A crash…
Thus sounded the betrayal of fate.
The ceiling collapsed, and I fell into the void, as though the earth itself had chosen to bury me.First came the roar. Then — darkness.Not blindness, no… true darkness.Alive. Thick. Heavy.Like an oath I had once sworn to myself: if I survived — I would cease to be who I was.
I do not know how long I lay there.A day? A week?My face was torn by shards of stone.My ribs ached.But I breathed.And if I breathed — I lived.And if I lived — then pain could still be spent in pursuit of meaning.
I was trapped.Rubble, debris, collapsed beams — all that remained of the ancient prison where demons had once kept me.There was no exit.No light.Only myself… and books.
Yes, books.Someone long ago had tried to hide knowledge here.Perhaps they believed dust and time would erase it.But they were wrong.It endured.Hundreds of scrolls, tablets, tattered journals.I devoured them like a starving beast feeds on carrion.At first — out of despair.Then — out of curiosity.And then… out of hope.
I could not cultivate.My dantian was shattered.My sea of qi — dried to dust.The meridians within me — broken.Everything inside had become barren earth.But I did not surrender.
In one of the books, I read of the breath of beasts.They knew nothing of inner qi.They drew power from without, bending the world to their will.I began to try.At first — breathing slowly, like a tiger.Then — softly, like a cloud.Each inhale — a blade against my ribs.Each exhale — a step into the abyss.But day after day… I began to feel movement.
Qi from outside.It was everywhere.In the dust.In the stones.In the rotting roots that clawed through cracks in the rock.I learned to weave it into my body.Not through the dantian — but directly.Through the bones.Through breath.Through conscious presence.
I called it the Path of Harmony.
It was not built upon destruction.It demanded no struggle.It accepted — and conquered through balance.Inhale — and I took in strength.Exhale — and it dissolved, leaving its trace in blood, in muscle, in heart.
I became something else.Not stronger — but deeper.
One day, I stood.My knees trembled, but I stood.I was not a prisoner.I was a seed that had split the stone.
And then I turned that strength outward.Qi flowed through my fingers, through my legs, through my spine.The entire prison… seemed to hold its breath.I did not scream.Did not rage.I simply… was.And the stone gave way.
Dust fell from the ceiling.Then — cracks.Then — collapse.I stepped forward, thinking of nothing, expecting nothing.Light…
I saw it.After thirty years of darkness — not flame, not a burst, but the soft gold of the setting sun filtering through mist.The air struck my chest — fresh, bitter, wet.I inhaled — truly, for the first time.
And in that very moment — my heart faltered.
I had known this would happen.My body — worn, spent.The limit had been crossed.But still — I walked forward.Still — I breathed in.
And before the darkness returned — not as a prison, but as eternity — I smiled.
Because I knew:my atonement had only just begun.