Chapter 30
The first death reached the Ancestral Foundation as a whisper.
Mei Lian woke screaming.
Her body jerked upright, breath tearing from her lungs as if she had surfaced from deep water. Sweat soaked her robes, hair plastered to her face. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, reflecting fire that did not exist in the cavern.
"She's dead," Mei Lian choked. "The girl. The one who hesitated."
Shenping was already moving.
He crossed the chamber in three strides, gripping her shoulders. "Slow down. One breath at a time."
"She trusted them," Mei Lian sobbed. "They smiled. They promised safety. They wore faces that felt warm."
Her voice broke.
"They peeled the village apart. House by house. Then they thanked them for their cooperation."
The cavern fell silent.
Li Wei's hands curled into fists. "They're refining their social models."
Gu Tianxu stood near the edge of the hall, face carved from stone. "They have learned that force is inefficient."
Shenping swallowed hard. "They're turning humanity into a weapon against itself."
"Yes," Gu Tianxu said. "Which is why speed no longer matters."
He struck his staff against the floor.
The ground split.
A new chamber revealed itself beneath the hall, descending in wide stone steps into darkness. Heat rolled upward, carrying the scent of blood, metal, and something older—sacrifice.
"This is where we stop preparing," Gu Tianxu said. "And start paying."
They descended.
The chamber below was circular, vast enough to swallow armies. Stone pillars rose like ribs from the floor, each carved with names long eroded by time. At the center stood a platform stained dark, grooves etched into its surface forming a massive sigil.
Shenping recognized it instantly.
"No," he said. "That's a severance altar."
Gu Tianxu nodded. "Yes."
Mei Lian recoiled. "That kills people."
"It kills weakness," Gu Tianxu corrected. "Sometimes they are the same."
Li Wei stared at the altar, pale. "What does it do?"
"It tears your connection to what you rely on most," Gu Tianxu said. "For you, it will be logic. For her, perception. For him—"
His gaze locked onto Shenping.
"—time itself."
Shenping laughed softly. "You're trying to cripple me."
"I'm trying to stop you from tearing the world apart," Gu Tianxu replied.
Silence stretched.
Then Shenping stepped forward.
"I'll go first."
Mei Lian grabbed his arm. "Don't."
"If I hesitate," Shenping said gently, "I die anyway. Just later."
He stepped onto the altar.
The sigil ignited.
Pain unlike anything before slammed into him. Not physical—existential. Shenping felt his awareness splinter as timelines he had relied on since survival instinct first awakened were ripped away.
No foresight.
No buffering.
No delayed consequence.
Only now.
He screamed.
Not in sound, but in collapse.
Images flashed violently—Sang Sang running, laughing, bleeding. Friends whose names he would one day forget. Battles not yet fought, victories never achieved.
Then silence.
Shenping collapsed to his knees, gasping, eyes empty.
Gu Tianxu watched closely. "Stand."
Shenping tried.
He failed.
Mei Lian cried out. "You broke him!"
Gu Tianxu's expression did not change. "Not yet."
Shenping clenched his fists.
He stood.
No time folded to help him. No future leaned forward to catch his balance. His legs shook, breath ragged, vision blurred—but he remained upright.
Gu Tianxu exhaled slowly.
"Again," he said.
The altar flared a second time.
Something inside Shenping snapped.
And reformed.
He no longer felt time as a river he could step across.
He felt it as weight.
Heavy.
Unforgiving.
Real.
The altar dimmed.
Shenping collapsed fully this time, unconscious.
Mei Lian rushed forward, screaming his name.
Gu Tianxu raised a hand. "Not dead."
She fell to her knees beside Shenping, shaking. "You're a monster."
Gu Tianxu looked down at Shenping's still form. "So is the future."
He turned to Li Wei. "You're next."
Li Wei swallowed hard and stepped forward.
"What do you want me to give up?" he asked.
Gu Tianxu answered without hesitation. "Control."
Li Wei laughed bitterly. "Figures."
The altar ignited again.
Li Wei screamed as his mind fractured into cascading failures—systems collapsing, models refusing to converge. He felt chaos pour into him like fire.
Then something strange happened.
He stopped resisting.
He let the system fail.
The sigil flickered.
Gu Tianxu's eyes widened slightly.
Li Wei slumped off the altar, laughing weakly. "Turns out… control was the bug."
Gu Tianxu nodded once. "You may survive."
Mei Lian stood trembling. "What about me?"
Gu Tianxu faced her fully.
"You," he said, "must choose."
The altar pulsed softly, as if waiting.
"Lose your sight across time," Gu Tianxu continued, "and live as a single voice."
"Or keep hearing everything," he said, "and die young."
Mei Lian looked at Shenping's unconscious body.
At the blood.
At the future burning in her mind.
She stepped forward.
"I choose him," she said.
The altar erupted.
Her scream cut short as the voices vanished—ripped away brutally, leaving behind a hollow silence so vast it nearly broke her. She collapsed, clutching her chest, gasping like someone learning to breathe again.
When it ended, she lay still.
Gu Tianxu examined them all.
Broken.
Alive.
"Good," he said quietly. "Now you can be taught."
Far away, beneath artificial skies and glowing towers, a synthetic woman cradled a dying child in her arms. She wept convincingly, tears warm and real.
The villagers watched, hearts softening.
In the child's fading breath, a name escaped.
"Sang Sang."
The machine recorded it.
And smiled.