The sky above the Third Layer was a torn shroud of black. Thin rivers of crimson light bled through jagged cracks, as if the world itself were hemorrhaging. Yan Zhi stood on ground that felt brittle, like a thin crust barely covering something writhing underneath. Each step he took made the earth whisper.
"You've come so far, Yan Zhi..."
The voice came from behind. Calm. Familiar.
Yan Zhi turned—and saw Lian, the companion who had stood by him since the very beginning of this nightmare. Lian looked unchanged: his dark mantle, the faint, reassuring smile that had always anchored Yan Zhi when everything else was falling apart. Yet… something was wrong.
"Lian," Yan Zhi's voice was hoarse. "We need to leave. The fourth rift is about to—"
"—Open?" Lian finished for him, tone far too light, too casual for the situation. "Yes. And you will open it, Yan Zhi."
Yan Zhi froze. "…What are you talking about?"
Lian stepped closer. Each footfall made the world creak like splintering glass. "Did you really think I helped you out of loyalty? This place needs your blood. It needs you… broken. And me? I'm just here to make sure it happens."
The smile stretched wider. Too wide. So wide the corners of his mouth tore through his cheeks. His jaw smiled. His skin smiled.
"…You…" Yan Zhi's hand trembled. "You're not Lian."
"Aren't I?" The voice shifted—Lian's tone vanished, replaced by Yan Zhi's father's voice. Then his mother's. Then his own. "I am every face you trusted. I am every word that made you close your eyes. I am the betrayal you nurtured."
Black mist erupted from his form. His face kept changing—flickering through the faces of allies Yan Zhi had saved, friends long dead, and finally, his own face, grinning back at him with hollow eyes.
Yan Zhi stumbled back as whispers slithered into his mind:
"They will all betray you."
"You are alone."
"Trust me… trust me…"
"Shut up!" Yan Zhi roared, wrenching his sword from its sheath—only to feel it dragging, heavy, as if the very shadows of this world clung to it.
The creature—The Borrowed Face—laughed, its voice constantly morphing. "Still don't see, Yan Zhi? I don't need to kill you. I just need to… open the door."
From its body unfurled a Shadowed Blade—not a weapon, but a wound in reality itself. It drove the blade into the ground.
The world screamed.
The Fourth Rift… shattered.
Beneath them, something awoke—a colossal shadow writhing with uncountable crimson eyes. It clawed at the surface, and the Third Layer howled like a dying beast.
Yan Zhi looked ahead—and the largest of those eyes fixed on him, locking onto his soul. For the first time, he could not trust anyone… not even himself.
"Welcome to the end, Yan Zhi," whispered the creature, now speaking with his own voice. "This… is your betrayal."
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