The whiteness that veiled Ye Lin's vision slowly faded, leaving behind the sensation of floating in a void without gravity. One by one, her senses began to return:
Hearing: Two heartbeats. One fast and panicked, her own. One slow and echoing, belonging to something far larger.Smell: The metallic tang of blood mixed with the scent of rain-soaked earth.Touch: Warm fluid surrounding her body, as if she were back inside a womb.
As her vision sharpened, Ye Lin became aware of three simultaneous truths:
She was floating in a bubble of red liquid, suspended at the center of an immense, womb-shaped space made of flesh and roots.The bone knife remained in her grasp, now glowing with a faint, pale light.Her final shadow, once a fragment, now clung to her chest like a second unborn child, its eyes shut tight.
"This place..."
The voice of the iron butterfly — once just a tattoo — was cut off as the walls of the womb pulsed. From the mucus-covered ceiling, countless small hands descended. They were miniature replicas of her sister's red-kebaya-clad hands. They danced in the air, spelling out a message:
I have waited for you for so long
From below, a massive bubble rose, carrying her sister curled in the fetal position. Her red kebaya had become a lattice of blood vessels, and her bark-like skin had turned translucent, revealing god-infants nestled inside her womb like fruit on a tree.
"You have finally returned," her voice held two tones, one human and one that rumbled like the earth."This is the place we were meant to be born together."
Then the memories flooded in.
Their mother had never been an ordinary farmer. She had been the last woman to bear the title Guardian of the Boundary, hiding in plain sight by pretending to be human.Her death during childbirth had been the final ritual, splitting her divine essence into three parts:One soul of creation, passed to the sister.One soul of destruction, given to Ye Lin.One soul of protection, planted inside the shadow.
The Poison Leaf Sect had found their mother's body and buried it beneath their main altar, using her blood to grow their divine worms.
Her sister extended both hands, and Ye Lin saw a cord of black light stretching from her own navel to the wall of flesh that enclosed them.
"You have two choices, my little sister.
You may consume the guardian soul resting on your chest and become a complete god.Or you may sever my umbilical cord with the bone knife, freeing us both, and ending the cycle forever."
The iron butterfly on Ye Lin's arm clawed at her skin, carving a bloody message into her flesh:
Warning. Severing the cycle means true death
The little shadow on her chest slowly opened its eyes for the first time. They were the same eyes as their mother's in the faded photograph back in the inner-world hut.
"Choose with your heart, not with fear," it whispered.
Outside the womb, the sound of explosions and screams reached them. The Poison Leaf Sect was coming. They were trying to stop the ritual.