The night passed without dreams.
Lin Mo woke before dawn, eyes opening instantly, body still and alert. The faint pressure he had sensed the night before had not vanished. If anything, it had grown clearer—like a thread pulled tight across the settlement.
The world was paying attention.
He rose quietly and stepped outside. Cold air bit into his skin, carrying the scent of damp wood and old ash. The settlement lay half-asleep, but tension lingered beneath the surface. Doors were shut more tightly than usual. Conversations had gone silent.
Fear was settling in.
Good fear sharpened people. Bad fear made them reckless.
Lin Mo walked toward the edge of the settlement where scavengers and laborers gathered at first light. He needed information—raw, unfiltered, born from rumor and instinct.
"I heard they died screaming."
"Three Iron Bone disciples… slaughtered."
"They say the forbidden land cursed them."
"No. Someone did it."
Voices dropped when Lin Mo passed. Some faces stiffened. Others avoided his gaze entirely. News traveled fast, but truth traveled carefully.
He did not correct them.
A lie that protected him was still a shield.
At the water well, a young man met his eyes briefly—then looked away too slowly. Fear there, yes, but also curiosity. Dangerous.
Lin Mo committed the face to memory.
Patterns mattered.
As the sun rose higher, the pressure in the air sharpened further. Even ordinary people sensed it now, though none could name it. Animals avoided the settlement's perimeter. Birds did not land.
By midday, the first sign arrived.
A horn sounded from the eastern road.
Low. Measured. Confident.
Iron Bone Sect.
The settlement froze.
Children were pulled indoors. Merchants shut their stalls halfway through transactions. The guards at the gate straightened, hands trembling on their spears.
Three riders approached, dust rising behind them. Their robes were clean. Their posture relaxed. They did not hurry.
They did not need to.
Lin Mo watched from the shade of a broken awning.
Two outer disciples flanked a man in gray robes—their insignias sharper, their expressions colder. The man at the center dismounted slowly, surveying the settlement as one might inspect livestock.
His gaze lingered.
Then stopped.
On Lin Mo.
The man smiled faintly.
"So," he said, voice carrying easily across the square, "this is where my people vanished."
No one answered.
He took a step forward. "I am **Deacon Han Rui** of the Iron Bone Sect. I will ask once."
His eyes swept the crowd again, then returned to Lin Mo with deliberate precision.
"Who killed them?"
Silence pressed down like a weight.
Lin Mo felt it clearly now—the resistance. The subtle tightening of reality itself. The world was aligning variables. Reducing uncertainty.
Correction was beginning.
He stepped forward.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Elder Qian's face drained of color.
"I did," Lin Mo said.
Han Rui's eyebrow lifted slightly. "You?"
"Yes."
"You're unarmed."
"Yes."
"You have no cultivation."
"Yes."
A pause.
Then Han Rui laughed quietly. "Honest. That's rare here."
He waved a hand. One of the outer disciples stepped forward, aura flaring faintly—a deliberate show of superiority. The pressure made several civilians stagger.
Lin Mo did not move.
Han Rui noticed.
His smile thinned.
"You killed three of my sect's disciples," Han Rui said. "That offense carries a price. Do you know what it is?"
"Death," Lin Mo replied.
"Good," Han Rui said. "Then kneel."
The word struck the air like a command.
This was not about obedience. It was about confirmation. If Lin Mo knelt, the world would accept the correction. Variables resolved. Order restored.
Lin Mo did not kneel.
He met Han Rui's gaze steadily.
"I will stand," he said.
The pressure surged.
Pain lanced through his head—not physical, but deeper, as if something unseen was grinding against his thoughts, searching for weakness.
Immutable Will did not resist.
It endured.
Han Rui's expression finally changed.
Not anger.
Interest.
"Curious," he murmured. "You feel it too, don't you?"
Lin Mo said nothing.
"Most people break before they understand what's happening," Han Rui continued. "You didn't. That means you're dangerous."
He gestured lazily. "Kill him."
The outer disciple moved.
Fast. Efficient. Certain.
Lin Mo stepped forward instead of back.
At the same moment, he reached inward—not to draw power, but to make a decision.
Irreversible.
He picked up a shard of stone from the ground and hurled it—not at the disciple, but at Han Rui's face.
The disciple hesitated.
That was enough.
Lin Mo closed the distance and drove his shoulder into the man's chest. Bones cracked. Breath exploded out in a wet gasp. They fell together, rolling across the dirt.
The disciple screamed as Lin Mo twisted, wrenching the man's arm behind his back and slamming his head into the ground again and again until consciousness fled.
The second outer disciple reacted instantly.
Han Rui raised a hand.
"Stop."
The disciple froze.
Han Rui stared at Lin Mo in silence. Something unreadable moved behind his eyes.
"You didn't fight," Han Rui said slowly. "You disrupted."
Lin Mo rose, blood trickling from his nose, breathing steady.
"Yes."
Han Rui chuckled softly. "You understand structure. That makes this… inconvenient."
He looked around at the watching settlement.
"Killing you here would cause ripples," he said. "People would remember. Fear would ferment."
His gaze returned to Lin Mo.
"So I won't kill you today."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Han Rui leaned closer. "Instead, I'll let Heaven handle you."
The pressure vanished instantly.
Just like that.
The world relaxed.
Han Rui mounted his horse. "Run if you like," he added over his shoulder. "It won't matter."
The riders turned and left.
No threats.
No promises.
Only inevitability.
When they were gone, the settlement erupted into breathless whispers.
Lin Mo stood alone in the square.
He wiped the blood from his face and looked toward the horizon.
So this was how the world responded—not with immediate destruction, but with escalation.
He felt it then.
A faint mark.
Not on his body.
On his existence.
Heaven had acknowledged him.
Lin Mo smiled faintly.
"Good," he whispered.
"Now I know you're real."