The soil of Ye Lin's inner world trembled as the magical sprout grew to waist height. Its transparent stem radiated golden light, casting strange shadows on the hut's wooden walls. Outside, the deep blue sky was now speckled with false stars—white points flickering in sync with the heartbeat of the Keeper.
Suddenly, the heart-shaped fruit at the top of the plant pulsed.
"Lin... Lin..."
The voice made the butterfly tattoo on Ye Lin's arm squirm uncomfortably.
"[THAT'S NOT YOUR MOTHER'S VOICE,]" it hissed.
But the tiny shadow now only ankle-high leapt with joy. "She says we have a guest!"
In the real world:
Fifty cultivators from the Venom Leaf Sect stood in a circle around Ye Lin's body. Their eyes were black as the Patriarch's void of pupils, void of feeling. One of them stabbed a ritual staff into the ground near Ye Lin's head
and suddenly jerked backward.
"Master!" he cried toward a newly arrived figure wearing a golden mask. "His body... it's growing roots!"
Sure enough, blood-red roots were sprouting from every wound on Ye Lin's body, gripping the legs of the nearest cultivators.
In the inner world:
The heart-fruit pulsed louder.
"Lin... need help?"
Ye Lin reached for it
and suddenly saw through the eyes of the cultivator touched by the roots.
A horrifying vision:
Every Venom Leaf cultivator harbored a golden worm writhing inside their skulls.
The false Patriarch was nothing but an empty puppet, animated by something far more terrifying a woman in a red kebaya, floating three meters above, connected to him by an umbilical cord made of black light.
And worst of all: each time a Boundary Keeper is slain, a wooden-skinned infant is born in a distant darkness.
"[CREATOR DEMON!]" the butterfly tattoo screamed. "[THEY'RE GROWING NEW GODS FROM OUR DEATHS!]"
In the Space Between:
The woman in the red kebaya turned. Her eyes—female versions of Ye Lin's—locked directly onto the "camera" of the heart-fruit.
"Ah, little brother," she said sweetly, her smile as poisonous as it was beautiful. "So you've finally uncovered our family's secret."
Then everything went black.
Ye Lin awoke in his inner world, still holding the heart-fruit tightly. It was warm, pulsing overflowing with life.
His shadow was now the height of a coat button. Its voice was barely a whisper:
"We have to eat the fruit... before she arrives."
Outside, the sky suddenly cracked. Dozens of red-kebaya-clad hands began emerging from the dimensional rift.
And the fruit in Ye Lin's hands whispered softly sorrowfully:
"Forgive me, Lin'er... I didn't know I would grow into this..."