Coffin Shop of the Destiny Ruler

Bab 7

The cold radiating from Sylphara wasn’t just a metaphor; it was a physical weight that caused the moisture in the air to crystallize, dusting Chen’s eyelashes with a fine layer of frost. Her eyes, two orbs of unyielding glacial blue, didn’t blink. She was serious. If he got this wrong, or if he tried to bluff his way through with some vague "cultivator’s fate" nonsense, he wouldn’t live to see the sunset.

Chen didn't flinch. He couldn't afford to. He took a slow breath, feeling the frigid air bite at his lungs, and reached deep into the interface of the Destiny Ledger that hovered in his mind's eye.

System, initiate Deep Scan. Target: Sylphara Ash. Projection: Final Fate.

[Warning: Deep Scan requires high mental synchronization. Projected duration exceeds host's current spiritual capacity. Risk of neurological backlash: High. Proceed?]

Chen’s jaw tightened. "Proceed," he muttered, the word barely a ghost of sound.

Suddenly, the world didn't just blur; it shattered. The bustling timber market, the terrified merchants, and the smell of fresh-cut cedar all vanished. Chen felt as if his consciousness was being dragged through a narrow glass tube. His vision flooded with an eerie, flickering blue light that pulsed in time with his racing heartbeat.

The timer above Sylphara’s head, that steady, intimidating '900 years', began to spin. It didn't count down; it accelerated. Days, months, and centuries flashed by like the frames of a corrupted film.

Then, the pain hit.

It felt like a red-hot needle was being driven into his tear duct. Chen’s knees buckled, but he forced himself to stay upright, his fingers digging into the rough bark of a nearby pillar. A warm, metallic-tasting liquid trickled from his left nostril. He didn't wipe it away. He couldn't. He was seeing it now, the end.

The vision wasn't a clear picture; it was a series of sensory impressions. He saw a world swallowed by white. Not the soft white of a morning snowfall, but a jagged, cruel landscape of eternal permafrost. In the center of this wasteland stood a mountain so high the air itself seemed to have frozen into stillness. At the very summit, a figure sat.

It was Sylphara, but her hair was no longer the silver of moonlight; it was the translucent white of ancient ice. Her aura was terrifying, powerful enough to crack the sky, but there was no one left to feel it. Beside her, a longsword, the very one she carried now, lay snapped in two, its shards embedded in the frozen earth. There were no enemies. No grand battle. Just a silence so absolute it felt like a physical scream.

[Cause of Death: Solitary Dissolution. Event Horizon: Loneliness at the Peak.]

The vision snapped back. The market rushed back into focus with the force of a physical blow. Chen gasped, his lungs burning as he hauled in oxygen. He swayed, his vision swimming with dark spots, and he felt the warm trail of blood reach his lip.

Sylphara remained unmoved, though a flicker of something, curiosity? concern? crossed her icy features as she watched him struggle. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Shopkeeper. Or perhaps you realized your life is shorter than you thought."

Chen wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, leaving a dark smear across his cheek. He looked her straight in the eye. The pressure of her aura was still there, but after seeing that mountain, it didn't feel so intimidating anymore. It felt heavy.

"I didn't see a ghost," Chen said, his voice raspy and thin. He took a step forward, closing the gap between them until he was well within the range of her lethal grace. "I saw a mountain. A peak so high that the clouds couldn't reach it. And I saw you sitting there, with enough power to level a kingdom, and not a single soul left to talk to."

Sylphara’s expression didn't change, but the temperature in the immediate vicinity seemed to drop another ten degrees. The merchant hiding behind his stall let out a whimper as his water bucket froze solid and cracked.

Chen leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, informal murmur that ignored the social distance between a trash disciple and a powerhouse. "You won't die from a blade, Sylphara. And you won't die from a curse. You’ll die because you’ve reached the very top, and you’ll realize there’s nowhere left to go and no one left to follow you. You’ll just... stop. Loneliness at the peak. That’s your end."

The silence that followed was suffocating. The crowd had gone deathly still. Even the birds in the rafters of the market seemed to have stopped chirping.

Sylphara stood frozen. The words hit her with more force than a physical strike. Her mind flashed back to a damp, moonlit grotto decades ago, to her master’s final breath. 'Sylphara,' the old woman had whispered, 'the path of the Everfrost is a path of one. Beware the height, for the air is thin, and the heart grows cold before the body does. Loneliness is the only thing the ice cannot preserve.'

She had never told anyone those words. Not her sisters, not the Sect Elders. It was a secret she had buried under layers of cultivation and frost.

"Who told you?" she whispered, her voice losing its razor-edged authority. "Who did you speak to?"

"I don't speak to people," Chen said, regaining some of his composure as the system's backlash began to recede into a dull, throbbing headache. "I just read the Ledger. It doesn't lie, and it doesn't care about your secrets."

Sylphara stared at him for a long time. The killing intent that had been coiled around her like a serpent slowly dissipated. She looked at the blood on his lip, the exhaustion in his eyes, and the humble carpenter's apron he wore. He was a nobody—a weakling with no cultivation to speak of, yet he had just peered into the one thing she feared most.

"You're a strange man, Chen," she said softly. The frost on the ground began to melt, turning into small puddles of mud.

She reached into the folds of her silken robes and pulled out a small, rectangular token made of translucent blue jade. It pulsed with a faint, internal light, and the symbol of a snowflake encased in a circle was etched deep into its surface. She tossed it to him.

Chen caught it, the cold of the jade stinging his palm.

"That is the Elder's Crest of the Everfrost Sect," Sylphara announced, her voice carrying across the market once more, regaining its usual command. "As of this moment, this shop and its owner are under my protection. Anyone who interferes with his business interferes with me."

She turned to the merchant who had previously refused to sell to Chen. The man turned pale and nearly fell off his stool.

"You," she pointed a slim finger at him. "Everything in this market. The Spirit Sandalwood, the Ironwood, the tools, all of it. Total the cost and send the bill to the Everfrost embassy. Every scrap of it is to be delivered to his shop by sunset."

The merchant nodded frantically, his head moving so fast it was a blur. "Yes, Immortal! At once! Immediately!"

Sylphara turned back to Chen. There was a new light in her eyes, not the cold of a hunter, but the sharp interest of a scholar who had found a lost scroll. "You have your wood, Shopkeeper. And you have your life. But don't think this is the end of our conversation. A man who can see nine hundred years ahead is far too dangerous to be left alone in a dusty coffin shop."

"I'm just a businessman," Chen replied, leaning against a stack of crates as his legs finally began to feel like they might give out. "I sell peace of mind. And occasionally, a very sturdy box."

Sylphara lingered for a moment, her gaze sweeping over the 'trash' disciple who had just dismantled her composure. Then, with a swirl of white silk and a gust of chilled air, she vanished, leaving only a faint scent of winter jasmine behind.

Chen stood there for a moment, clutching the jade token. His head was pounding, his Qi was non-existent, and he felt like he’d been hit by a carriage. But as he looked around at the market, the merchants now scrambling to pile the best wood they had onto carts for him , a small, tired smile touched his lips.

He looked down at the token. The system chimed in his ear.

[Reputation Increased: Terror of Azure Wood Town.]

[Hidden Objective Complete: Gain a High-Level Patron.]

[Current Ledger Status: 12 New Names Recorded.]

Chen exhaled, a cloud of mist forming in the cooling air. He had the wood, he had the protection, and he had the reputation. Now, he just needed to survive long enough to use them.

As he began to walk back toward his shop, the crowd parted like a sea of grass before a predator. But his eyes weren't on them. He was looking at the timer above a man in the distance, a man wearing the high-collared robes of the Night Clan, who was watching the scene with a look of pure, calculated malice.

The timer above the man's head was flickering.

Six hours.

Cause of death: Greed.

Chen wiped the last of the blood from his face. It looked like he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight either. He had a coffin to build.