---
The forest felt different after the door closed.
The air no longer bit at my skin. The cold was still there, but it no longer sank into my bones. I stood just outside the ruin's entrance, staring at the old stone now sealed tight… as if it had never opened at all.
The carved symbol was still there, but its light had faded. The purple glow had vanished, leaving only the faint trace of ancient lines chiseled deep into rock.
My body ached… but not in the way it had before. My limbs didn't tremble. My skin didn't burn. I could still feel something moving inside me- not qi, not warmth, but something older. A weight. A presence.
I wasn't sure if it was watching me… or sleeping.
Either way, I knew the moment I stepped back into the trees that I wasn't the same.
---
The path I followed wasn't marked.
It twisted through thick trees and sharp roots, weaving through moss-covered stones and thorns taller than my chest. The moonlight barely reached the ground here. Only slivers of pale silver light danced between the branches, and even those felt thin… like they didn't want to stay long.
The villagers always warned us about this forest.
They said beasts lived here. Spirits, too. Some that fed on blood. Others on fear. I used to believe them. Used to think every gust of wind was a ghost and every fallen tree was hiding fangs.
Now… I wasn't afraid.
Not exactly.
What I felt was something else… something harder to name. Like a quiet pressure around my ribs. A warning that something had changed, and the world would no longer play by the same rules.
I stepped carefully through the underbrush.
Branches snapped underfoot. I didn't rush. The forest didn't like rushing. It felt like a place that remembered everything… every footstep, every breath, every broken promise.
And I had made one.
To the thing behind that door.
I didn't know its name. I didn't know what I'd really agreed to. But I had accepted something. That voice in the dark hadn't lied. It had asked. I had answered.
And now… I belonged to something not born under Heaven.
---
I walked for hours without stopping.
The deeper I went, the less sound there was. No birds. No insects. Just the soft hush of leaves moving… and the faint echo of my own steps.
At some point, the trees grew wider. Older. Their bark turned grey, and strange white vines curled around their trunks like veins. The air grew colder again, but it didn't slow me.
My breathing stayed steady.
My legs didn't shake.
I realized then… I wasn't tired.
Not just awake... energized. My muscles didn't ache like they should have after all that walking. My feet, scraped and bare, had stopped bleeding. I checked my palms. The cuts were gone.
I blinked.
Then something moved ahead.
A low growl. Quiet. Controlled. Not the roar of a wild beast… but the warning of something that thought I was prey.
I turned my head slowly toward the sound.
Two yellow eyes stared back at me from between the trees.
---
The beast was shaped like a wolf… but not one I had ever seen before.
It stood taller than my chest. Its fur was black with streaks of pale green across its back, and its eyes glowed softly in the dark. It didn't snarl. It didn't charge. It just watched.
Waiting.
Another step behind me.
Then a third to my left.
I turned in place.
Three of them. Surrounding. Coordinated.
Any normal person would have run.
But I wasn't normal anymore.
The power inside me stirred. I didn't command it. I didn't draw on it the way a cultivator might channel qi. It simply moved… slow at first, then stronger, like a tide beneath my skin.
I raised my hand.
The moment I did, the beast in front of me lunged.
Its claws flashed in the dark.
Time slowed.
I didn't think… I reacted.
I stepped to the side, and my hand moved... not with strength, not with skill, but with instinct. My palm met the side of the beast's neck.
And then…
Something flowed out of me.
Not fire. Not light. Just a cold pulse. Like the breath of the ruin had passed through me again.
The wolf-beast hit the ground before it could finish its growl.
The other two froze.
I stared down at the one I'd touched. It wasn't dead. But it wasn't moving either. Its body trembled slightly, legs curled beneath it, chest rising in shallow breaths.
Then it whimpered… and lowered its head.
The other two followed.
I didn't understand what I had done. But I knew, in that moment, that they weren't trying to kill me anymore.
They were bowing.
---
I didn't stay long after that.
The wolves didn't follow me. They watched as I walked away, their eyes dim and still. I felt no hunger from them now. No threat. Just silence.
Something had shifted.
Not just in me… but in the forest.
It let me pass.
And that meant something.
---
By dawn, I reached a clearing.
It sat on the edge of the outer valley, where the trees gave way to wide stone paths and broken ruins. I had heard of this place… but never seen it.
The Fallen Grounds.
Once, it had been part of a sect long before the Heaven's Path had risen. Now it was nothing but rubble and myth. No one came here. No one dared.
But I had nowhere else to go.
I sat on a large stone, breathing slowly.
For the first time since the testing… since the laughter… since the voice in the ruin…
I allowed myself to think.
What now?
I couldn't go back to the village. Even if I tried, they wouldn't want me. They would see me as corrupted. As cursed. Maybe they'd kill me before I could explain.
And I didn't want to explain.
Because deep down, I knew…
I didn't want what they had anymore.
I didn't want robes or golden gates or shining banners. I didn't want praise from people who had turned their backs the moment I failed.
What I wanted now… was mine alone.
To grow stronger. To learn what this contract had given me. To understand the thing inside me… and what it meant to be bound to something older than Heaven.
I looked down at my palm.
There, faintly glowing beneath the skin, was the mark.
A soft curve of violet lines, curled like a sleeping eye.
I traced it with one finger. It pulsed once, slowly.
Not a threat.
A promise.
---
Somewhere far above, the sun began to rise.
But down here, among the ruins and roots… the light couldn't quite reach.
And for the first time, I didn't mind.
---