The fog had thickened around Blackstone Sect. Even in broad daylight, the air carried a strange stillness. Disciples moved uneasily, clutching their robes tighter, casting wary glances at the forest bordering the east wall.
Something was watching them.
Or so they whispered.
But no one dared say it aloud.
---
Zeravon sat at the base of a crumbling statue in the far courtyard, one rarely visited by others. Vines had wrapped themselves around the once-sacred figure of the Sect's founder, now forgotten. Moss covered the eyes. The silence was heavy — but Zeravon liked it.
Silence was honest.
And beneath silence, he could hear everything.
The murmurs of bones beneath the earth.
The soft crying of ghosts in the wind.
The heartbeat of the realm.
But today… something else came through.
A scream.
Not human. Not beast. Something… *wrong*.
He opened his eyes.
---
### In the Training Hall
Yurei stood before the gathered outer disciples. Her posture was graceful, calm — but there was a frost in her presence. Her voice was quiet, yet each word echoed like a drop falling into a deep well.
"Today, we test potential. One by one."
She didn't smile.
She didn't encourage.
Disciples lined up nervously. She placed her palm gently over their cores, scanning their meridians and spirit veins. Her face remained unchanged, expressionless, until she reached the tenth student.
A girl named Mei Lin, known for her arrogance.
Yurei placed her hand on the girl's dantian.
Then she froze.
Her eyes widened slightly — the first crack in her mask.
"Your core…" she whispered.
Mei Lin smirked. "Impressed, Instructor?"
But Yurei stepped back.
"Your core is not yours."
The training hall fell silent.
"What do you mean?" Mei Lin snapped, her confidence fading.
Yurei raised her hand — not to attack, but to reveal. Her spiritual energy flared for a moment, soft and cold as snowlight. It washed over the girl…
…And a black mark appeared on Mei Lin's back. Twisted. Pulsing.
A Curse Sigil.
The entire hall gasped.
---
### Outside, At the Statue...
Zeravon felt the surge of energy. He tilted his head.
"A trace of death energy… bound by resentment," he whispered. "So it begins."
### In the Inner Chamber
Elder Zhu Lan stared at the black mark from afar, his face pale.
"No one has used such a technique since the Bone Whisper Cult was annihilated three centuries ago," he murmured. "Impossible…"
But Zeravon, watching from the distance, knew better.
They weren't destroyed.
They simply retreated deeper.
Into cracks where light never reached.
---
### That Night…
Mei Lin was quarantined in the underground frost cell. Her body writhed as the curse gnawed at her from the inside. Screams echoed through the stone halls.
Yurei stood at the door. Alone.
Until she felt someone behind her.
She turned sharply — her spiritual sense reacting instantly — only to find Zeravon standing just a few feet behind.
Silent.
Still.
Watching.
"…You," she said.
Zeravon didn't respond immediately. He looked past her, toward the sealed chamber.
"She's already dead," he said. "That sigil feeds on the soul, not the flesh. What's in there is a hollow scream."
Yurei's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"
"I listen," he said simply. "The dead speak. Most people just don't want to hear."
She stepped forward, closer. The corridor was dim, lit only by soul lamps flickering in blue-white light.
"You're not ordinary," she whispered.
Zeravon's expression didn't change.
"Neither are you."
For a moment, silence stretched between them like a drawn blade.
Then Yurei asked, "What's your name?"
He turned to leave. "Zeravon."
She watched him walk away, a strange chill settling in her chest.
---
### That Same Night – Far Beyond the Sect
A cloaked figure knelt before a black altar.
"The shell has made contact," the figure hissed. "And the girl… she remembers nothing."
A voice from the darkness replied — deep, hollow.
"Let them grow. Let them suffer. When the time is right, we will peel the shell."
---
### Back in Zeravon's Room
The stars were hidden tonight.
Zeravon sat cross-legged, the old token still hanging at his side.
He reached into the cracked floorboard, pulling out a thin obsidian shard — invisible to normal senses.
It pulsed faintly.
A seal of old.
A remnant of what he truly was.
He stared at it.
"…They're moving again."
Then he crushed the shard in his hand.
---
Somewhere in the far reaches of the void… a barrier trembled.
A slumbering will began to stir.
---
## \[To Be Continued…]
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