The moment Lan's chamber door closed behind him, his knees buckled.
Blood splattered across the marble floor as he collapsed against the wall, his body finally surrendering to the day's toll. The cut on his neck burned. His meridians screamed. The void in his dantian gnawed at his insides like a starved beast.
And the golden words still hung in the air before him:
[7 Days Remaining]
Lan laughed—a wet, broken sound that dissolved into coughing. Seven days. Seven days to prepare for what might be his execution dressed as a banquet.
He dragged himself upright, leaving a smeared handprint of blood and sweat on the wall. First, he needed—
A knock.
Not at the door.
At his window.
Cassian perched on the balcony rail like a carrion bird, his robes fluttering in the night wind. A bottle dangled from his fingers, its contents swirling like liquid shadow.
"Her Highness leaves a gift," he said, tossing it.
Lan caught it by instinct. The glass was freezing.
"Poison?"
"No, worse." Cassian's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Imperial wine." With that, the envoy vanished.
Lan stared at the bottle a while, he knew not to mix strong Alcohol and cultivation, but perhaps that was exactly what he needed to kick start his Comprehension of the first stage of Severance.
"Ah, the gods be damned," He decided as be pulled the bottle open.
The wine was indeed worse.
One sip sent fire racing down Lan's throat, followed by an icy numbness that spread to his fingertips.
The empty chamber seemed to ripple as his vision swam with phantom shapes.
Then the air itself spoke - not in the System's usual mechanical tones, but in a voice that resonated through his bones like a remembered nightmare.
"First lesson," murmured the voice of Xie Wuchen, though no one stood before him. The words formed directly in his mind, smooth as poisoned honey. "Black Severance isn't cultivated. It's stolen."
Lan's head snapped up. The wine bottle slipped from his fingers, shattering on the floor. Black liquid seeped between the stones like living shadow.
"You're not the System."
A cold laugh echoed through his skull. "I am your System. Just as you are me - only less... compiled."
The voice took on a lecturing tone that made Lan's teeth ache. "Memories need structure, little shard. You've been accessing them randomly, like a child pawing through scrolls. I am those scrolls, indexed and illuminated."
The world fractured.
Suddenly, Lan stood in a void without end, surrounded by floating chains - golden, like those he'd severed during his awakening, but these were shattered, their broken ends glinting like knives. Between them pulsed threads of black energy that hummed with familiar hunger.
Before him stood a mirror image - or nearly. Xie Wuchen's form flickered between solidity and smoke, his features sharper than Lan's, his eyes twin voids that swallowed the light. He wore robes of living shadow that whispered against the nonexistent floor.
"Your sutra feeds on what others discard," Xie Wuchen said, tracing a finger along one of the broken chains. It crumbled to dust at his touch. "Broken oaths. Severed bonds. The laws of this world, unmade."
Lan reached for the nearest black thread. It lashed like a viper, sinking into his palm. Black blood welled as the energy burrowed upward, tearing through his meridians with exquisite precision.
"Severance is more than cultivation," Xie Wuchen observed as Lan choked on a scream. "It is violation. The first of many."
---
The black veins had reached Lan's elbow by dawn.
He sat cross-legged in the center of his ruined chambers, sweat dripping from his chin as the corruption pulsed beneath his skin. The System—Xie Wuchen—had gone silent after that first vision, leaving only golden words floating in the air:
[Black Severance Stage 1: 23% Complete]
Lan exhaled through gritted teeth. Twenty-three percent. And it was killing him.
He pressed his blackened palm against the floor. The stone hissed where his fingers touched, tiny cracks spreading like spiderwebs.
"You're doing it backward."
Xie Wuchen's voice slithered through his mind, accompanied by the scent of burnt parchment. The shadowy figure materialized before him—not quite solid, but more vivid than before. His features were sharper now, the void in his eyes deeper.
Lan didn't look up. "Enlighten me, oh compiled one."
A cold laugh. "You're trying to control the dark qi. As if it's a tool. A weapon." Xie Wuchen crouched, his form flickering at the edges. "It's not. It's you. The part of you that knows rules are lies. That knows chains are meant to be broken."
He reached out—a gesture almost like tenderness—and pressed a ghostly finger to Lan's forehead.
Pain.
Not the physical kind. This was deeper, older—the agony of a thousand lifetimes of submission. Of kneeling when he should have stood. Of bowing when he should have burned.
"First lesson," Xie Wuchen whispered. "To sever is to accept."
Lan screamed.
The dark qi moved, surging up his arm like a tidal wave. But this time, he didn't fight it. Didn't try to leash it.
He let go.
The corruption hit his heart—
And unfolded.
Suddenly, he was everywhere and nowhere. The palace walls melted away. The sky inverted. He saw:
- The golden chains still clinging to his soul, fewer now, but unbroken.
The threads of dark qi writhing around them—hungry, always hungry.
- And beyond it all, the vast, yawning nothing that was the truth of the sutra
"There," Xie Wuchen murmured, his voice coming from inside Lan's own skull. "The first chain you must break isn't out there."
A new chain materialized before Lan—thicker than the others, wrapped tight around his dantian.
The Law of Fear.
The unspoken rule that had governed every moment of his life: You are weak. You are small. Know your place.
Lan reached for it.
The chain burned white-hot at his touch, searing his spirit. He smelled his own flesh cooking.
"Second lesson," Xie Wuchen said. "Severing hurts."
Lan pulled.
The chain snapped with a sound like a dying star.
Lan slammed back into his body with enough force to crack the floor beneath him. His vision swam. His mouth filled with blood.
But his arm—
The black veins weren't just receding. They were transforming, the corruption melting into his skin until it gleamed like polished obsidian. His fingers flexed, and the air around it trembled.
[Black Severance Stage 1: 100% Complete]
[Reward: Severing Touch]
Xie Wuchen's grin was a slash of darkness. "Ah. There it is."
Lan didn't need explanation. He knew.
He pressed his blackened hand to the wall.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then—
The stone forgot what it was, dissolving into black sand that hissed as it hit the floor.
Lan laughed, low and filled with pain.