That night, the sect was drowned in a silence too fragile to be called peace.
On the surface, nothing seemed unusual—oil lamps went dark one by one, disciples retired to their quarters. Yet Yan Zhi knew better. The quiet was not rest; it was the kind of stillness that comes when the world itself holds its breath, waiting.
Seated cross-legged in his cultivation chamber, Yan Zhi drew in a long breath, guiding his energy through the Vein of Devourer. But every time he closed his eyes, the darkness behind his lids refused to remain empty. Something was always there.
The corridor.
Always that corridor, creeping closer each night.
And tonight, it wasn't only outside.
It was inside him.
---
His right hand trembled. He stared down at it, only to find his shadow lagging behind the movement. When he pulled his hand back to his lap, the silhouette on the floor lingered, standing still as if it had its own will.
Even his breathing betrayed him.
Each inhale carried a faint echo—yet not from the chamber walls. The sound came from within his chest.
Slowly, Yan Zhi pressed a palm against his sternum. His heartbeat was loud, frantic. But beneath it pulsed something else—slower, heavier.
A second heartbeat. One that did not belong to him.
"No…" His teeth clenched. He forced the Vein of Devourer to surge, threads of black energy rushing to smother the foreign presence.
But the vein only bit back, as if it no longer knew whether he was master or intruder.
---
In the corner of his chamber stood an old stone mirror—once used to test the stability of a disciple's spirit during cultivation.
Yan Zhi looked into it, hoping to see himself whole.
But the reflection staring back was wrong.
His own eyes gazed at him, yet hollow, like twin abysses stripped of light. His face smiled, but the curve was too wide, too distorted.
The reflection blinked—and for a heartbeat, Yan Zhi saw himself as nothing more than an empty shell, a vessel for the corridor.
A crack split across the mirror's surface. Krrk.
Then another.
Then a third.
The "Yan Zhi" within the glass pressed forward, as if trying to step through, seeking a body to inhabit.
His chest tightened. Am I still me? The words left his lips, trembling. But even as he spoke, he could not tell if the thought was truly his… or if it had been whispered into him.
---
The night thickened into a suffocating black.
Yan Zhi staggered to his feet, but his left arm grew heavy, weighed down by something unseen. He lowered his gaze—and his breath hitched.
Thin dark lines had split across his skin.
Not wounds.
Fractures.
From within those cracks, a voice seeped out—his own voice, yet not his.
"We are one. You are not resisting me… you are resisting yourself."
He stumbled backward. He tried to seal the fissure with his energy, but the cracks only spread, crawling toward his shoulder. From them, shadow spilled onto the floor, pooling into a living stain that pulsed like a second heart.
For the first time, the corridor no longer lingered beyond the sect walls.
It had found its way inside.
And the doorway… was him.
---
Yan Zhi shut his eyes tight, jaw clenched until blood welled between his teeth. The truth clawed into him with merciless clarity:
"The fourth fracture does not belong to the sect anymore.
It belongs to me.
I am the door."
And in that frozen silence, another voice laughed softly—his laugh, but not his own.
Mocking. Echoing. Inevitable.
"If I collapse… then the whole world collapses with me."
---