CRACK.
The radiant Nascent Soul shattered like fragile glass.
Agony unlike any physical torment tore through him. The pain was beyond anything physical.
For it was the unmaking of his very spiritual self.
Fang Yuan's physical body convulsed, slumping forward, more blood leaking from his nose and ears.
The light in the cavern died, as if the source had been extinguished.
For a full second, there was only chaos and him slowly losing his consciousness.
But Fang Yuan's will did not vanish. It coiled back, sharp and unyielding, honed across two lives, one of failure, one of a cautious survival.
He was not just a man in that instant, but a single, stubborn point of awareness adrift in the wreckage of his own spirit.
From emptiness, form, the thought rang in him. From stillness, motion.
He began to gather the pieces. Not to put them back together as they were, but to weave them into something new.
