The world was ash.
The once-glorious halls of the Crimson Sky Sect lay in ruins around me, reduced to rubble and dust. My robes were soaked with blood — my blood — and every breath burned like knives in my chest. My cultivation… shattered. My family… gone.
The righteous dogs had done their work well.
I slumped against a broken pillar, vision swimming. I had always known that villains like me were meant to die in the end, crushed beneath the weight of "justice." Still, I thought I would rage until the heavens themselves remembered my name.
Instead, I was dying like an insect. Forgotten. Alone.
And then—
[ Ding! ]
Void Nexus initializing…
A cold, mechanical chime rang in my skull, cutting through the silence of the ruins. I froze. My cultivation was broken, yet something… foreign… had lodged itself in my very soul.
[ Host confirmed: Xie Mo, Sect Master of Crimson Sky (deceased). ]
[ Vital signs critical. Binding process initiated. ]
My teeth clenched. "What… is this?"
[ I am the Void Nexus. A bridge across worlds. ]
[ Your sect has perished. Your disciples are gone. Yet destiny allows no vacuum. ]
[ I shall grant you… replacements. ]
My head spun. Replacements? What could replace the disciples I had raised, the family I had buried?
"I don't need illusions," I spat, blood dripping from my lips. "I need power. I need revenge."
[ Revenge requires disciples. Disciples require summoning. ]
[ The Void Nexus shall open a Gate. ]
I laughed bitterly. "Gate? To where? Do you think mortals will crawl from the soil and kneel at my feet?"
[ Not mortals of this world. ]
[ Disciples from… beyond. ]
The voice was flat, inhuman, yet it struck something deep in me. Beyond this world?
"You expect me to trust a phantom whisper?"
[ Trust is irrelevant. Binding complete. The Gate shall open soon. ]
[ Prepare, Sect Master. Your disciples will arrive. ]
My fingers dug into the cracked stone beside me. The ruins of my sect groaned under the night wind. The corpses of my enemies were already cold, but their sects thrived, their banners still flew.
If this "Void Nexus" spoke truth… if it truly could give me disciples… then perhaps my path had not ended here.
Perhaps this was not death.
Perhaps this was the beginning of something far worse.
I closed my eyes and whispered, voice hoarse but steady:
"Then let the heavens tremble. I will use whatever comes through your Gate. Mortal or monster, god or ghost… I will make them mine."
The voice hummed in reply.
[ Void Nexus acknowledges Host's will. ]
[ Recruitment sequence initializing… ]
And in the silence of the ruins, I felt it—
A pulse.
A heartbeat not of flesh, but of worlds.