The library's quiet was suddenly unbearable.
Lin Feng pushed himself upright, away from Yue Li's steadying arms. His breathing came in short, jagged bursts—like a man surfacing from drowning only to realize the water was still rising inside his lungs.
The first true Echo Pulse since the system's ultimatum arrived without warning.
No countdown.
No mercy.
The world folded inward.
For seven endless seconds he was no longer in the dusty stacks.
He stood alone on the cracked execution platform from his first life.
The crowd's jeers were deafening—thousands of voices merged into one howling wound.
His mother stood beside him—not young and singing, but old before her time, body broken by years of slow poison, eyes already glassy with the end.
She reached for him.
Her fingers trembled, thin as winter branches.
"Feng'er… don't look away this time."
Behind her, Yue Li appeared—bound in chains of black thread, the same threads he had once used to devour enemies. Her sword lay snapped at her feet. Blood ran from her mouth in a thin, steady line.
She tried to speak.
Only bubbles came.
Xiao Qing knelt further back—small body curled around itself, healer's hands crushed beneath a boot that belonged to Lin Hao's laughing silhouette.
And then the worst part.
His own voice—cold, hollow, stripped of everything human—spoke from his own lips:
"I chose this. Power over pain. Power over love. Power over her song."
He watched himself raise a hand.
Black threads erupted from his palm and wrapped around his mother's throat.
She didn't struggle.
She only smiled—sad, forgiving, shattering—and whispered one last broken note of the lullaby before the threads tightened.
Her neck snapped.
The sound echoed forever.
Yue Li's eyes met his across the platform—betrayed, pleading, already fading.
"You promised," she rasped. "You promised not to disappear."
The vision collapsed.
Lin Feng collapsed with it.
He hit the floorboards hard enough to crack one. A raw, animal scream tore from his throat—muffled only because Yue Li threw herself over him, pressing her palm to his mouth to keep the sound from carrying through the library walls.
Tears streamed down her face and fell onto his.
"Lin Feng—look at me. Look at me!"
His eyes were wide, pupils blown black with horror.
He clawed at her arms—not to push her away, but to anchor himself.
"It… it killed her. I killed her. In the vision. I chose Option A and I killed my own mother again. And you… you were there, dying, and I just watched—"
His voice broke into sobs—deep, wrenching, the kind that come from a place no cultivation can reach.
Yue Li cradled his head against her chest, rocking him like a child.
"It wasn't real. It wasn't you."
"But it could be," he choked out. "The system showed me what I become if I ever waver again. And part of me—part of me still wants to take it back. To make the pain stop. I hate myself for even thinking it."
From behind the panel, Xiao Qing's small fists pounded once—desperate, helpless.
"Lin Feng… please… sing with me. Just try."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
She began to hum—soft, trembling—the opening notes of the lullaby she had heard in fragments from his memories.
It was imperfect. Childlike. Off-key in places.
But it pierced the storm inside him like sunlight through storm clouds.
The silver vein under his eye flared—bright, painful, alive.
The Spirit Song responded.
Not with power.
With memory.
He felt his mother's real hand on his cheek—not dying, but warm, from a long-ago afternoon when she taught him the first verse.
*"Little phoenix… even broken wings can still remember how to rise."*
The echo pulse retreated—grudgingly, snarling.
Lin Feng's sobs quieted to shuddering breaths.
He clung to Yue Li like she was the only solid thing left in existence.
"I can't lose you," he whispered against her collarbone. "Not like that. Not ever."
"Then don't," she answered, voice thick with tears of her own. "Fight the system the same way you fought for us last night. One breath at a time. One choice at a time."
She pulled back just enough to kiss his forehead—long, lingering, salt and blood and fierce devotion mixed together.
"I'm not going anywhere. Even if it shows you a thousand futures where I die. I'll keep choosing to live. With you. Beside you. Until the song runs out of notes or the heavens run out of cruelty."
Behind the panel, Xiao Qing's humming continued—steadier now, weaving into the silence like a fragile thread of silver.
The system panel flickered back into view—smaller, dimmer, almost resentful.
[Integration Resistance: 29%]
[Echo Pulse Intensity increased for Day 2.]
[Reminder: Sovereign's Resentment quest in 5 days.]
[You cannot outrun what you carry, Keeper. The song will break you long before the devourer does.]
Lin Feng stared at the words.
Then he looked up at Yue Li—eyes red, but burning with something new.
Defiance.
Not cold. Not ruthless.
Human.
Raw.
Unbreakable.
"Let it try," he rasped.
He reached for her hand again—interlacing their fingers so tightly it hurt them both.
"Every pulse. Every vision. Every memory. We face it together."
Yue Li nodded—tears still falling, but her jaw set like tempered steel.
"Together."
From the hidden compartment, Xiao Qing's voice rose just a little louder—small, brave, carrying the lullaby forward.
The three of them sat there in the dusty dawn light—a broken man, a swordswoman refusing to yield, a healer who sang when no one else could.
The system watched.
And for the first time, its silence felt less like victory…
…and more like fear.