That evening, the sky was dark red, like a wound that hadn't healed.
Ye Lin stood at the edge of a cliff, his right hand clutching his left chest. His heartbeat was irregular—thump... thump... then stopped.
There was no dramatization. No parting words.
Just a twenty-year-old young man collapsing onto dry earth, his eyes wide open, staring at clouds that didn't care.
When his consciousness returned, the first thing he noticed was the smell.
The scent of old iron and damp soil.
It reminded him of the old hut where he had been born.
But when his eyes opened, he wasn't looking at that broken ceiling.
He saw darkness.
Not ordinary darkness—this was a darkness that breathed.
"So this is death?"
His voice cracked, but there was no echo. No one to hear.
Then—
Something bit him.
Not a physical bite. This was a bite to the soul.
Ye Lin screamed in silence as something slipped inside him, tearing through every memory, every emotion, every part of "Ye Lin" he had ever known.
Consciousness Detected
Soul Meets Requirements
Creation System Activated
The voice didn't come from outside.
It came from a fracture within himself.
"Damn it!" he cursed, reaching for something that wasn't there.
"I didn't ask for this!"
Scanning Core Parameters
Anger: 89%
Fear: 72%
Sadness: 100%
The numbers floated before him—no, he didn't even have eyes now—but he knew they were there.
"If you can speak, then answer me!" he shouted.
"What happened to me?"
You are dead
But not dead enough
Suddenly, the space around him shifted.
The darkness split open, vomiting forth something like land—crimson soil, like dried blood.
Ye Lin stumbled.
Stumbled. He had legs now?
He looked down. A crude body was forming from the black mist, shaped like his human form—but...
"Why am I naked?"
Clothing: Irrelevant
"You—!"
Pain struck. Pain unlike anything he had ever known.
It was like thousands of needles piercing every inch of his new body.
Ye Lin screamed, clutching his head.
Consciousness Formation Initiated
Progress: 12%
"Stop! Stop this!"
Cannot
Then, as swiftly as it came, the pain vanished.
What remained was a strange vibration in his new bones.
Ye Lin gasped, knees sinking into the crimson earth.
Before him, a small pool formed out of the void. The water was pitch black.
When he looked into it, what he saw was not his reflection—
but a view of his village.
His real body lay motionless on the ground, mouth open, eyes still staring.
A child—he recognized him, the neighbor's little brother—ran toward the body, then screamed in fear.
"No," Ye Lin whispered, fists clenched.
"I don't want to see this."
But the pool didn't vanish.
It showed more: his aging mother, staggering toward his corpse, her body trembling like a dry leaf.
Emotion Detected: Maximum Sadness
System Suggestion: Memory Removal
"Don't you dare!" Ye Lin roared, punching the pool.
Black water splashed everywhere, but the image remained.
"This is torture!"
Understanding Process Required
To Create, You Must Lose
A single white hair fell from his head, landing on the red earth.
Then another. Then a handful.
Ye Lin choked as he saw his hands wrinkle.
"What are you doing to me?"
Payment
In the pool, his mother now cradled his lifeless body, tears flowing freely.
Ye Lin could feel it—the warmth of that embrace.
The final hug he would never experience again.
"Please," his voice cracked.
"I can't take this."
But the system didn't stop.
When the last of his hair fell, when the wrinkles on his hands grew deep like trenches, only then did the pool vanish.
Ye Lin was no longer a twenty-year-old man.
He looked like an old grandfather now—but his eyes were the same.
The eyes of a frightened child.
Process Complete
Inner World Ready for Formation
In the distance, the red sky began to crack.
Something massive moved behind those fractures.
Ye Lin let out a bitter laugh.
"Great. So after torturing me, you bring in more guests?"
Threat Detected
Recommendation: Hide or Fight
He looked at his withered hands, then at the shattering sky.
"In that case…"
With slow movements, Ye Lin tore a piece from his own chest.
Black blood poured freely as he threw the fragment of his soul onto the ground.
The crimson earth pulsed.
Inner World: 1% Formed
New Function: Basic Defense
"You want war?" he whispered, staring at the sky.
"I just died once. What's the meaning of dying again?"
His black blood shaped itself into a long staff—
a primitive weapon for a primitive battle.
He wasn't ready for this.
But what other choice did he have?
The black-blood staff pulsed in Ye Lin's grip, like a second heart.
He watched grimly as its dark liquid dripped, searing the crimson soil beneath it.
Warning: Incoming Entity Detected
Threat Level: Unmeasurable
The sky kept shattering like glass struck by a hammer.
From its cracks, they emerged—shadow hands, the size of hills, moving in unnatural ways, like spiders learning to use their legs.
"Who are you?" Ye Lin shouted, his voice hoarse.
One of the hands suddenly froze, then turned over, revealing a palm covered in mouths.
"We are the Forgotten," said the voice—spoken from a hundred lips in unison.
"We are those abandoned by the Creators before you."
The hand struck.
Ye Lin dodged with a roll, but his pinky finger was grazed.
And with that one touch—
He saw.
Mountains of flesh singing.
Rivers flowing upward.
Cities shaped like frozen screams.
Memory Contamination: 3%
Warning: Further Exposure Will Erase Your Original Self
"Get out of my head!" he roared, slicing off his pinky, which had turned to black crystal.
His blood-staff suddenly sang—a low, rasping hum, like the lullaby of a long-dead mother.
Basic Defense: Activated
Cost: Memory of Home
Pain.
Pain like someone digging through his brain with a hot spoon.
But it worked—the shadow hands shrieked and recoiled in fear.
The red earth beneath Ye Lin began to change.
Glass flowers sprouted where the staff's blood had fallen, each containing vague images:
A dinner table with empty plates
A child crying in a bathroom
A cracked mirror reflecting a face with no eyes
Inner World: 7% Formed
New Function Unlocked: Memory Garden
But the small victory did not last.
The sky tore open completely.
What emerged was no longer a hand—but a face.
A massive, skinless face, red muscles throbbing with a rhythm that made Ye Lin want to vomit.
"Little Creator," it rumbled, shaking the marrow in his bones.
"You build upon our graves."
Ye Lin collapsed, black blood leaking from his nose and ears.
"S-System," he gasped, "What do I do?"
One Path Remains: Integration
Consequence: You Will No Longer Be Only Human
You Will No Longer Be Only Soul
In the distance, the giant face opened its mouth—
dark, endless, and full of writhing little hands.
Ye Lin looked at his staff.
At the glass flowers.
At the black pool that had reappeared—now showing his body in the outside world, surrounded by villagers preparing his burial.
His mother cradled his corpse, as if warmth could still return.
"Do it," he whispered.
Integration Initiated
It felt like:
Being torn apart while still alive
Pierced by a thousand cold needles
Drowned in the sound of his mother calling his name
His blood-staff melted into his skin.
The red earth crawled up his body like thirsty roots.
And when the giant face finally bit down—
Everything went black.
Moments Later
When Ye Lin regained awareness, the first thing he felt was:
This world is in pain.
Pain like an open wound.
Pain like a child left behind.
He stood—if it could be called standing—at the center of a space shaped like a massive heart.
Its walls pulsed, projecting images from his life—but all of them were wrong:
His mother's face had too many teeth
His childhood home had blinking windows
His corpse in the outside world was smiling
And before him stood his own shadow—a younger version of himself, but with eyes just as old.
"Congratulations," the shadow said, smiling.
"You're officially alien now."
Ye Lin lifted his hand—a hand now partly made of soil, partly blood, and partly something else entirely.
"Don't worry," his shadow laughed.
"You're still 'you' enough to suffer."
Integration Complete
Inner World: 18% Formed
New Status: Boundary Keeper
On the heart-walls, a new scene appeared:
His body in the real world, rising from the dead.
The shadow pointed.
"See? We've got homework now."
Morning skies over Luoshui Village were still heavy with mist when the corpse rose.
For three days, Ye Lin's body had lain stiff on a wooden plank, surrounded by death flowers and smoldering incense. The village elders had just finished tying red cords around the corpse the final rite before burial when his frozen heart suddenly thundered back to life.
BANG.
The sound was like a gong struck from inside a coffin.
People screamed, stumbling back in fear.
Only one man remained still a cultivator from the Venomous Leaf Sect, robed in green, passing through by chance. His narrowed eyes gleamed with suspicion.
"Corpse revival?" he muttered, right hand already forming a poison seal. "Or a demon in disguise?"
Inside the Inner World, Ye Lin watched everything unfold through crystal eyes grown on the walls of the giant heart where his soul now resided.
As his physical body rose in the outer world, he felt the laws of nature rebel against him:
The air refused to fill his lungs.
Sunlight scorched his pale skin.
Even the earth beneath his feet trembled in protest.
But the strangest was the Qi the spiritual energy all cultivators relied on fleeing from him like terrified animals.
"Unbelievable," growled his half-melted shadow, sprawled across the Inner World's floor.
"These tiny energies dare run from you?"
Outside, the Venomous Leaf cultivator lost his patience.
"Undead must be destroyed!" he roared, leaping forward, his poisoned palm striking.
Ye Lin still stiff like a wooden puppet only managed to lift one arm.
But then, something unexpected happened:
His black blood boiled and formed a thin shield.
His rib cracked, but...
The poison Qi was absorbed into his skin, drawn down into the Inner World like water into a drain.
[AUTOMATIC DEFENSE: ACTIVE]
[FOREIGN ENERGY ABSORBED: 3%]
[WARNING: CONTAMINATED QI]
The cultivator's eyes widened. "What ?!"
Ye Lin didn't hesitate.
His new instincts as a Boundary Keeper kicked in before his thoughts could catch up.
His now-clawed hand grabbed the cultivator's wrist and began to drain.
"No—!" the man screamed as his Qi was pulled from him. "You're not a cultivator… you're a monster!"
In the Inner World, Ye Lin's shadow cackled madly, dancing among the glass flowers filled with memories.
"LOOK!" it cried, pointing toward a pool of blood.
"THEY'RE AFRAID OF YOU!"
The image showed the Venomous Leaf Sect a group of green-robed cultivators frozen at the village's edge, their faces pale with fear.
But Ye Lin had no time to process it.
From his back, something began tearing through skin and bone:
Two enormous wings, shaped like butterfly wings but forged from living iron, burst forth with a sickening sound.
Each movement left behind streaks of blood-red light in the air.
[UNEXPECTED FUNCTION: UNLOCKED]
[BOUNDARY HERITAGE: IRON BUTTERFLY]
The cultivator screamed in terror as one wing sliced through the air like a blade severing the hand still held by Ye Lin.
"RUN!" he screamed to his companions as he fell.
"TELL THE PATRIARCH! THE BOUNDARY KEEPER HAS AWAKENED!"
As the villagers scattered in panic, Ye Lin felt the world rejecting him further:
Grass beneath his feet withered and died.
Sunlight bent away, keeping him in shadow.
Even the wind refused to touch his skin.
But the most terrifying were the whispers from his iron wings:
"WE ARE HUNGRY"
"FEED US"
"FEED US QI... FEED US LIFE..."
Ye Lin looked into the blood pool—his reflection now had red eyes, and golden circuit-like lines crawling across his face.
"Damn it," he growled. "I just came back, and I'm already being hunted?"
His shadow laughed wide and wild.
"WELCOME TO THE CULTIVATION WORLD, NEW KEEPER!"
The morning mist in Luoshui Village had not yet lifted when a scream of death tore through the air.
"RUN! IT'S A BOUNDARY WARDEN!"
A cultivator from the Venomous Leaf Sect fell, his right hand severed by a bloodstained iron wing that slashed through the air like a cosmic blade. Toxic green blood sprayed from his wound, scorching the ground into blackened crust.
Ye Lin stood in the heart of the destruction, his body—one that should have been lifeless—moving with stiffness. The iron butterfly wings on his back fluttered slowly, each motion leaving red trails in the air like open wounds.
"No..." He tried to speak, but the voice that came out was no longer human—it was the rumble of a thousand whispers from other dimensions.
The wounded cultivator reached for his sword with his remaining hand. "Listen, monster! Our sect has slain three Boundary Wardens before you! You're just—"
Before he could finish, one of Ye Lin's wings shot forward like a spear, impaling the cultivator's chest.
[ABSORPTION INITIATED]
Ye Lin felt something horrifying take place. The man's Qi poured into him—but not just energy. Memories, emotions, and fragments of soul followed.
Alien images flooded his mind:
An underground altar chamber with blood-carved murals of the same butterfly etched into his back
Five cultivators hanging from the ceiling, their corpses blooming with red crystals
A masked man whispering: "Each Boundary Warden born will become our stairway to true immortality…"
"No!" Ye Lin yanked the wing back. The cultivator collapsed, his body now shriveled like a fruit drained of all its juice.
But the damage had been done. His iron butterfly wings trembled with delight—and for the first time, spoke in a clear voice:
"[WE WANT MORE.]"
Far away, atop the Venomous Dragon Mountain, an ancient bell rang on its own.
Elders of the Venomous Leaf Sect rushed into the main hall. On a map of spiritual energy formed from sacred mist, a red dot pulsed violently.
"The fourth Boundary Warden has awakened," hissed the Patriarch, clenching his fist. "Prepare the Sacrificial Rite. This time, we will not kill him."
He looked at his disciples, his yellow eyes gleaming wickedly.
"We will become like him."
Ye Lin had no idea what danger was now taking shape behind the scenes. All he knew was:
Each time he absorbed energy, his inner world expanded—and the part of him that had once been dying faded further away.
In the sudden pool of blood that appeared at his feet, his shadow now had eyes made of black crystal.
"[WHY DID YOU STOP?]" the shadow snarled. "[WE NEED MORE FOOD!]"
But Ye Lin looked down at the human hand still left on his body—the hand that once held his elderly mother's.
"No," he growled, voice fractured between man and something older. "I won't become your monster."
The iron butterfly emitted a horrible sound, like stretched metal snapping under strain.
And so began the battle between the Boundary Warden... and the last fragments of his humanity.