I had spent my entire life preparing to die alone, but Meng Yao’s fingers on my wrist were like hot iron, refusing to let me go."Put the crystal down, Lin Feng," she said, her voice shaking but her grip steady. "You are not doing this by yourself.""If I don't draw it into my own mark, the feedback will shatter your mind!" I yelled, trying to twist my arm free.The sky above us cracked again. A sound like grinding teeth echoed from the inverted pyramid, and the purple monsters in the courtyard began to melt, their dark bodies dissolving into boiling sludge."Listen to me!" Xiao Chen screamed through the small mirror at my belt. "The three of you are creating a closed circuit! The entities can't read it because it's not in their design! If you lock that circuit now, you can turn their own leash against them!""She's going to hurt herself, Chen!" I shouted back."I am standing right here!" Meng Yao snapped, pulling my face toward hers. "Stop talking about me like I'm already dead! The

"Are you completely out of your mind?" Lin Feng's voice cracked, echoing across the vast, broken expanse of white light and floating stone. He grabbed Meng Yao's shoulders, his knuckles white as he shook her. "I stayed behind so you could live! Why are you here?"Meng Yao yanked herself out of his grip, her eyes blazing through the grime on her cheeks. "Stop screaming at me! You finally decided you wanted to live instead of dying like a martyr, and you thought I'd just let you turn that choice into another lonely sacrifice?""It wasn't a sacrifice, Yao! I was pulling the collapse inward!""You were getting stranded!" she yelled back, her breathing ragged as she gestured at the surreal, fractured sky around them. "Look around you, Lin Feng! If we are going down, we are going down together. I am done watching you play the tragic savior."Lin Feng opened his mouth to snap back, but the anger drained out of him, leaving only a hollow, terrified quiet. He looked away, his jaw tight. "You s

Silence stretched through the cosmic network, heavy enough to make Lin Feng’s ears ring. His forearm felt weightless. He raised his wrist, staring at the patch of pale skin where the black ink of the cosmic mark had burned into his flesh for twelve years. Nothing remained. No glow, no residual heat, no phantom ache.He waited for his heart to stop. He waited for the cosmic fire to consume his lungs from the inside out, the way the ancient scrolls had warned. Seconds dragged by."Lin Feng?" Meng Yao’s voice was barely a whisper. Her knuckles were white as she squeezed his right hand. "You're breathing.""I am," he said, sounding stunned. He blinked, looking down at his chest, then at her face. "The countdown is gone."He tried to stretch his consciousness outward, seeking the familiar hum of the Central Plains, the sharp smell of pine from the southern mountains, the cold air of the capital. Nothing answered. The thread connecting him to the mortal realm had snapped clean."I can't fee

The floorboards of the ruined imperial altar did not shatter so much as they melted into dark ash. Black light spilled through the fissures, pooling beneath the stone like liquid soot."Get back! All of you, move!" Lin Feng's voice cracked, dropping low as he reached for the hilt at his side.Before Zhang Wei could pull his men into formation, the nameless stranger fell hard onto both knees. His spine bowed, forehead pressing against the cracked slate. Sweat dripped off his chin, turning into tiny wisps of steam the moment it touched the ground. Underneath his linen shirt, a jagged mark burned through the cloth, turning from dead grey to an aggressive, pulsing crimson."It is not stopping," Xiao Chen muttered. He knelt a few paces away, his fingers tracing the rim of his balance compass without actually touching the iron. "Lin Feng, look at the sequence. The glyphs aren't burning down. They are stacking.""Stacking?" Zhang Wei gripped the pommel o

The horror in the square was a physical weight. Old women clutched their shawls over their mouths, and soldiers slowly let their hands slide down to their sword hilts, taking small, instinctive steps away from the dais."He's going to put us in chains," the young blacksmith whispered, his knuckles white as he backed into the fountain rim. "It was never about freeing us. He just wanted the high stone for himself."Lin Feng stood frozen at the edge of the terrace, his throat dry as bone. His eyes remained fixed on the spot where the vision had burned into his mind. He knew that marble. He knew the precise, suffocating chill of the iron crown."Lin Feng," Meng Yao said softly, stepping into his line of sight. "Look at me."He didn't move. "I felt it, Yao. It didn't feel like a illusion. It felt like the visions the gods used to feed me when the mark was raw."She grabbed his linen sleeve, giving it a hard yank until he was forced t