The ruins shuddered in silence.
The corpses of the two dragons lay broken across the shattered floor, their once-glorious scales still exhaling faint wisps of poisonous fog and leaking fragments of torn essence. The mist had already fulfilled its cruel purpose—forcing Zhou Tian and Lin Mun into a fate that neither could deny. Though the haze had dispersed, what it left behind lingered like a curse: carved into their marrow, etched into memory.
Zhou Tian staggered upright. His chest was torn open by the dragon's strike, yet instead of blood, something else pulsed there—a vitality foreign and frightening. His veins burned with molten rivers, and every breath resounded like a great bell tolling in the void.
Tier-A Ranker.
The words rose in his mind, not as something achieved, but as a brand seared into existence. He had crossed a threshold no mortal was meant to reach so quickly.
But Zhou Tian felt no triumph. The sensation was absurd, almost comical.
He, who had never cultivated, who had no understanding of realms or Dao, had been hurled into strength through venom, blood, and an intimacy he dared not name. This was not earned growth; it was forced upon him by fate itself. A joke, perhaps, scripted by heaven to mock him.
He turned slightly.
Lin Mun stood a short distance away, her robe disheveled, her face cold and expressionless. Only her eyes betrayed her—there, for an instant, a ripple of emotion had passed before vanishing like a shadow at dawn.
She was not the type to give thanks. She was born of the immortal realm, trained in arts beyond Zhou Tian's comprehension. Her pride was a mountain, her detachment a shield.
And yet, in that decisive moment when the dragon's flame had descended, Zhou Tian had intercepted it with his frail body. Not for justice. Not for love. Not for reason.
He had simply done it.
An act without calculation. A choice without logic.
That irrationality now floated between them, unspoken, undeniable.
Finally, Lin Mun broke the silence. Her voice was cold steel.
"You should have died."
Zhou Tian laughed weakly. Pain throbbed in his bones, yet his spirit sharpened.
"Perhaps I should have. But death… death is far too obedient. I've never liked things that obey too easily."
Her gaze lingered on him. To immortals, mortals were ants. For an ant to risk itself for another was folly. For an ant to risk itself for her—it was unacceptable.
She turned away, refusing to reply. Yet in the quiet of her chest, something long-buried stirred.
---
The ruins sprawled outward, endless halls of shattered palaces, broken inscriptions, and corridors swallowed by dust. Every fragment of stone whispered forgotten stories, as though ambition itself had been buried here. This was no ordinary ruin—it was a tomb of aspirations. Those who had once sought eternity had perished, leaving behind only echoes as inheritance.
As Zhou Tian walked, he felt the earth tremble beneath his steps. His newly awakened power resonated with the ruins, as if the stones themselves judged him unworthy of the strength he bore.
Sometimes he heard whispers—soft, derisive, lingering at the edge of perception.
"Mortal… accident… deviation…"
Were these hallucinations? Or was the ruin alive, speaking in the tongue of the forgotten?
Lin Mun walked ahead, her back straight, each step measured. Yet her silence betrayed that she, too, heard something. For cultivators, the voices of ruins were warnings. For Zhou Tian, they felt like invitations.
He did not fear them. What did he have left to lose?
---
That night they found shelter in the hollow of a half-collapsed temple. Fractured idols loomed—gods without faces, sages without arms, celestial statues crumbled to ash.
Zhou Tian sat among the ruins, staring at the broken effigies. He chuckled softly.
"What meaning is there in cultivation? You all sought eternity, yet eternity reduced you to rubble. If even gods can fall, why should mortals bother seeking heaven's path?"
Lin Mun turned her head slightly, her features impassive. Her voice was low, like a blade hidden in cloth.
"Mortals do not understand. Cultivation is not eternity. It is rebellion."
Zhou Tian met her gaze, exhaustion in his body, sharpness in his eyes.
"And what is rebellion, if not another form of slow dying? You wager against heaven. Yet heaven has never lost."
For the first time, Lin Mun did not reply at once. His words struck something within her. She had spent her life cultivating, believing in Dao, in strength, in immortality. And yet here stood a mortal—thrust by accident into power—who questioned the foundation of her path with words weighted by truth.
She rejected them outwardly, but inwardly, she could not deny the sting.
In the silence that followed, the ruins whispered again.
---
The days that followed blurred into an endless march.
No outsiders appeared—only traps, crumbling sigils, and beasts formed from lingering fragments of spiritual energy. Zhou Tian relied on his raw, unfamiliar strength, fighting with fists and instinct. Lin Mun fought with elegance and merciless precision, her sword strokes perfect in their cruelty.
And yet, Zhou Tian noticed something strange. His strength, though shallow compared to true cultivators, seemed unnaturally in tune with the ruins. Where Lin Mun struggled against certain barriers, Zhou Tian's mere presence seemed to part them.
It was as if the ruins recognized him.
Not as a trespasser—but as one of their own.
In the quiet between battles, Lin Mun would sometimes glance at him. Not with warmth, not with softness, but with a gaze heavy with questions unspoken.
---
Thus, an unsteady bond formed between them. Not built on trust. Not on affection. But on survival, on paradox, on contradictions neither could resolve.
A mortal who had no right to be here.
A swordswoman who could not comprehend why he had risked himself.
Two fragments that did not fit, yet were bound together by the ruins themselves.
The stones whispered. The air trembled. Fate coiled tighter.
And in the silence of the ruins, destiny sharpened its blade.