That night, Yan Zhi lay awake, staring at the ceiling washed in pale moonlight. The air felt heavier than it should, thick and oppressive, as though a wet shroud pressed against his chest. He tried to close his eyes, but every time his lids fell, he heard them more clearly—whispers, countless whispers, layered over each other as if a hundred mouths spoke at once from beyond the walls.
He turned his head. The shadow along the far corner was no longer just a shadow. A thin line, like a crack in glass, shimmered faintly within it—something behind the veil trying to force its way through. The longer he stared, the clearer the voices became.
"Open it…"
"Just a little more…"
"We see you…"
Yan Zhi swallowed hard. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, yet his body refused to move, nailed to the bed by dread. Only when he wrenched his gaze away did the voices recede. But the fracture remained, pulsing faintly… breathing.
---
Morning arrived, and the sect looked unchanged. The clatter of training swords, the smell of porridge, the chatter of disciples—everything ordinary. Yet Yan Zhi knew something was wrong.
One disciple passed him by, only to freeze mid-step. His eyes glazed over, lips trembling before uttering, in a voice too quiet, too cold:
"When the door opens… you won't be able to run."
Yan Zhi froze. That was the same sentence whispered into his ear last night. The boy blinked, smiled faintly as though waking from a dream, and walked away without looking back.
Throughout the day, Yan Zhi noticed more signs. A girl halted mid-conversation, staring blankly into the air before continuing as if nothing had happened. Another disciple muttered broken words, senseless syllables—but the cadence was the same as the whispers from the dark.
"The one who waits… has already brushed their souls," Yan Zhi thought grimly. His veins throbbed. The Devourer's Vein within him stirred hungrily, as though it too had heard the call.
---
That night, the pressure worsened. Two forces gnawed at him: the foreign whispers trying to merge with his mind, and the Devourer's Vein urging to swallow them whole.
Sometimes he couldn't tell which thoughts were his own, and which belonged to the voice.
"I must resist," he told himself.
But the whisper answered:
"You're not resisting. You're being borrowed."
---
The corridor to the cultivation hall stretched endlessly under flickering torches. Yan Zhi walked slowly, each step heavy, his breath uneven.
Then he saw it—an unnatural shadow stretched across the floor. It was too long, too thin, bending against the walls where no body stood to cast it.
The shadow slithered forward, inching toward him. From the far end of the hall came a sound—laughter, faint but many-layered, every stone in the corridor trembling to carry its echo.
Yan Zhi stepped back, but his own shadow suddenly shot forward, pulling itself from his body, lengthening toward the fracture now widening on the wall.
The crack pulsed, then a hand emerged—pale, skeletal, fingers impossibly long—reaching, straining to touch the living world. The whispers rose into a single shriek, piercing, tearing into his skull.
The Devourer's Vein within him roared, surging with unbearable hunger, demanding a choice: consume that hand—or be consumed by it.
---
Before he could act, the crack snapped shut, sucking the hand back into the void. Silence crashed down. But the fracture remained faint, throbbing like a living vein beneath the stone.
Yan Zhi stood motionless, drenched in cold sweat, chest heaving with ragged breaths.
With a sinking dread, he understood: the thing waiting in the dark had found its first door.
And that door… was only a step away from opening fully.
"If the next gate yields… it won't just devour this sect. The whole world will become its corridor."
---