Three days passed.
Feng Yao trained alone in the forest at the crack of dawn, where the mist clung to the underbrush and silence hung heavy between the trees. He bruised his arms, his legs, his chest. He chewed bitterroot to dull the swelling and soaked in cold stream water to keep the bruises from stiffening.
Each night, he collapsed onto his cot, barely able to lift his limbs. But sleep eluded him. His mind kept turning to one question:
Why?
Why would cultivators kill someone like his father? They weren't rich. They held no spirit stones. Feng Wei had refused to even join a sect.
Which meant it wasn't about profit.
It was about elimination.
And that thought chilled him.
On the fourth day, while gathering herbs deeper in the forest for his bruises, Yao stumbled across something strange.
He'd been chasing a medicinal fungus—White Beard Moss, useful for reducing inflammation—when his foot slipped between two boulders and struck something hollow.
Stone shouldn't sound like that.
He knelt, pulling aside weeds and earth, and saw it: a faint outline in the moss. Carvings. Not like the village's simple runes—these were precise, angular, and ancient.
A slab.
His heart thudded.
Something old lay buried here.
And something inside him whispered—dig.
The moss peeled back like dead skin, crumbling under Feng Yao's fingers as he scraped at the earth beneath it. His heart pounded louder than the chirping insects, louder than the rustling trees, louder than the world.
He had no idea why he was digging.
The stone slab wasn't particularly large, and the carvings on it were faint—just barely visible beneath centuries of rot. But something about the shape, the way the edges dipped downward, and the unnatural echo from the rock when his foot struck it, made his instincts scream: this isn't just stone.
He paused to catch his breath. Mud caked his nails, and sweat beaded along his forehead despite the cool mountain air. Stoneshade village had always whispered rumors about ancient beasts in the mountains or wandering spirits in the woods—but no one had ever mentioned ruins.
Or maybe they had.
And maybe they were just too afraid to speak of them aloud.
"Too late to stop now," he muttered.
He wasn't sure who he was talking to.
Maybe the wind.
Maybe his father's spirit.
Maybe himself.
He jabbed a short stick between the edges of the slab and pried. It didn't budge. He tried again. Still nothing.
A low grunt escaped him as he heaved with both arms, straining against the makeshift lever.
There was a soft pop—a shift. Then a hollow clang beneath the slab as if some ancient air pocket had been disturbed.
His arms nearly gave out.
He stepped back, heart hammering, and watched as dust swirled up from the gap he'd opened.
A breeze.
It shouldn't be possible, but something below was exhaling.
He crouched, peering into the now-visible crack. There was darkness beneath, but not endless. A faint glint. Stone, maybe metal. His mouth felt dry.
This was no animal den.
This was something forgotten.
He returned the next day at dawn, this time with tools—an old rusted pick, a lantern, and a pouch of dried meat. He didn't tell anyone where he was going. Not Uncle Shen. Not the apothecary's daughter who still sometimes left rice dumplings on his windowsill.
Secrets were safer that way.
The ground was looser after yesterday's rain, and the dirt practically gave way under his efforts. Within the hour, the slab had been moved aside, revealing a stairway descending into cold stone and stale air.
He lit the lantern and hesitated at the threshold.
There was a weight in the air. Not spiritual pressure—he didn't have the cultivation base to sense that yet—but a kind of heaviness, like the air had grown dense with memories, thick enough to choke on.
He swallowed hard, adjusted his grip on the lantern, and stepped inside.
The tunnel walls were carved from pale gray stone, etched with symbols he didn't recognize. They weren't from the Cloud Script used by common cultivators or the beast-markings favored by the clans in the east. These were angular, sharp—like blades etched into walls.
The deeper he walked, the colder it became.
Not the kind of cold that came from wind or snow. This was a still cold. Dead cold. The kind of chill that sank into your bones and whispered that you didn't belong.
Feng Yao passed through a low archway where two pillars had crumbled, revealing a vast chamber.
The moment he stepped inside, his lantern flickered—and then dimmed.
He stopped walking.
Before him stretched a hall unlike anything he'd ever imagined. Tall columns soared upward, vanishing into darkness above. The ground was a mosaic of sword-shaped tiles, each one bearing a unique etching. Some were pristine. Others were cracked and warped.
And at the far end of the hall… was a throne.
Massive. Silent. Stone carved into the shape of a blade, its tip buried in the floor. Upon it sat a figure slumped forward, as still as death.
Feng Yao's breath caught.
The corpse was armored in what once must've been silver or jade—a long robe draped over it like a burial shroud. But the armor had cracked and split, revealing ribs long since turned black. His torso had caved inward. Faint strands of something alive—black, almost ink-like—pulsed around the cavity.
It writhed. Slowly.
Corruption.
Feng Yao stepped closer.
He knew he should run. Every instinct screamed it. The stench of something ancient and unclean filled his nostrils, but his legs moved on their own. His lantern sputtered again, and he stopped just five paces from the throne.
The corpse's face was partly obscured by a cracked helmet. What skin remained was mummified and darkened. But the most striking thing wasn't the armor. Or the black tendrils still shifting in his chest.
It was the sword.
The blade rested on the corpse's lap, positioned like a loyal dog awaiting its master's command. The metal had dulled, chipped along the edges, but something about it shimmered faintly—just at the edge of vision.
Feng Yao reached for it.
Not out of greed. Not even curiosity.
Just… a pull.
The same pull that had led him here.
His fingertips brushed the edge of the sword's hilt.
And the world erupted.
Pain.
It wasn't burning or stabbing or freezing—it was everything. A tearing, grinding, devouring agony that consumed every inch of his flesh and soul.
Feng Yao fell to his knees with a strangled gasp. He tried to pull his hand back, but it was stuck—fused to the hilt, as if something had burrowed through his skin, wrapping around bone.
His vision went white. His heart pounded. His veins felt like molten lead, pulsing with something foreign.
He screamed.
Not in fear—but involuntarily—as though his lungs were no longer his own.
His mind shattered into fragments.
He saw flashes of worlds not his own—towering cities that pierced the heavens, beasts with too many eyes, swords the size of mountains cleaving stars in two. Blood. Systems. Hosts. Death.
Something had lived through those memories.
Something ancient.
And it had seen him.
"System Core Detected: Corruption Residue at 71%. Rebooting Conscious Layer.""Warning: Soul Connection Damaged. Emergency Host Acquisition Required.""Minimum Viability Reached. Binding Protocol Initiated."
"Sword System — Dormant Archive — Level 1""Initialization Complete. Host: Feng Yao."
The pain stopped.
All at once.
Feng Yao collapsed onto the stone floor, body twitching. His skin was slick with sweat. His teeth had shattered from clenching too hard.
His breathing was ragged.
But he was alive.
Barely.
A quiet hum echoed in his skull, like a blade singing after being drawn. A whisper followed it. Cold. Detached. Ancient.
"Not my first choice, but... acceptable."
Feng Yao passed out.