Chants echoed throughout his soul space. Lican could feel the scriptures crawling through his corporeal body like worms burrowing beneath his flesh. His entire body shone with brilliant light before silence descended once more.
A sigh.
This time, Lican was aware of the voice. It was different from before, distinctly feminine, yet it seemed to come from the depths of the void itself.
"You have embarked on this path." The voice paused, releasing another sigh. "It seems destiny will not let you be. Since this is your choice, I will hold them here."
There was something strange about the voice. It sounded both sad and relieved, as though the speaker had finally accepted something she had long struggled against.
Lican opened his eyes, which now shone with a golden light. The previously cold cave grew warm beneath the presence radiating from him, and a golden halo surrounded his body as he continued to levitate above the ground.
His gaze shifted towards the jade pin, its tip resting against the top of his head.
"So, it was you all along. The healing and the void..." he murmured.
He stretched out his palm and grasped the jade pin, watching as it flickered with golden light.
"Does Father know about this? Things are getting weirder, and I have so many things to ask him."
As he spoke, something about the way he carried himself had changed. There was a certain maturity in his demeanour, as though he had grown older, not physically, but mentally. It was difficult to explain, even to himself, yet he could feel the difference.
His gaze shifted towards his wrist, where a beaded bracelet rested against his skin. Crimson lines and runes glistened across its pale, white surface.
The bracelet had drained him of his vitality, leaving him in a trance-like state. It was this condition that had allowed the jade pin to draw him into the void.
Lican gently caressed the bone bracelet, his golden eyes lingering on its strange markings as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened.
The bracelet rested against his wrist, its pale bones gleaming faintly beneath the crimson lines etched across them. Suddenly, an eerie, malevolent aura seeped from within it. Whispers echoed through the cave, overlapping one another in a language Lican could not understand, yet one word rang clearly in his ears.
"Devour."
The word echoed again and again, carrying an insatiable hunger, as though something living inside the bracelet had awakened and now wished to consume everything in its path, including Lican himself.
Yet something stranger happened.
The malevolent aura avoided him.
Crimson runes spread through the air around his wrist, forming circles of floating inscriptions that revolved slowly above the bracelet. Lican stared at them in wonder and surprise. These were the same runes he had inscribed before, yet their properties seemed to have changed, as though something within the bracelet had altered them into something entirely different.
Furrowing his brows, he decided to test one of them.
The Blackmist Rune.
The moment he activated it, crimson mist poured into the cave.
It was nothing like the black mist he had produced before. The crimson haze spread through the surroundings, twisting and churning as indistinct figures moved within its depths. Their shapes resembled beasts, but their forms were too distorted to identify. Then came the howls, low and dreadful, followed by the shrill cries of what sounded like countless malevolent spirits swarming within the mist.
Lican's brows furrowed deeper.
Is this really the Blackmist Rune?
He could feel something sinister within the crimson haze. It was not merely obscuring vision anymore. The mist carried a strange, corrosive presence, one that seemed capable of eating away at the mind of anyone who remained inside it for too long.
And this was only the first level.
Lican stared at the swirling crimson mist, his expression caught between wonder and disbelief. He had never imagined that a rune designed to conceal one's presence could transform into something so terrifying.
After a moment, he retracted the rune.
The crimson mist gradually disappeared, and the cave returned to its former serenity. Yet the dreadful howls continued to echo faintly in his ears, as though the creatures within the mist had not truly vanished.
Strangely, however, his mind remained calm.
Lican could still hear them, but their cries no longer unsettled him. His consciousness had already wandered into the soul space he had newly opened, leaving him aware of the strange connection between the bracelet, the jade pin, and the changes taking place within him.
For a moment, he remained silent, gently caressing the bracelet around his wrist.
Something was living inside it.
And whatever it was, it seemed hungry.
Lican had no idea that he had created something different, something that even masters might spend their entire lives searching for. Yet, by sheer accident, he had managed to create it.
"Yes, a name."
He stared at the bracelet around his wrist, contemplating what to call it. After a moment, he nodded as an idea came to him.
"I will call you Wailing Bone."
The name seemed to fit. He nodded to himself, satisfied with his choice, but before he could think further, the bracelet suddenly vibrated against his wrist.
Lican stared at it in wonder.
Is this thing alive?
He tilted his head, studying the pale bones and the crimson runes etched across them. The bracelet remained still, yet he could not shake the feeling that it had somehow acknowledged the name he had given it.
He shrugged, deciding not to dwell on it for now. Whatever Wailing Bone was, he would have to be careful with it. The thing had already demonstrated its desire to devour him, and he had no intention of becoming its first meal.
Still, Lican noticed something strange. Despite the malicious aura it had released earlier, the bracelet now seemed almost timid in his presence, as though it were wary of him.
Perhaps there was a reason for that.
The scriptures engraved upon his soul were terrifying, even to him. Whenever he tried to examine them closely, their profound intricacies seemed to elude his understanding, as though his consciousness could not fully comprehend what had been inscribed within him.
They resembled a cultivation technique, perhaps even a soul cultivation technique, but he could not be certain. For all he knew, they might have been something entirely different, something beyond the cultivation methods he had encountered.
Lican lowered his gaze and placed a hand against his chest.
Something felt different.
He could sense it, yet he could not tell whether the change was physical or spiritual. His body felt like his own, and his consciousness remained clear, but there was an unfamiliar sensation deep within him, something he could neither explain nor identify.
He stood there for a while, his fingers resting against his chest, trying to understand what had changed.
For the first time since entering the void, Lican realised that he had gained something he did not understand, something he might not even be capable of controlling.
And somehow, he suspected that Wailing Bone was only the beginning.