The darkness within the Eternal Dungeon was not merely the absence of light; it was a living entity—viscous, tepid, and clinging to the skin like a shroud.
Lam TIch lay curled on the freezing stone floor, his breath coming in ragged gasps like a rusted blacksmith's bellows. The agony from his shattered meridians surged through his body, feeling as though a thousand fire ants were gnawing him from the inside out. With every inhalation, the stench of mold mingled with the metallic tang of blood, a brutal reminder that this was no nightmare. This was the cruel reality of his reincarnation.
The System—that black box known as the "Mask of Vacuity"—had vanished from his physical sight, yet its presence loomed in his mind, silent and cold as a dagger hidden up a sleeve. It offered no tutorials, no starter quests, and no gift packs. It simply sat there, waiting for its new master to prove the worth of a lie.
"A script..." Lam Tich thought, his cracked lips twitching soundlessly. "To survive this place, I need a script. And more importantly, I need an audience."
Heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor, shattering the deathly silence. They were accompanied by the rhythmic jingle of iron keys—the sound of authority in this hellhole.
Lam TIch didn't need to open his eyes to know who was coming. In the fragmented memories of this body, the man was Li Biao—a gaoler as boorish and greedy as he was cruel. A low-level cultivator stuck at the third stage of Body Refining his entire life, he had been relegated to this dungeon to vent his frustrations on the helpless.
"Wake up, trash!"
A bucket of filthy water splashed directly onto Lam Tich's face. The biting cold stung his senses, making him choke and cough as his chest flared with a pain that felt like splitting bone.
Li Biao stood behind the bars, holding a bowl of moldy, greenish rice. His face was twisted into a smirk of pure contempt. He relished seeing the former Young Master of the Lin Clan—once high and mighty—now reduced to groveling for scraps at his feet.
"Eat up. This is your last meal," Li Biao sneered, hurling the ceramic bowl through the bars. It shattered instantly, scattering the rancid rice into the grime-encrusted straw. "Tomorrow at noon, the Great Priest will extract your bones to forge a Dharma tool. They say the bones of a fallen genius hold the strongest grudges. The Evil God will surely be pleased."
Slowly, Lam Tich pushed himself up. His movements were shaky and frail, the perfect image of a dying man. But when he finally lifted his head, Li Biao froze.
It was Lam Tich's eyes.
They were blind, clouded over with a beast-like white film, yet they held none of the fear or desperation Li Biao expected. Instead, they were hollow. A profound void that seemed to look right through him, staring at something horrific standing directly behind his shoulder.
Lin Xi wasn't looking at Li Biao. He was staring at the system interface hovering over the gaoler's head.
[Target: Li Biao][Realm: 3rd Stage Body Refining (High Physicality, Low Intelligence)][Psychological State: Arrogant, Sadistic, Superstitious][Current Trust Level: 0% (He views you as vermin)]
Lam Tich's lips curled. Superstitious? The perfect fatal flaw.
"Li Biao..." Lam Tich's voice rang out. It was no longer a feeble wheeze, but a low, guttural rasp with a haunting resonance. He wasn't using his muscles to speak; he was using a surgical vocal technique to make the sound vibrate within the cramped space.
"Do you know... why the Lin Clan crippled me, yet refused to kill me? Why they threw me into the deepest, darkest pit of this earth?"
Li Biao narrowed his eyes, unsettled by the boy's eerie composure. He spat on the floor. "Hmph! Because they needed your dog life for the sacrifice! Quit acting mysterious."
Lam Tich chuckled—a dry, rattling sound in his throat like grinding bone. He tilted his head, his blind eyes "staring" fixedly at the space behind Li Biao's left shoulder, then whispered with a mix of feigned terror and manic excitement:
"Wrong... They are afraid of It. They fear the thing sleeping inside me. They didn't sever my meridians to punish me; they did it to seal It. Broken meridians are nothing but shackles..."
Lam Tich suddenly lunged forward, gripping the iron bars with white-knuckled intensity, his face pressed against the gap, inches from Li Biao. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth, forming a grotesque grin.
"But now the meridians are completely dead... the shackles are loose... Can't you hear it? It's hungry. And you... you smell like fresh meat."
The temperature in the cell seemed to plummet. Li Biao shivered instinctively. He was a man who feared ghosts and believed in ancestral curses. He suddenly recalled rumors of Lam Tich being born during a solar eclipse—a child of ill omen.
"What is he babbling about? Seals? Monsters?" Li Biao thought, but his feet involuntarily took a step back.
[Trust Level: 15% (Skepticism)][System: Insufficient to trigger 'Concept Borrowing'. Escalate the drama.]
Lam Tich knew he needed a catalyst. A visual cue. He had no magic, so he would use his broken body as a prop.
He grit his teeth and held his breath, forcing blood to his head until the veins on his forehead and neck bulged violently. With a sickening crack, he intentionally dislocated his own thumb. The agony was blinding, white-hot, but he didn't scream. Instead, he channeled the pain into frantic convulsions, looking as if something were trying to claw its way out from beneath his skin.
"It... it wants out! Don't look into my eyes! Don't let it see you!" Lam Tich shrieked, clawing at his own blind eyes as his body slammed rhythmically against the bars. "Run! Before it tears you apart!"
CLANG! The bars rattled fiercely.
Li Biao was genuinely terrified now. He saw the "cripple's" muscles twisting unnaturally, heard the snapping of bones as if they were being restructured. No sane human could inflict such pain on themselves and laugh with such madness. Was the legend true? Was an ancient Malice sealed within him?
Primal fear overrode the gaoler's dim wits. He glanced into the shadows behind Lam Tich, his imagination conjuring eldritch horrors.
[Trust Level: 65% (Terror and Belief)][System Triggered: Concept Borrowing — "Host of the Abomination"][Effect Received: Temporary Physical Strength (Level: 4th Stage Body Refining) + Simulated Killing Intent.][Duration: 10 Seconds.]
[Warning: Current vessel cannot sustain this load. Severe consequences imminent.]
Lam Tich felt a surge of scalding, violent energy flood his limbs. It wasn't cultivation; it was power manifested from Li Biao's fear.
He dropped his hands from his face. His blind eyes seemed to flash with a crimson light—a result of the capillaries bursting under the pressure. He stood tall, an explosive aura radiating from him that eclipsed Li Biao's own.
"Too late..." Lam Tich said, his voice cold and devoid of the previous madness. This was the persona of 'It'.
Li Biao froze. He felt the killing intent. Genuine, suffocating malice! How could this waste possess the aura of the 4th Stage? He's stronger than me!
"Mercy... Mercy, Great One!" Li Biao stammered, his knees buckling.
Lam Tich didn't answer. Ten seconds. He had ten seconds before his body collapsed.
He thrust his hand through the bars. The speed was so great that Li Biao—paralyzed by terror—couldn't even blink. Lin Xi's gaunt hand clamped around the gaoler's throat like a vice.
The "borrowed" strength exploded. His fingers acted like iron pincers, crushing Li Biao's windpipe.
CRACK!
The sound of a snapping neck echoed through the stone corridor. Li Biao's eyes bulged, his life snuffed out before he could utter a sound. His body went limp, head lolling at an unnatural angle.
[Trust Level reached 100% at the moment of death.][Void Energy Collected: 10 points.][Concept Borrowing Terminated.]
The moment Li Biao died, the power drained from Lam Tich like a receding tide.
"Pfft!"
Lam Tich spat out a mouthful of gore. His right arm—the one used to crush Li Biao—slumped uselessly, dangling at his side. The forearm bone had snapped in two, unable to withstand the recoil of the sudden muscular enhancement. His biceps were shredded, the pain so intense it threatened to pull him into unconsciousness.
Lam Tich slid down, leaning his back against the bars, panting like a wounded animal. Cold sweat mingled with the blood streaming down his face.
"That... hurts..." he muttered, but his lips curled into a grin of manic satisfaction. "But at least, the price was fair."
He had no time for rest. Using his remaining left hand, he reached through the bars and rummaged through Li Biao's corpse.
A ring of keys. A small, rusted dagger. A few scraps of silver.
Lam Tich hissed as he jammed the key into the lock. Click. The heavy iron door creaked open, groaning like the lament of imprisoned souls.
Lam Tich stepped out of his cage. He didn't flee in a panic. Instead, he sat beside Li Biao's body, used the dagger to cut a clean strip of cloth from the man's tunic, and grit his teeth to splint his own broken arm. The sound of bone grinding against bone turned his face ghostly pale, but not a single cry escaped his lips.
In his past life, he had operated on others under a rain of fire. In this life, he performed surgery on himself in the bowels of a dungeon.
Once bound, Lam Tich stood, donning the oversized cloak he had stripped from Li Biao to hide his emaciated frame and broken limb. He snatched the torch from the wall. The flickering flame illuminated a pale face, but eyes that burned like cold stars.
The System flickered with a small notification:
[Congratulations, Actor. First Performance: Success.][Skill Unlocked: "False Survivor" (Passive) – Helps you mask physical agony. Even if your bones shatter, you can smile as if nothing is wrong.]
Lam Tich looked at the text and gave a shallow nod. This was exactly what he needed. A mask to hide his weakness.
"Very well," Lam Tich whispered into the yawning abyss of the corridor. "Li Biao was just the warm-up. There is a whole world out there waiting to be deceived. Saints, Saintesses, Evil Gods... just wait. Dr. Lam has arrived to write your prescriptions."
He walked away, leaving Li Biao's cooling corpse in the dark. His footsteps were no longer the drags of a cripple, but the slow, measured rhythm of a predator who had just tasted blood.
The escape from the Eternal Dungeon had only just begun. And the next lie... would have to be much, much bigger.