with "death."
This was—
the second instinct of the corpse vein.
Not attack.
Not berserk rage.
But—
"Death-Breath."
Bai Lin murmured under his breath:
"…So… your power can also be used… to remain unseen."
He raised his hand and looked at the nearly imperceptible gray-white chill at his fingertips.
That was not ordinary spiritual qi.
That was—
the scent of a dead man's breath.
For the first time, he understood a part of the corpse vein.
Not all of it—just one thin thread.
But it had been enough to save his life.
After his breathing steadied, Bai Lin looked back toward the rift he had left behind.
Though he was now several hundred zhang away,
he could still hear it—
that deep, resonant echo.
Thump.
…Thump.
As though some immense thing continued to breathe in the depths.
A chill touched Bai Lin's forehead.
That sound was not coming from his corpse vein.
Yet his corpse vein was beating in perfect unison with it.
Like submission.
Like recognition.
Like receiving orders.
Bai Lin said softly:
"I am not yours."
The ground trembled faintly.
As though his refusal had provoked some reaction on the other side of the rift.
A strand of cold wind blew toward him.
Not natural wind.
It was—
the rift inhaling.
Hiss…
Wind was sucked away; leaves shivered.
Bai Lin stared at the faintly trembling tree shadows for a long, silent moment.
He neither retreated
nor approached.
He simply gazed at it, cold and unyielding.
Finally, he turned and walked away, footsteps firm.
He did not belong to the black mist.
He belonged even less to the rift.
—Yet the two most dangerous things in this world
both wanted him.
After leaving the forest, Bai Lin walked slowly.
The aftereffects of the Death-Breath still lingered.
A part of him felt as though it had not fully awakened.
He tried to circulate spiritual breath…
only to find his chest remained a field of ice.
(Using that ability… temporarily lets the corpse vein steal away my "vitality."
The price is too high.)
Yet its effect had been astonishing:
The black mist had not found him.
The pursuers could not sense him.
Even the spirit beasts in the forest had avoided him entirely.
Because what they "smelled" was—
a dead man.
After emerging from the forest, Bai Lin looked up at the sky.
The night was covered in clouds; there was no moonlight.
But he knew:
Tonight, for the first time, he had truly used the corpse vein
to seize a single instant between life and death.
He had not mastered it completely,
but the path had appeared:
"…Death is not necessarily the end."
He lifted his hand, feeling the lingering cold at his fingertips.
"Sometimes…
it is merely a method."