Rain had been falling since before dusk, patient as regret.
By the time night settled over the Cultivation University, the courtyards were slick with water and lantern-light. Puddles gathered in the grooves of ancient stone like black ink, reflecting towers etched with sigils that pulsed faintly in the dark. Incense smoke drifted from training halls and lecture chambers, mixing with the cold smell of wet earth and iron—always iron, the scent of bruised knuckles and bloodied pride.
Somewhere below Ezio's dormitory window, a disciple practiced sword forms under a covered walkway. The rhythm was steady—step, turn, cut—each motion accompanied by the thin whistle of steel carving the air. Every strike sounded like certainty.
Sung Jin Ezio sat on the edge of his narrow bed and stared at his phone as if it were a verdict.
The room was barely a room at all: a thin mattress, a desk scarred by years of cheap ink, a crooked washstand with a cracked mirror, and a single cultivation lamp that flickered like it was embarrassed to be alive. The lamp's pale glow carved weak shapes into the walls, leaving the corners to drown in shadow.
Ezio's thumb hovered above the message thread.
He hadn't opened it right away. He'd walked three laps around his room first, as if movement could delay the inevitable. He'd told himself she was busy. Training. Studying. Sleep. Anything. But the quiet inside the phone was too complete, too final, the kind of silence that only comes when someone has already chosen their ending.
He opened the chat.
The message sat there like a clean blade.
I'm sorry.He makes me feel safe.Please don't contact me anymore.
Three lines.
Three years.
A whole life reduced to a few polite sentences.
Ezio read them once. Twice. Then again, slower, as if different pacing might change their meaning. It didn't. The words stayed sharp. They cut every time.
He felt the first tear arrive without warning, hot and humiliating. He wiped it away before it could fall—like he was erasing evidence.
His thumb moved.
He typed.
We can fix this.
Deleted.
What did I do wrong?
Deleted.
Please. Don't do this.
Deleted.
His breathing became shallow. His shoulders rose and fell as if his body couldn't decide whether it wanted to cry or fight. He stared at the empty reply box until his vision blurred.
Then his pride died quietly, like an insect under a stone.
I can change. I'll do anything. Please.
He stared at the sentence. It looked like it belonged to someone weaker than him.
He hit send anyway.
The message delivered.
The room remained silent.
Ezio waited for the phone to vibrate. For her typing bubble. For anything.
Nothing.
Outside, laughter drifted down the corridor from the richer dorm wing, bright and careless. Someone bragged about a recent breakthrough. Someone else mocked a classmate's failed attempt at body tempering. The university kept breathing, alive with ambition.
Ezio sat very still.
Minutes passed.
The sword practice below continued—step, turn, cut—untroubled by his collapse.
He refreshed the screen once. Twice.
Still nothing.
His chest tightened, not in a sharp pain, but in something slower and worse: an empty, collapsing hollowness, like a room with all the furniture dragged out and the walls left standing only out of habit. He could feel his heartbeat, but it didn't feel like it belonged to him.
He picked up the phone and called.
It rang.
Once. Twice.
Then her voice came, not real speech, but recorded. A calm, automated wall.
This user is unavailable.
He called again.
Same.
A third time.
Unavailable.
He stared at the phone until the screen dimmed.
He whispered, "Please."
The word fell into the room and died without reply.
For a moment he remembered her face the first year they met—how she'd smiled at him outside the herb courtyard, how she'd laughed when he mispronounced a classic scripture line, how she'd held his hand while walking through rain as if the world couldn't touch them if they touched each other.
He had been proud then. Proud of his loyalty. Proud of being chosen.
Now he understood the truth hidden beneath every gentle moment: she hadn't been choosing him. She'd been waiting.
Waiting for someone with a higher realm.
Waiting for someone with a name that mattered.
Waiting for someone who could make "safe" mean more than an emotion.
Ezio swallowed, hard.
His throat hurt.
He rose from the bed like an old man.
The washroom was only a few steps away, but his legs felt distant. He turned on the tap. Water poured out—cold, clear, indifferent. He cupped it and splashed his face. Again. Again. Again.
He scrubbed as if he could erase the shame with friction.
When he finally looked up—
His reflection looked back.
It was his face.
Same wet hair stuck to his forehead. Same red-rimmed eyes. Same cheap dorm jacket clinging to his shoulders.
But the expression was wrong.
The eyes were too sharp.
And his mouth—his mouth was smiling.
Not a gentle smile. Not a relieved smile.
A smile like a predator waking up.
"Well," the reflection said softly, "that didn't take long."
Ezio froze.
The voice was his voice.
But it wasn't.
It had the same tone, the same shape, but none of the weakness. Like someone had taken his speech and removed the parts that begged.
Ezio's fingers tightened around the sink's edge. "I'm… tired."
"Oh, kiddo," the reflection replied, almost kindly. "You're shattered. That's different."
Ezio's breath fogged the mirror.
The reflection leaned closer. Ezio did not move, but the glass made it feel like the other face was crossing distance.
"She picked someone stronger, didn't she?" the reflection asked. "Someone with a future."
Ezio's throat closed. "Stop."
The smile widened.
"Why?" it asked. "Because it hurts? Good. Pain means there's still something inside you that hasn't learned the rules yet."
Ezio forced air into his lungs. "This is—this is me losing my mind."
"Finally," the reflection said, and its eyes gleamed with amusement. "I was worried you'd stay sane."
Something dark bled at the mirror's edges, thin as ink seeping through paper. Shadows gathered where shadows shouldn't gather, crawling along the glass like living stains.
Ezio whispered, "What are you?"
The reflection tilted its head, as if considering the question with theatrical patience.
"I'm the part of you that noticed how easy it was for her to erase you," it said. "The part of you that remembers every time you were made small and told to be grateful for it."
Ezio's jaw tightened. "I never asked for—"
"For what?" the reflection cut in. "For love? For loyalty? For basic human decency?"
It chuckled softly.
"Kiddo, you're in a cultivation world. Decency is a luxury item."
Ezio stared at himself until his vision swam.
The reflection's smile turned faintly cruel.
"You begged," it said. "You chased. You crawled. You offered your spine like tribute."
Ezio's hands trembled. "I loved her."
The reflection leaned in, almost nose-to-glass.
"And she loved what you could be used for."
Silence fell like a curtain.
The only sound was the rain and the distant whistle of sword forms outside. Step, turn, cut.
Ezio swallowed, and his voice cracked. "So what are you supposed to be? A demon?"
The reflection laughed—quiet, delighted.
"Oh, please. Demons are honest about what they are."
It tapped the glass with one finger. The sound was too loud in the small washroom.
"Call me Lucifer."
Ezio stared, stunned. "Lucifer?"
"Don't look so terrified. It's just a name," Lucifer said. "Names are cages. I chose one with sharp edges."
Ezio's heart pounded. "You're not real."
Lucifer's smile softened, mock-sympathetic.
"Kiddo," it said, "I'm the most real thing you've had all day."
Ezio's gaze dropped to the sink. Water dripped from his chin. His fingers ached from gripping porcelain.
Lucifer watched him, eyes like cold lanterns.
Then, quieter: "Dry your face."
Ezio looked up again.
Lucifer's expression shifted—still amused, but with something like warning underneath.
"If you keep crying like this," Lucifer murmured, "someone will smell it. And if someone smells weakness, they'll take what they want. That's the university. That's the world. That's you, if you keep staying soft."
Ezio shook his head slowly, as if trying to fling the voice out of his skull. "I'm not— I'm not like them."
"Not yet," Lucifer said, and the smile returned. "But you will be. Or you'll be a stepping stone. A footnote. A warm body for someone else's breakthrough."
Ezio's lips parted.
No words came.
Lucifer leaned back, settling into the mirror like it belonged there.
"Go on," it said. "Do what you always do. Pretend you're fine. Put on your little face and shuffle through another day."
Ezio stared at his reflection—at Lucifer—until the ache in his chest became something else.
A thin thread of anger.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just… present.
He turned away from the mirror.
He picked up his jacket.
And he walked out.
The hallway outside was dim, lined with old lanterns and stale wards. The dormitory was one of the cheaper ones—the kind that housed scholarship students, servants, and those unlucky enough to lack a clan name or a wealthy patron. The floorboards creaked. The air smelled faintly of damp cloth and cheap medicine.
Students passed him without looking.
Some walked with the easy confidence of talent, their qi circulating cleanly through strong meridians. Others moved like predators, eyes scanning, measuring, calculating whose pride might be most profitable to puncture.
A few looked at Ezio and dismissed him instantly.
He was used to it.
Tonight, it felt different.
Lucifer's voice slid into his thoughts like a whisper behind his ear.
"Look at you," it said. "Invisible. You could die in this hallway and the only people who'd notice are the ones checking your pockets."
Ezio's jaw clenched. He kept walking.
He went down the stairwell into the open courtyard. Rain struck his face immediately, cold enough to sting. The stones underfoot were slick. Above him, the university towers rose into mist and darkness, their sigils faintly glowing like watchful eyes.
He passed a notice board crowded with flyers and posted rankings. Names, realms, sect prospects. The top names belonged to bloodline heirs and gifted disciples. Their titles were ornate. Their sponsors listed beneath like proof of ownership.
Ezio's name wasn't there.
It never was.
He kept walking anyway.
The campus at night was quieter than during training hours, but not peaceful. Quiet here didn't mean safe. It meant people were doing things they didn't want witnessed.
From a distant practice yard came the sound of fists striking wood. From an inner pavilion came laughter and soft music—too expensive for this side of campus. From under an archway drifted the smell of alchemical smoke.
Lucifer hummed. "Ah. The perfume of poverty."
Ezio ignored the comment, but his mind was sharper now. He noticed things he usually avoided noticing: the way certain students avoided certain corridors; the way some walked with hidden injuries; the way spiritual wards flickered over doors that should have been plain.
He stopped under a covered walkway and watched two disciples pass.
They were dressed well. Their robes were dark silk trimmed with red thread. Their steps were light, almost floating, as if the rain didn't deserve to touch them. And around them clung a faint shimmer—so subtle most people wouldn't see it.
Illusion qi.
Not flashy, not theatrical.
Seductive.
It clung to their skin like perfume and made the air feel warmer as they passed.
Ezio's chest tightened again—not with heartbreak, but with something closer to curiosity.
"What is that?" he whispered.
Lucifer's answer came instantly.
"Casanova."
Ezio blinked. "The sect?"
Lucifer chuckled. "The cartel. The plague. The pretty poison. Whatever you want to call it."
Ezio watched the disciples disappear into the mist.
As they went, something strange happened: the illusion shimmer left a trace in Ezio's senses, like a note of music lingering after the instrument stopped. He could… feel it. Not the way normal students did, as a vague atmosphere, but like a pattern.
Like threads.
He frowned, unsettled.
Lucifer's voice sharpened, amused. "Oh? That's new."
Ezio swallowed. "What is?"
"Your body reacted," Lucifer said. "You felt it too clearly."
Ezio's skin prickled. "Why?"
Lucifer sighed theatrically. "Kiddo, if I answered every question you asked, you'd stop being interesting."
Ezio forced himself to keep walking, deeper into the eastern wing.
Few students came here after dark. The buildings were older, the stones stained by time and spiritual residue. The lanterns were dimmer. Shadows were thicker. The air itself felt heavier, as if the university's walls remembered every secret that had ever crawled through these corridors and refused to let them go.
Ezio's footsteps echoed softly.
He felt it then—something brushing against his spirit.
Not a hand. Not a voice.
A gaze.
It traced him with the delicacy of a knife's edge.
Ezio slowed, heart thudding.
"Don't run," Lucifer murmured. "Desperation smells worse than blood."
Ezio kept moving, pretending he hadn't noticed. His palms were damp—not from rain alone.
The gaze followed.
He passed a glass-paneled training hall where students practiced illusion arts. Colored light rippled across the room like a dream bleeding into reality. A young kitsune girl with silver hair laughed as her image multiplied into a dozen copies, each copy smiling, each copy perfect. Around her, students watched with open admiration, longing, envy.
Ezio paused.
Illusion qi danced in the air like fine dust.
And again, he felt it too clearly—the flow, the layering, the way the technique clung to emotion more than breath. He could almost see where the qi anchored, where it could be cut, where it could be stolen.
His fingertips twitched, as if remembering a weapon he'd never held.
Lucifer's voice turned quiet, almost thoughtful.
"You're listening," it said. "That's dangerous."
Ezio turned away quickly.
He didn't want to be noticed.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
But the university wasn't the kind of place where you got to choose.
He reached a narrow courtyard beneath a red lantern. The rain fell hard here, but around the lantern the drops seemed to curve, as if the light itself pushed them away. The air smelled faintly sweet—like flower petals bruised between fingers.
Someone stood beneath the lantern.
A woman, tall and still, wrapped in dark silk. Her face was half-hidden by shadow, but her presence pressed against the air like something heavy and intoxicating.
Ezio stopped without meaning to.
The woman looked up.
Her eyes found him immediately.
Not the quick glance people gave a nobody. Not the dismissive flicker of superiority.
A collector's gaze.
Measured. Curious. Hunger contained behind polite calm.
Ezio felt his heartbeat stutter.
"Heartbreak leaves such a lovely residue," the woman said softly. "It makes people… open."
Lucifer purred in Ezio's mind. "There it is. The hook. Careful, kiddo—this one knows how to fish."
Ezio forced his voice steady. "I don't know you."
The woman smiled slightly, as if she'd expected that answer.
"Not yet," she said. "But I know you."
Ezio's throat tightened. "You do?"
"I know the look of someone who has been discarded," she replied. "I know the smell of someone who was forced to beg. You wear it like wet cloth."
Ezio's fingers curled, shame prickling hot beneath his skin.
The woman took a step closer, and the rain bent away from her again. Not with brute force, but with effortless grace—like the world politely made room.
"Do you want to stop feeling small?" she asked.
Ezio didn't answer.
He thought of the message. The silence. The way his pride had died in his hands.
He thought of the rankings board with all those names and titles that mattered.
He thought of how invisible he'd been tonight—how invisible he'd been his whole life.
Something inside him moved.
Not hope.
Hunger.
Lucifer's whisper slid through his bones.
"Say yes," it murmured. "Not because you trust her. Because you can't afford not to."
Ezio lifted his eyes to the woman beneath the red lantern.
The rain hammered the stones around them.
The university towers watched from above like patient gods.
And Sung Jin Ezio, who had spent years trying to be good enough to be loved, felt the first true pull of another kind of desire:
To be feared.
The woman's smile deepened, as if she'd heard the answer before he spoke it.
"Good," she said. "Then listen carefully. There are arts in this world that don't require strength. Arts that turn weakness into leverage. Tears into weapons."
Lucifer chuckled softly. "Now she's selling. Cute."
The woman's gaze did not leave Ezio's face.
"Come," she said. "The Crimson Pavilion opens its doors to those with the right kind of emptiness."
Ezio swallowed.
He should have turned away.
He should have gone back to his room, locked the door, buried his face in a pillow, tried to sleep until the pain dulled.
But he remembered Lucifer's words in the mirror.
If you keep crying, someone will decide you're easy to take.
Maybe that had already happened.
Ezio took one step forward.
Then another.
The red lantern's light painted his wet skin the color of bruised petals.
Behind him, the rain continued to fall, patient as regret.
And in the cracked mirror of a cheap dormitory room, Lucifer smiled as if it had been waiting for this moment all along.
"Attaboy," it whispered. "Now let's go rob the world."