2026-01-20 06:20:38Snap. The cold wind vanished. The hard rocks vanished. The gray sky vanished.
Evans was standing. He looked down. He was not wearing his torn, bloody robes. He was naked, but he felt no shame. His body looked clean. There were no bruises. No blood.
He looked around. Everything was white. It was an endless, bright space. There were no walls, no ceiling, and no floor. Just infinite whiteness. It was sterile. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and ozone.
It was quiet. Not the lonely silence of the cliff, but the heavy silence of an operating room before the surgery begins.
"Am I dead?" Evans asked.
His voice was strong. It echoed, though there were no walls to echo off of.
"Is this the afterlife?"
No angel appeared. No demon appeared.
Instead, the air in front of him shimmered.
Text appeared.
It didn't fade in. It snapped into existence. The letters were black, sharp, and blocky. They floated in the air, motionless.
[MEDICAL HEALING SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
Evans blinked. He reached out to touch the words. His hand passed through them like smoke, but the text did not move.
[SCANNING HOST...]
[IDENTITY: Evans]
[STATUS: CRITICAL FAILURE]
[BLOODLINE VERIFIED: ANCIENT HEALER (DORMANT)]
Evans read the words. System? Bloodline? Ancient Healer?
He had read novels about things like this. Warriors getting systems that helped them kill. Kings getting systems that helped them build empires.
But this... this was clinical. It felt cold.
More text appeared, scrolling down rapidly.
[DAMAGE REPORT:]
- HEART STOPPED (INTERMITTENT)
- LEFT LUNG COLLAPSED
- SPLEEN RUPTURED
- BLOOD LOSS: 60%
[CONCLUSION: DEATH IMMINENT IN 45 SECONDS.]
Evans stared at the number. 45 seconds. Even here, in this strange white void, the clock was ticking.
"You can save me?" Evans asked the floating text.
The text changed immediately.
[PACT CONDITION INITIATED.]
[THE WORLD IS SICK. THE HOST MUST BE THE CURE.]
[CORE DIRECTIVE: HEAL OR PERISH.]
Evans frowned. "Heal or perish? What does that mean?"
There was no voice. The System did not speak. It only displayed facts. It was not a friend. It was a machine. It was a tool.
[AGREEMENT REQUIRED FOR INTERVENTION.]
[WARNING: SYSTEM ACTIVATION REQUIRES ENERGY. HOST HAS NO ENERGY.]
[ALTERNATIVE SOURCE DETECTED: FUTURE POTENTIAL.]
The white space seemed to dim slightly, turning a pale gray. The atmosphere grew heavy. Evans felt a weight on his shoulders.
He understood the situation. He was a doctor. He knew about triage. When you have nothing, you have to sacrifice something to save the patient.
Right now, he was the patient.
"Show me the choice," Evans said. His voice was hard. He was done being the victim.
Two boxes appeared in the air.
[OPTION 1: DECLINE]
- CONSEQUENCE: SYSTEM DEACTIVATES.
- RESULT: PHYSICAL DEATH IN 30 SECONDS.
[OPTION 2: EMERGENCY STABILIZATION]
- ACTION: REPAIR CRITICAL ORGANS IMMEDIATELY.
- COST: FUTURE VITALITY DEBT.
- NOTE: PAIN RECEPTORS CANNOT BE DAMPENED DURING REPAIR.
Evans looked at Option 1. Death.
It would be easy. Just close his eyes. No more pain. No more betrayal. The Sect would never know he survived. He could rest.
He thought about the faces of the people who left him. The Elders who sneered at his weak martial arts. The warriors who mocked his medical skills, calling him a servant.
If he died, they won. If he died, he was just trash at the bottom of a cliff.
He looked at Option 2.
Future Vitality Debt.
It sounded dangerous. It meant he was borrowing time. It meant he would pay for this later, maybe with his lifespan, maybe with his strength.
And the note: Pain receptors cannot be dampened.
"It’s going to hurt," Evans whispered.
He looked at his hands. They were trembling. Not from fear, but from rage.
"I saved them," he said to the white void. "I saved them, and they threw me away."
He clenched his fists.
"I will not die here. Not like this. Not alone."
Evans stepped forward. He raised his hand.
He didn't just touch the button. He punched it.
His fist went through the holographic box labeled [ACCEPT].
[CONFIRMED.]
[INITIATING EMERGENCY REPAIR.]
[BRACE FOR IMPACT.]
"Brace for—" Evans started to say.
The white world shattered like glass.
CRACK.
Reality rushed back in.
The cold wind hit him first. Then the smell of the mud.
Then, the pain.
"AAAAAAAAHH!"
Evans screamed. It was a primal sound.
His body arched off the ground.
It wasn't the pain of injury. It was the pain of things moving inside him.
He could feel his ribs. They were moving. The bones were grating against each other, snapping back into place. Click. Snap. Click.
It felt like invisible hands were inside his chest, stitching his lung together with a hot needle.
His spleen knit itself back together. The sensation was like fire ants swarming inside his abdomen.
The blood on the ground? It stopped flowing away. It reversed.
The liquid hovered for a second, then rushed back into his wounds.
"Guh... Gah..."
Evans choked. His eyes bulged. His muscles locked up. Every nerve ending in his body was on fire. The System was not gentle. It was efficient. It was forcing his body to heal at a speed that nature never intended.
Steam rose from his skin. The mud beneath him dried instantly from the heat radiating off his body.
The "Vitality Debt" was taking its toll. His hair turned slightly grayer at the temples. His skin became pale, almost translucent. He was burning his own life force to fuel the repair.
He wanted to pass out. He wanted the blackness to take him.
[STAY AWAKE], the System flashed in his vision, a red overlay on the real world. [UNCONSCIOUSNESS WILL HALT REPAIR. DIE OR WAKE.]
Evans grit his teeth. He bit his tongue so hard he tasted fresh blood.
"I... am... awake!" he snarled.
He focused on the hate. He focused on the faces of the men who dropped him. He used the anger as fuel.
Snap. The final rib locked into place.
Evans gasped. This time, the air flowed deep. His left lung expanded fully. It hurt, but it worked. Oxygen flooded his starving brain.
His heart gave a mighty thud. Then another. Strong. Rhythmic.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The unnatural heat faded. The steam cleared.
Evans collapsed back onto the rocks. He was panting heavily. Sweat soaked his clothes, mixing with the dried blood.
He lay there for a long time. The gray sky was still above him. The crow was still cawing.
Nothing about the world had changed. The cliff was still high. The ravine was still deep.
But Evans had changed.
He lifted his hand. He looked at it. The skin was pale, but the dirt and blood were just on the surface. Underneath, the muscles were tight.
He clenched his fist. He felt power. It wasn't the explosive power of a warrior, but the enduring power of a survivor.
A small blue box appeared in the corner of his vision.
[STABILIZATION COMPLETE.]
[DEBT ACCRUED: 10 YEARS LIFESPAN.]
[CURRENT OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE WILDERNESS.]
Evans stared at the text. He had traded ten years of his life to survive the next ten minutes.
It was a fair trade.
Slowly, painfully, Evans rolled over. He pushed himself up onto his knees. The world spun, then steadied.
He stood up. His legs shook, but they held him. He looked up at the top of the cliff, miles above him.
"You thought I was dead," Evans whispered to the empty air. His voice was raspy, but it was cold as ice.
"You were wrong."
He turned away from the cliff face and looked into the dark forest of the ravine.
He had a System. He had a debt to pay. And he had a long list of people who needed to learn that a doctor can take a life just as easily as he can save one.
Evans took his first step forward.
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Chapter 10
The sound was the worst part. Crunch.It was a wet, grinding pop. It vibrated through his chest cavity. It echoed in his ears.Evans’s back arched off the ground. His mouth opened wide, stretching his jaw until it popped too. He screamed, but no sound came out. His lungs were empty. The pain had stolen his air.He collapsed back into the dirt. He lay there, gasping like a fish on a dock. Gray spots danced in his eyes.[RIB REALIGNED.][EFFICIENCY: 68%. ACCEPTABLE.]"Acceptable..." Evans wheezed. He felt like laughing, but that would hurt too much. The System called that torture "acceptable."The sharp, stabbing pain was gone. Now, it was just a deep, throbbing ache. Every time his heart beat, his side throbbed. Thump-throb. Thump-throb.[STEP 1 COMPLETE.][STEP 2: CAUTERIZATION.]Evans looked at the text. He knew that word. Cauterize. It meant to burn. It meant sealing a wound with heat."No," Evans whispered. "No fire. I don't have fire."He looked around. He was in a small clearing.
CHAPTER 9
Evans floated in a dark ocean. The water was warm. It was soft. There was no noise here. There was no pain. He felt heavy, sinking deeper and deeper into the black water. It felt good to sink. It felt like sleeping after a very long day.He wanted to stay here forever. The darkness was kind. It did not ask for anything. “Just let go,” he thought. “Just sleep.” But the darkness cracked.It was not a sound. It was a feeling. A sharp, electric buzz went through his mind. It was like biting on a piece of tin foil, but a thousand times worse.[WARNING: HOST VITALITY CRITICAL.]The words were not spoken. They appeared inside his head. They were bright red letters burning against the back of his eyelids.Evans tried to push them away. He wanted the warm water back. He tried to keep his eyes closed.[SYSTEM ALERT: UNCONSCIOUSNESS UNAUTHORIZED.]Go away, Evans thought. Let me sleep.[INITIATING PAIN PROTOCOL.]The warm water turned to ice. Then, it turned to fire.A spike of pure agony shot
Chapter 8
Snap. The cold wind vanished. The hard rocks vanished. The gray sky vanished.Evans was standing. He looked down. He was not wearing his torn, bloody robes. He was naked, but he felt no shame. His body looked clean. There were no bruises. No blood.He looked around. Everything was white. It was an endless, bright space. There were no walls, no ceiling, and no floor. Just infinite whiteness. It was sterile. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and ozone.It was quiet. Not the lonely silence of the cliff, but the heavy silence of an operating room before the surgery begins."Am I dead?" Evans asked.His voice was strong. It echoed, though there were no walls to echo off of."Is this the afterlife?"No angel appeared. No demon appeared.Instead, the air in front of him shimmered.Text appeared.It didn't fade in. It snapped into existence. The letters were black, sharp, and blocky. They floated in the air, motionless.[MEDICAL HEALING SYSTEM ACTIVATED]Evans blinked. He reached out to touch t
Chapter 7
Thump. Thump. The sound was slow. It was too slow.Evans lay on his back. The ground beneath him was hard and uneven. Sharp rocks dug into his skin, but he could barely feel them. The pain was distant now. It felt like a heavy blanket covering his body.He tried to take a deep breath. He failed. His chest felt like it was filled with water. A wet, gurgling sound came from his throat.My lung, Evans thought. His mind was surprisingly clear. It was the clarity of a doctor looking at a patient. Punctured left lung. Internal hemorrhage. Rib fractures—at least three. Probable rupture of the spleen.He analyzed his own death. He knew the timeline. He had minutes, maybe less.Above him, the sky was a dull, angry gray. Clouds moved slowly, indifferent to the man dying below. The edges of his vision began to blur. Darkness crept in from the sides, making the world look like a tunnel.He tried to move his hand. His fingers twitched. That was all. He could not lift his arm. He could not wipe the
Chapter 6
"Weak," another voice whispered. It sounded like Baret, the enforcer. "Look at him crawl. Like a worm.""No," Evans whimpered. He covered his ears. "Go away.""You are nothing without your power," a third voice said. It was his own voice. "You are just meat."Evans squeezed his eyes shut. "Shut up! Shut up!"He scrambled forward, crawling blindly. His hand slipped over the edge of a drop.He tumbled.He fell into a shallow ravine—a dried-up riverbed cut into the rock. He landed in the soft, silty dirt at the bottom. The walls of the ravine blocked the wind. It was slightly warmer here.But Evans didn't care. He was done.He curled into a ball. He pulled his knees to his chest. He shivered so hard his muscles cramped.The voices were gone, replaced by a high-pitched ringing in his ears.He stared at the dirt in front of his face. He saw a tiny pebble. It was white, perfectly round. It looked like a pearl.He focused on the pebble. It was the only thing in the world that made sense."I'
Chapter 5
Silence. The silence of the Red Wastes was heavier than the noise of the city. There were no birds. No crickets. Only the wind, whispering over the sharp rocks.Evans lay against the boulder. He counted his breaths. In. Out. In. Out. He had to stay calm. Panic was a killer. He knew this. He had studied medicine. He had studied survival. He was smart."Assess," he whispered to himself. "Assess the damage."He tried to sit up. A sharp pain stabbed his left side. Broken rib? Maybe just bruised. He pressed his hand against his side. He flinched. Bruised, definitely. Maybe a hairline fracture.He looked at his legs. His pants were torn. Blood oozed from a long cut on his shin. The blood looked bright red against the dusty ground."Stop the bleeding," he thought.He reached for his inner power. He reached for his Qi.For years, it had been as natural as breathing. He would focus his mind, and a warm current would flow from his belly to his hands. He could use that energy to seal wounds, to
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