The night was as heavy as a suppressed lid, moonless and starless, leaving only the mountains and forests breathing.
Bai Lin ventured alone into the depths of the shadowy valley, the soil beneath his feet hardened by the chill, each step feeling like treading on shattered bone fragments.
He had left the settlement three days ago.
In those three days, he hadn't encountered anyone else, nor heard any sounds of pursuers.
But he knew—silence was never a good sign.
From the faint coolness seeping from the inner layers of his skin, that mass of black mist was approaching again.
It was an extremely hard-to-describe sense of proximity:
Not being stared at, not being chased, but rather—
The world itself leaning toward him.
The leaves trembled slightly as he passed through, not from the wind, but from some invisible force brushing against the branches.
This forest was breathing, shuddering.
Perhaps because of him, or perhaps because of that mist that had always been fixated on him.
Bai Lin pressed his hand to his chest, confirming that the Corpse Vein's pulsing hadn't gone out of control, before continuing forward.
He had to find the source of the rift.
If the Demon Emperor's echoes were truly connected to the rift, perhaps there he could find answers.
At least, it was the only possibility to make the black mist retreat.
—At least, he hoped so.
The chill didn't belong to the night, but to him.**
Half a day later, Bai Lin passed through a withered forest.
The dead branches reached toward the sky like blood-drained fingers, ashen and cracked.
The bark was covered in a thin layer of frost, gleaming coldly in the night, yet the temperature hadn't dropped to the point of frosting.
Bai Lin reached out to touch it.
The frost melted, condensing into cold vapor between his fingers.
He froze for a moment.
The frost… was because of him?
He placed his hand against the trunk, silent for a moment—
The chill emerged again, freezing the originally cracked bark until it turned pale.
This wasn't a natural phenomenon.
It was the "Corpse Vein" deeper in his body, unconsciously overflowing with power.
Bai Lin drew in a cold breath.
He had just learned "Corpse Chill Cessation," yet now his body seemed to actively seek low temperatures.
If this continued, would he never return to a "living person's" warmth?
As this thought flashed through Bai Lin's mind, his chest cavity suddenly tightened.
Pulsing.
It wasn't his heart beating.
It was—
The Corpse Vein.
Thump.
Thump.
Each pulse felt like fingertips tapping on his bones.
Icy, cold, dull, yet carrying some strange rhythm.
Not the rhythm of a living thing.
It was the cadence of something evil.
Bai Lin gritted his teeth, leaning against a nearby withered black tree, as if only by relying on something solid could he steady himself.
The Corpse Vein's pulsing grew faster, heavier.
Thump—thump—thump—
As if trying to burst open his chest cavity.
"No… again?"
His breathing quickened, but the white breath he exhaled was colder than the night, falling to the ground and instantly forming fine frost.
The Corpse Vein was restless.
The black mist was also closing in.
The two were intertwined.
Bai Lin endured the bone-piercing vibrations within his body, forcing himself to keep moving forward.
He had to reach the rift, had to do so before the black mist fully enveloped him—
Otherwise, the Corpse Vein would devour him first.
The night suddenly grew heavier.
Bai Lin stopped.
That weight wasn't an illusion; it was tangible, like the entire air had thickened.
The branches stilled, the fallen leaves stilled, even the insect chirps in the soil beneath his feet vanished instantly.
A silence unlike that of a living world.
—It had come.
When Bai Lin looked up, his pupils contracted slightly.
The distant forest began to darken, not from lack of light, but because colors were being erased.
The mist had no shape, but wherever it went, all colors were "wiped away."
Leaves turned to gray talisman paper.
Trunks looked like they had been repeatedly smeared with ink.
Even the sparse mud on the ground lost all texture.
This mist… was "writing" the world.
Rewriting it into the form it desired.
Cold sweat broke out on Bai Lin's back.
This mist didn't want to capture him like pursuers; it didn't need to chase.
It simply "rewrote" the world along Bai Lin's position,
And he would naturally fall into the mist.
The mist and the world were two sides of the same coin.
He had nowhere to escape.
The Corpse Vein pulsed again in his chest.
Thump—
He staggered a step, steadying himself against a tree.
But the trunk rapidly cooled under his fingers, frost patterns crawling along the bark like living things.
The Corpse Vein was about to run rampant.
The black mist was closing in.
Two pressures squeezed him from inside and out simultaneously.
Bai Lin's breath caught, his vision suddenly blurring.
"…No…"
He had just thought to leave when the black mist touched the air beside him first.
The surrounding scenery was drained stroke by stroke, colors, lines, details all smeared into a single darkness.
There was no sound in the mist, yet it felt like it was gazing.
"You again…?"
Bai Lin murmured, his fingers trembling slightly.
The mist didn't respond.
But it drew closer.
This wasn't the pressure of being hunted, but a kind of…
Feeling of being reclaimed by the world.
As if his existence here was wrong.
And it was correcting the error.
Bai Lin's chest tightened.
This mist…
Wasn't here to kill him.
But to "correct him."
To correct this "exception" that shouldn't be alive—Bai Lin.
"…I won't let you correct me."
He whispered.
The Corpse Vein exploded fiercely in the depths of his chest cavity.
THUMP!!!
Bai Lin's entire body was shaken to his knees, his knuckles digging deep into the mud.
Pain.
But not physical pain.
It was like ice blades scraping inside his bones.
The mist closed to within ten zhang.
As Bai Lin was about to be dragged into the mist—
The earth trembled slightly.
The rift… was responding to him?
Bai Lin looked up, gazing to his left front.
There was a faint, almost inaudible "crack" sound.
Not wood breaking,
But like something deep underground being pulled open.
He stood, enduring the Corpse Vein's rampage, forcing himself toward the source of the sound.
The black mist followed.
Each movement was like painting the world in a new layer.
As Bai Lin ran, the fallen leaves at his feet shattered into ice fragments one by one.
He knew he was close to losing control of his body, but the rift was ahead, not far away.
The closer he got, the less the world resembled the world—
Colors mottled and unnatural, terrain slightly twisted, like it had been roughly erased and redrawn.
This place… wasn't the normal world.
It was the shallowest outer edge of the broken realm.
The rift was within it.
Bai Lin pushed aside half-fallen rotten trunks, weaving through dense branches, finally seeing—
A slender crack on the ground.
Not wide, even narrower than a person's finger. But the crack shouldn't have light, yet it emitted an extremely faint glow.
Like the breath of another world.
The light wasn't bright, but cold.
Cold enough to make Bai Lin's Corpse Vein pulse more violently.
As he approached, a pulling force suddenly came from within the crack—
No, it wasn't a pull.
It was…
"A response."
Like something in the rift had sensed his presence.
His chest cavity exploded with pain again.
The Corpse Vein pulsed fiercely—
Thump—!
Thump—!
Thump—!
The rhythm suddenly became chaotic, no longer the previous icy taps, but disordered impacts.
Bai Lin clutched his chest, veins bulging on his forehead.
"…You want me to come closer?"
The rift responded with a faint tremor.
The black mist stopped behind him.
It didn't advance further, but neither did it retreat.
Like it was waiting for something.
Bai Lin clenched his fist.
If the rift was truly connected to the Demon Emperor's echoes, then—
Approaching the rift would trigger some reaction.
Death, or…
Some other change?
But he had no way back.
Bai Lin took a deep breath and stepped toward the rift—
The instant his toe touched the edge of the crack:
The Corpse Vein's pulsing suddenly stopped.
No, it was held down by some force.
The next moment—
Boom.
Not a sound.
It was a shock on the level of consciousness.
Like a flood surging up from the bottom of the rift, pouring into his mind.
Bai Lin's pupils contracted sharply.
He heard—
A voice.
Blurred, intermittent, yet no longer like the past vein sounds.
This time, it was speech.
"…Rec…ord…"
He froze.
The voice carried an immense sense of distance, like it had been exiled to the bottom of the rift across millions of miles.
Bai Lin's heart started beating again, the rhythm of a living person, yet completely suppressed by the Corpse Vein.
The voice came again:
"…Er…ror…"
Record… error?
Record what?
Error where?
Was it referring to him?
Or the world?
Bai Lin's mind buzzed incessantly.
The voice sounded again:
"…Re…trace… lost…"
It cut off suddenly.
Like someone had forcefully severed it.
Bai Lin nearly staggered and fell, his chest stuffed full of ice.
The rift fell silent instantly.
The black mist behind him rippled slightly.
Then—
The black mist retreated.
It was as if scared by some older, heavier force.
Like it had been "driven away."
Bai Lin was stunned.
The Demon Emperor's residual power… counterattacked the black mist?
Why?
The voice from the rift didn't seem directed at him, but more like speaking to the "mist."
"…Record error…?"
As the black mist retreated, colors flowed back into the forest.
The world was like it had been unbound.
Bai Lin slowly straightened up, still feeling his chest cavity icy cold.
The rift made no more sound.
But those fragmented words echoed endlessly in his mind, as if trying to forcibly pull part of his consciousness toward what lay beyond the rift.
Bai Lin pressed his hand to his forehead, breathing slowly.
After the black mist retreated, he truly felt the silence.
Not dead silence, but a normal night—
Insect chirps, branches swaying, distant animal breaths.
For the first time, he felt the wondrous sensation of the world returning to normal.
But this restoration proved only one thing:
The black mist feared the "rift."
Or rather…
Feared the voice within the rift.
Feared the remnant shadow of what was once the Demon Emperor.
Bai Lin's throat moved slightly as he whispered:
"…What exactly are you?"
The rift didn't answer.
But Bai Lin knew he would hear that voice again.
Because this was the second resonance.
The second time the Demon Emperor's residual power synchronized with his Corpse Vein.
If there was a second—
There would inevitably be a third.
And the black mist…
Clearly dreaded that voice immensely.
Bai Lin slowly clenched his hand.
Though his chest was cold, his gaze gradually cleared.
If this world wanted to correct him…
Then he must figure out:
Where was the record wrong?
And whose error was it?
Was it him?
The black mist?
The sect?
Or
This entire world?
He took a deep breath and turned to leave the rift.
Behind him, the rift trembled slightly, as if watching him.
As if…
Waiting for the next conversation.