Darkness had weight.
It pressed down on Li Yuan from every direction, thick and suffocating, as if the abyss itself were a living thing that wished to crush what little remained of him. There was no sky, no ground—only uneven stone slick with blood and rainwater that had followed him down from the world above.
Pain returned in waves.
Not sharp enough to knock him unconscious. Not dull enough to fade. It was precise, deliberate—each broken bone announcing itself, each torn meridian screaming its absence. His chest barely rose. Every breath felt like drawing air through shattered glass.
Li Yuan did not scream.
Screaming wasted strength, and strength was something he no longer had to spare.
He lay still, eyes half-open, staring into absolute blackness. The faint interface from earlier flickered weakly at the edge of his vision, unstable, as if it might disappear at any moment.
Warning
Host life force critically low
I know, Li Yuan thought coldly.
His mind, surprisingly, was clear.
Perhaps it was because there was nothing left to lose.
The Fallen Heaven Abyss was colder than he imagined. Not the simple chill of wind or shadow, but a bone-deep cold that gnawed at blood and spirit alike. Qi here was warped, violent, impossible to absorb using orthodox methods. The sect elders knew this. They had known exactly what they were doing when they chose this punishment.
A clean execution, he realized. One that leaves no corpse to explain.
The darkness shifted.
Not visually—but in pressure.
Li Yuan felt it before he heard it: a low, distant sound, like stone grinding against stone. Something moved far away, deep within the abyss. His instincts, sharpened by years of cultivation, reacted immediately.
Danger.
Even now, crippled and broken, that instinct had not dulled.
"Not yet…" he whispered, lips barely moving.
He forced his fingers to twitch.
Agony flared through his arm, white-hot and absolute. The limb refused to respond, nerves sending back nothing but pain. His right leg was worse—he couldn't feel it at all.
Spinal damage, he assessed calmly. At least partial.
Any ordinary cultivator would have already fallen into despair. Many would have welcomed death at this point.
Li Yuan did neither.
He had knelt before the elders. He had watched Zhao Chen perform grief with trembling hands and lowered eyes. He had felt his dantian collapse under the Sect Master's palm, his entire cultivation erased in an instant.
He remembered every detail.
That memory burned brighter than pain.
"System," he rasped.
There was no immediate response.
For a moment, doubt crept in. Was it a hallucination? A dying dream born from resentment and refusal to accept reality?
Then the interface stabilized.
Command accepted
System state: Dormant (Forced Activation)
Explanation: Host body incapable of sustaining full system operation
Li Yuan exhaled slowly. Even that simple act left him dizzy.
"Talk," he said. "What… are you?"
A pause.
Not a delay—but consideration.
I am not Heaven.
I am not Dao.
I am a mechanism designed to preserve and evolve forbidden cultivation paths.
Forbidden.
The word settled heavily in his mind.
"Why me?" Li Yuan asked.
Because you reached the threshold.
A faint memory surfaced—his emotions at the moment he fell. Not fear. Not regret.
Hunger.
A deep, consuming desire—not merely to live, but to take back everything that had been stolen.
Desire at the moment of death exceeded acceptable Heavenly parameters.
Compatibility: High.
Li Yuan closed his eyes briefly.
So that was it.
Not righteousness. Not destiny.
Refusal.
"If I die here," he said quietly, "you die with me."
Correct.
The honesty surprised him.
"Then keep me alive."
Another pause.
Survival is possible.
Probability: Increased to 4.1%
Cost: Severe and irreversible consequences
Li Yuan opened his eyes.
"Do it."
The darkness pulsed.
Something ancient stirred beneath the stone—a pressure that made the air vibrate. The abyss responded, not with light, but with movement. From the depths, a faint crimson glow seeped into existence, tracing unfamiliar patterns along the rock beneath him.
Initiating: Forbidden Body Reconstruction (Phase One)
Warning: This process will not restore what was lost.
It will create something new.
Pain exploded.
Li Yuan's body arched violently, a soundless scream tearing through his chest as sensation flooded back into every shattered nerve at once.
Bones ground against each other. Muscles twisted, tearing and reforming. It felt as if invisible hands were dismantling him piece by piece—then assembling him incorrectly.
His vision blurred, interface shaking violently.
Meridian structure rejected.
Standard pathways removed.
Li Yuan bit down hard enough to taste blood.
So be it.
If the orthodox path had led him to betrayal and erasure, then he had no need for it.
Minutes—or hours—passed in a haze of suffering.
When the process finally stopped, Li Yuan collapsed limply against the cold stone, body trembling uncontrollably. He could feel himself again—not stronger, not healed—but… changed.
His meridians were no longer empty.
They were wrong.
Qi did not flow smoothly through them. It pooled, twisted, resisted control. It felt like holding a wild beast inside his veins, something that would tear him apart if he lost focus.
Phase One complete.
Body Status: Inferior, Stable
Cultivation: None
Li Yuan laughed weakly.
"No cultivation," he murmured. "Still better than before."
The abyss shifted again.
This time, closer.
A scraping sound echoed through the darkness, accompanied by a wet, uneven breath. Li Yuan turned his head slightly, straining to see—but sight was useless here.
His instincts screamed.
Predator.
He forced his left arm to move. It obeyed—barely. Fingers curled around something hard and jagged: a shard of broken stone, sharp at one end.
That will have to do.
He steadied his breathing, slow and controlled, despite the pain. The thing drew nearer, its presence heavy, oppressive. He could smell it now—iron and decay.
Warning
Abyssal lifeform detected
Li Yuan's lips curved faintly.
"So," he whispered into the darkness, tightening his grip on the stone, "even the abyss wants a piece of me."
The sound stopped.
For a single, fragile moment, silence returned.
Then something lunged.
Li Yuan moved.
Not with strength—but with intent.