The orb plunged toward me, heavy. The very air seemed to choke, trembling under its immense pull. I remained unaffected. My gaze stayed flat, almost bored. “This is the gift,” I muttered. “He said it was supposed to kill me, What a joke.” A faint smile touched my lips as I raised my hand. My voice was quiet but absolute. “Seal.” An invisible red line flickered. The instant the orb brushed it, it froze mid-air. From across the space, Mei Li’s eyes widened in disbelief. His heart stuttered as he watched the orb struggle against an unseen boundary, half of his own life force already devoured in its summoning. “Why, Why isn’t it moving?” His voice cracked as rage boiled through his veins. He clawed at the air, teeth bared. “No, it can’t end here, Not after all I’ve prepared!” The seal held firm. Mei Li’s trembling hands steadied. Then, as if remembering something dreadful yet precious, his lips curled into a wild smile. “Yes, I still have it. The formation!” He thrust

“I should have known better,” I spoke with a stern expression. After stiffening my muscles, I added, “After all, it’s the primal origin manifestation.” Spreading my legs, I shouted, “Light source within comprehension!” My palms pressed together as my arms raised to my chest level. Fragments of light formed as condensed light sparks merged. Then, before the pillar could travel two-fifths of the distance separating it from me, a figure stopped it. Formed from the combination of light fragments condensed by the sparks produced by my crushed Great Light Soul. … Yes, this figure, which yet again stopped the pillar, was still my very same Great Light Soul, reformed from its own light sparks. Though smaller, it was more condensed. The light power that emanated from it in a disorderly way was now channeled. With both hands, my Great Light Soul pressed the pillar forward, but with overwhelming momentum, the pillar exerted more pressure on my Great Light Soul as it expanded even more. Yet my

The world had barely begun to whisper of Ngwan Le’s death. Only a day had passed. The blood was still fresh on the ground where he fell. And yet, in that very place, something stirred. Not the fragile gasp of a fleeting life. But something heavier, sharper, something that once commanded the world’s deference the moment it drew breath. It wasn’t a birth, but a rebirth, Ngwan Le Tou. From the ether, a spiritual black flame coalesced. It hung in the air like a single, suspended drop of ink. From within its depths, a shape resolved as the flame stretched, preserving its form even as it expanded. A spiritual being? Coated in shadow, the materialized form took on a human silhouette. A man, perhaps twenty-one years of age, stood where the flame had been, blinking. “Oh, my head. Where am I?” Ngwan Le said, his voice flat. “A righteous man like me should have gone to heaven… is that it?” His eyes widened, and his face went blank. Before he could speak again, a whisper sliced through the

“Who could have imagined it? The power of darkness held such futures. Not the power to raise the dead or craft beings from one’s own will, but something far more insidious. The power to twist what already exists. To corrupt. To make an army not of the lifeless, but of the living.” Ngwan Le lay sprawled across his sofa, speaking with Darkness, the spiritual entity. This was after he had returned from the village, but his persona, the dark god, was not among them. After all, he was still in the village. Ngwan Le had left the village soon after the near-dead bodies rose again. He hadn’t witnessed the bloodshed that followed the torture. “And that’s not all. Check your realm,” Darkness whispered, its voice like a shadow across the floor. Ngwan Le stood. As he drew upon his power, dark energy flickered around his body like oil and flame. Then… “Even though I remain at the First Orifice of the Fourth Cycle,” he murmured, eyes wide, “my realm, it has already ascended to the Fourth Real

Seventy feet tall. Twice as large as a basketball field. This was the chamber where they stood. Its ground surface was even smoother than polished stone, flawless in every direction, except at a certain area in the middle. There, a structure stood, a building that resembled the exterior of an elevator room, though its form was round. Its walls were seamless and unbroken, curving like the body of a colossal pillar carved with unseen precision. It stretched upward from the floor level, reaching all the way to the ceiling, a perfect cylinder of unknown craft. Its circumference was vast enough to house ten people within, the hollow space inside echoing with a strange stillness. Like a room housing an elevator, it possessed multiple floor levels, much like a tower. But it bore only a single entrance, a solitary door fixed at the first floor. No windows marked its surface, no balconies broke its form, it rose plain and unadorned, a silent sentinel in the center of the room. And yet, despi