Yan Zhi's first step into the Core felt wrong.
It wasn't soil he walked on.
It wasn't stone.
It was something between flesh and earth—firm, yet slick, pulsing beneath his feet like a living organ that rejected him with every step. Each time he set his weight down, a dull throb crawled up through his bones.
He looked down.
The ground was pitch-black, but every so often, faint crimson veins flickered beneath the surface, glowing like blood vessels beneath translucent skin. Each pulse sent a shiver through his spine.
Breathing was no easier.
The air was thick, not with mist, but with whispers. Every inhale felt like dragging knives into his lungs.
Then he heard it.
Not sound—something heavier. A drawn-out exhalation, echoing all around him, like a slumbering beast disturbed.
Yan Zhi froze.
The Core stretched out endlessly, yet there was no horizon. A starless sky pressed down from above, and the living ground throbbed beneath his feet. Between them stood countless silhouettes.
Hundreds.
No—thousands.
They were human in shape, yet motionless. Not a single head turned. Not a breath stirred. And yet… every one of those faceless shadows was already staring at him.
Cold prickled his neck.
He couldn't see their faces, but he felt their gaze hollow out his insides, as if they were mirrors reflecting his fear back at him.
"Shadows… or the dead?" he thought.
But even his own thoughts didn't sound like his anymore. They blended with the murmurs in the air.
He stepped forward.
At once, the ground shuddered. A crack split open beneath his foot, oozing thick, boiling liquid the color of rusted blood. The stench of iron flooded the air.
Yan Zhi pulled back, but more fissures spread, veins bursting, weeping red.
And in the distance—the silhouettes stirred.
Not much. Barely at all.
But enough to chill him to the marrow.
"This is no world that welcomes visitors," Yan Zhi thought. "This is a body rejecting an intruder."
Yes.
This was no realm.
It was an organism—ancient, vast, and alive. And Yan Zhi was a splinter lodged within it.
The longer he lingered, the stronger the rejection grew. The air, the ground, the shadows—everything screamed for his erasure.
He drew on his Shadow Vein, steadying his mind against the suffocating weight pressing down on him. But he knew the truth—his resistance wouldn't last.
So he forced himself forward.
Every step heavier, as though invisible chains wrapped around his legs.
And then—on the tenth step—the world itself trembled.
One silhouette moved.
It didn't walk. It didn't run.
It simply shifted, snapping from the distance to stand ten paces away.
Yan Zhi's eyes widened.
It was him.
Not a blur. Not a faceless shadow.
But his own reflection, pale, with a hollow gaze and a smile stretched too wide.
From its mouth came the same voice that had whispered inside his chest:
"You are not welcome here."
The ground pulsed. The air roared.
And Yan Zhi understood—the Core of the Veil had begun its true rejection.
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