The morning mist on the slopes of Venomous Mountain turned deep crimson as the first drop of blood touched the ritual ground. Ye Lin watched from a high cliff, his new body half human, half dimensional trembling under the pressure of the iron butterfly on his back.
"[THEY ARE CALLING US,]" hissed the metal voice behind him, its wings clanging like blades sharpening against each other.
Below, the Patriarch of the Venomous Leaf Sect raised his red crystal—a fragment of an inner world stolen from a former Boundary Warden. The crystal pulsed in rhythm with Ye Lin's heart, pulling him toward it like a vast, living magnet.
Inside the Inner World:
Ye Lin's shadow now a beast with eight legs thrashed violently.
"[ATTACK THEM!]"
But in the farthest corner of that world, a small wooden hut creaked open. The scent of corn soup drifted out, followed by the voice of a mother long dead for ten years.
"Lin'er… don't become like them…"
In the outer world:
"Boundary Warden!" the Patriarch shouted, his robes dancing in a wind that didn't belong to this realm.
"Join us! Together we will"
Ye Lin gave him no chance to finish.
With a motion faster than his own awareness, he plunged one of his iron wings into the ritual ground.
Dimensional rupture.
The gathered energy reversed in an instant. The blood diagram glowed white-hot, sucking the cultivators into itself like insects trapped in amber. The Patriarch screamed, clutching his crimson crystal as it began to crack
"[NOW!]" shrieked the iron butterfly.
But Ye Lin had already made his choice.
With the last piece of his humanity, he turned his wing against his own chest.
The world split.
Darkness.
Between Dimensions:
When consciousness returned, the sky had turned a deep violet. Glass flowers cracked beneath his faltering steps. His body felt weightless, nearly translucent like a ghost forgotten by time.
In the distance, atop a throne of bones, a man in a gold mask poured crimson liquid into a skull.
"Ah," the voice echoed strangely as if many voices spoke as one.
"At last, you've arrived, new Warden. I've been waiting… for fresh meat."
The half-remaining butterfly on Ye Lin's back hissed softly:
"[I KNOW HIM...]"
The masked man laughed, removing the mask revealing a face that was Ye Lin's own, only older, with pitch-black eyes and a mouth full of jagged teeth.
"Welcome home, my other self."
The purple sky throbbed like a giant organ as Ye Lin stared at a face that shouldn't exist his own face, but with eyes far too black and a smile far too wide.
The iron butterfly on his back fluttered its broken wings, metal creaking like nails on a chalkboard.
This is impossible.
His half-transparent fingers clenched into a fist. There was no pain as his nails pierced his palm only a cold pressure, like squeezing ice.
"[THIS PLACE IS CALLED THE SPACE BETWEEN,]" the iron butterfly whispered, its voice fractured and jagged. "[HERE, WE CAN SEE EVERY POSSIBLE VERSION OF OURSELVES.]"
The false Patriarch lounged on his throne, his robe made of human hair whispering softly.
"You thought destroying the ritual meant victory?" His voice crackled like dry leaves. "We cannot die, Lin. We merely... change vessels."
Ye Lin's mind raced:
If this is truly a future version of me...
Why do the bones on that throne bear the carvings of the Venom Leaf Sect?
Why does his robe move like a living serpent?
And why do his eyes
Suddenly, he knew.
"[THAT'S NOT YOU!]" the iron butterfly screamed. "[THAT'S THE FIRST KEEPER! THE DEVOURER OF US ALL!]"
Everything happened too fast.
The Patriarch's face cracked like shattered glass, revealing thousands of tiny mouths swimming in black fluid behind the golden mask. The floor of the dimension trembled, the fissures widening like a giant maw.
Ye Lin fell
And landed in the ruins of his inner world.
His mother's wooden hut still stood, the door wide open. In front of it, his shadow—now no taller than a child—was crying, clutching the last glass flower tightly.
"[I'M SCARED,]" the small shadow whispered.
From afar, the First Keeper's scream echoed:
"RUN! I WILL VISIT YOU AGAIN!"
But Ye Lin walked toward the hut.
On the weathered wooden table, there was a bowl of corn soup still warm.
"Lin'er, don't forget to eat."
That voice his mother's real voice made something dead inside his chest stir again.
Now he understood.
To fight the system, he must create memories that cannot be devoured.
Let me know if you'd like to continue this scene, tighten the flow for narrative use, or format it for a script or novel!
The warm scent of boiled corn pierced Ye Lin's awareness more deeply than any blade ever could. His half-ghost hand gripped the wooden bowl, feeling its warmth seep through fingers that were beginning to solidify again.
This isn't an illusion.
Outside the rickety hut the last structure standing in his inner world a storm of energy surged. The purple sky, where the First Keeper still lingered, sent wave after wave of shock, making the hut's walls creak like chattering teeth.
"[HE'S LOOKING FOR US]," whispered the iron butterfly, now no larger than a palm, clinging to Ye Lin's shoulder like a rusted metal brooch.
The small shadow in the corner lifted its head. Its face, still blurred, slowly began to resemble young Ye Lin the version of him that still believed in the goodness of the world.
"I don't want to be eaten," it said, in a voice that made Ye Lin's ghost-heart stir.
Three things happened at once:
The hut's floor began to tremble, cracks forming in the shape of a ritual diagram—one eerily similar to those of the Venom Leaf Sect.
The corn soup began to glow with golden light, unlike the dark energy of the inner world.
The small shadow suddenly had a heartbeat, the sound echoing strangely in the cramped space.
Ye Lin looked at his palm. The usual black energy lines were now threaded with gold—exactly the same hue as the light from the soup.
"Lin'er," his mother's voice rang out clearly, "The greatest power isn't the one that takes—but the one that gives."
Outside, the First Keeper's scream was abruptly cut off.
[WARNING: INNER WORLD LAWS ARE SHIFTING][BOUNDARY KEEPER SYSTEM: CORRUPTION 37%][NEW ENERGY DETECTED: ???]
The iron butterfly quivered in fear. "[WHAT ARE YOU DOING?]"
Ye Lin didn't answer. He poured the corn soup into the cracks on the floor.
The world stopped spinning.
And then began to pulse—to beat—with a new rhythm.
The wooden walls of the hut glowed with golden veins, growing like roots piercing through the darkness. Outside, the last glass flower bloomed violently, its petals tearing into overlapping dimensions.
And most terrifying of all
The First Keeper appeared at the doorway, his face of a thousand mouths writhing. But he could not cross the threshold.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" he shrieked, his voice fracturing into a thousand tones. "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CREATE YOUR OWN LAWS!"
Ye Lin raised the empty bowl, now glowing like a miniature sun.
"I'm not creating," he said softly. "I'm remembering."
The small shadow in the corner leapt into his arms, merging with the golden light. The iron butterfly screamed in terror before melting into black ink forming a tattoo on Ye Lin's arm.
And on the wall of the hut, a family photo that had never existed before suddenly appeared a picture of a smiling mother and child standing before an intact home.
The inner world was no longer a hollow void.
There was now soil beneath the hut.
And soil needs seeds.
The once blood-red sky of the inner world had now faded into a deep, somber blue. Grains of black soil squirmed beneath the wooden hut, like newborns learning to breathe. Ye Lin knelt on the still-warm ground, his fingers digging a small hole before the fake family photo.
"[YOU'RE MAD]," hissed the butterfly tattoo on his arm, its voice now little more than dusty wind. "[PLANTING MEMORIES IN THIS WORLD?]"
But Ye Lin had already made his choice. From the tear in his pocket, he pulled out a dried corn seed—the only real thing left from his former body. A charm he always carried, the last relic of his mother.
"Keep it safe, Lin'er. This corn is a seed of life."
Three seconds after the seed touched the soil:
The sky rumbled not with menace, but with the song of ancestors.
The photo on the hut wall came to life, the child in the image turning his head to smile at Ye Lin.
Foreign hands rose from the earth but not to drag him under. They danced, fingers made of black roots weaving ancient symbols into the air.
The First Keeper raged at the edge of the dimension, thousands of mouths screaming in unison:
"YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CHANGE THE RULES!"
But the scream was fading now, like a voice echoing from the end of a long tunnel.
In the ruined village of Luoshui:
Ye Lin's physical body long presumed destroyed suddenly turned green. Wild grass sprouted from the old wound on his chest, forming a strange spiral pattern. A small child hiding behind a tree watched as glass flowers began to bloom around the body.
In the Space Between:
The false Patriarch suddenly felt pain. For the first time in millennia, his energy leaked flowing like a river toward Ye Lin's inner world.
"[WHAT]"
The butterfly tattoo on Ye Lin's arm glowed red. "[HE'S BEING EATEN IN REVERSE!]"
But Ye Lin wasn't absorbing.
He was sharing.
The soil of his inner world now nurtured a tiny sprout. Not ordinary corn but something with transparent stalks, glass-like shimmering leaves, and fruit that...
The fruit was shaped like miniature human hearts.
"[YOU HAVE CREATED A NEW PATH]," whispered the small shadow, now no taller than Ye Lin's knee, its face clearly that of Ye Lin at age five. "[BUT HE WILL RETURN IN ANOTHER FORM.]"
Ye Lin nodded. In the distance, at the fading edge of the dimension, he saw them an army. Hundreds of cultivators with eyes as black as the Patriarch's, all clad in the robes of the Venom Leaf Sect.
War was coming.
But this time, Ye Lin smiled.
He watered the new sprout with the last of the corn soup in his bowl.
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..."