Zhen Hu didn't sleep that night.
How could he?
The cold lingered beneath his skin like frost in his veins, coiling in the pit of his core. It wasn't pain—it was wrongness. Not an ache, not exhaustion. Something deeper. As if his body hadn't just awakened… but changed.
He sat cross-legged in the storage shed behind the sect's old herb garden, the door barely hanging from its hinges. It reeked of mold and crushed stems, but no one came here anymore. It was safe. Hidden.
The perfect place to fall apart.
His hands trembled slightly.
Kyrekh Realm—First Layer.
He'd broken through.
He'd done what the elders said he never could. What his father—the Patriarch—had stopped hoping for. What every instructor, disciple, and servant in the Dawnyu Sect had pitied him for failing.
But now that it had happened… it didn't feel like victory.
It felt like drowning.
Zhen Hu stared at his open palm. Every breath brought in a strange taste, like wet stone and burnt incense. His skin was pale, colder than it should've been. His senses were sharper—he could hear the slow crawl of worms beneath the shed's floor—but it all felt… disconnected. Like his body wasn't entirely his anymore.
And that voice lingered in his memory.
"You were never broken. You were shackled."
He pressed his palm to his chest, right above his dantian. The Nytherion pulsed there—silent, alive. It didn't glow like the zen in other cultivators. It twisted, like smoke under water.
"Why me?" he whispered.
The shadows in the corner flickered.
"You already know," came the answer, soft as a whisper through silk.
Zhen Hu jerked upright.
Aelira stood there—not radiant this time, but dim. Her form flickered faintly, as though the world resisted letting her stay.
"You're not real," he muttered. "I haven't slept. I'm imagining—"
"You're very real," she cut in. "And what you've done cannot be undone."
He swallowed hard. "I don't feel strong. I feel like… like I'm falling apart."
"You should," she said. "You've begun absorbing death. Even Nytherion needs time to root itself in a human core. Right now, it's testing you."
Zhen Hu's laugh came bitter and low. "So I'm its experiment?"
"You're its host," Aelira said. "And maybe its only hope."
He looked up. "You told me there's a curse."
Aelira stepped closer, and the air grew colder.
"There is. You were born bound to a seal that kept Nytherion from awakening. Now that it's broken, your body is unstable. If you do not reach the Ascendant Realm within two years—Nytherion will consume you."
"Two years?" he repeated. "That's insane. Even genius disciples don't reach it that fast."
"You don't have the luxury of time," she said. "Nytherion accelerates everything. Your growth. Your decay. Your death."
Zhen Hu clenched his fists. "So what do I do? Train? Meditate? Absorb more life? How the hell am I supposed to reach Ascendant Realm when I'm still learning how to breathe?"
Aelira didn't answer right away.
Then, softly: "Survive. Adapt. Lie if you must. But above all… do not draw attention. Until you can stand on your own, no one must know what you are."
He looked down.
What was he?
The same crippled boy they used to whisper about? Or something else now—half-shadow, half-promise? He didn't know. But in the silence, in the fear, something steadier began to grow:
Resolve.
He wiped the sweat from his brow. "Then I'll survive. I'll learn. I'll do what it takes."
Aelira's eyes flickered with something unreadable. Pity? Pride? Warning?
"Then begin tomorrow," she said. "When the sect rises with the sun… rise with them."
And just like that, she vanished again—leaving only the rustle of dead leaves and a lingering chill behind.
Zhen Hu sat in silence, back straight, jaw clenched.
He was still weak.
Still unsure.
But the path had opened.
And even if it was built on death, curses, and shadows…
He would walk it