Crimson woke up screaming.
Not from pain.
From absence.
For a single, horrifying second, he could not remember his own name.
The fire beside him had burned down to embers. The sky above was pale gray, motionless—unnaturally so. Seo Rin was gripping his shoulders, her hands shaking as she forced qi into his shattered meridians.
"Stay with me," she hissed. "Don't you dare disappear on me."
Crimson gasped, his lungs spasming as if relearning how to breathe. Reality slammed back into him all at once, brutally, without mercy.
Pain followed.
Every nerve lit up like it had been flayed and dipped in salt. His muscles locked. Blood leaked from his ears and eyes as his body violently rejected the memory of erasure.
He convulsed, screaming again.
Seo Rin bit her lip until it bled, refusing to stop channeling qi even as backlash tore into her own core.
"Your cultivation is wrong," she said, panic seeping into her voice. "It's tearing you apart."
Crimson laughed weakly. "It always was."
He tried to sit up.
Failed.
His left arm didn't respond.
Neither did his right leg.
The Cultivation of Sin was active—but damaged. Sections of it were missing, ripped out when Zero had attempted to erase him.
Not injured.
Removed.
Seo Rin felt it too. Her face drained of color.
"Crimson," she whispered. "Parts of your cultivation… they're gone."
He stared at the sky, teeth clenched. "So am I."
They did not stay long.
The valley was no longer safe. Not because Zero would return—but because Heaven's silence would not last forever.
By dawn, Murim had begun to move.
The first scouts arrived screaming.
A mid-tier sect patrol stumbled into the valley, drawn by rumors of Heaven's absence. The moment they crossed the boundary, their leader collapsed, his body spasming as invisible pressure crushed him into the ground.
The others tried to flee.
Crimson watched from the ridge above.
"Don't interfere," he said quietly.
Seo Rin looked at him sharply. "They'll die."
"Yes."
She hesitated. "Why?"
Crimson's gaze was cold. "Because Murim needs to learn."
The patrol leader's bones shattered one by one as the lingering correction pressure tore him apart slowly, methodically. His screams echoed across the valley.
The others broke.
Some ran.
Some begged Heaven.
None were answered.
Crimson turned away only when the screaming stopped.
"That," he said, "is the cost of touching Heaven's mistakes."
They reached an abandoned fortress by nightfall.
Crimson collapsed the moment they crossed its threshold.
This time, he did not wake up screaming.
He woke up tied down.
Chains bit into his wrists and ankles, inscribed with suppression runes. His torso was bare, skin carved open with surgical precision.
Seo Rin stood over him, her expression hard and shaking.
"You were disappearing," she said. "I had to anchor you."
Crimson looked down.
Runes had been carved directly into his flesh—ancient anchoring sigils designed to bind existence itself. Blood soaked the stone beneath him.
"Torturing me now?" he rasped.
Seo Rin's voice broke. "I'm keeping you alive."
She began again.
The knife cut deep, slow, deliberate. Each rune burned as it was carved, forcing Crimson's fragmented cultivation to cling to physical reality through pain.
He screamed.
Not once.
Not twice.
For hours.
The fortress echoed with it.
When it was done, Crimson lay shaking, his body barely holding together.
Seo Rin collapsed beside him, sobbing quietly.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't know any other way."
Crimson laughed weakly. "Good. Neither did Heaven."
Three days passed.
Crimson could walk again.
Barely.
Something had changed.
His presence was… wrong.
Animals refused to approach him. Low-level cultivators felt nauseous in his proximity. Scripture talismans cracked and failed when brought too close.
He was no longer just a threat.
He was a contamination.
News spread fast.
Heaven was silent.
The skies did not punish.
And Murim panicked.
Sects began mobilizing—not to worship, but to prepare.
Demonic clans emerged from hiding.
Assassin guilds sharpened their blades.
If Heaven could hesitate—even for a moment—then everything was negotiable.
Crimson watched the chaos unfold from the fortress walls.
Seo Rin joined him. "They're coming for you."
He nodded. "Good."
"You're injured," she said. "Incomplete."
Crimson smiled slowly. "So is Heaven."
That night, the first assassination attempt came.
Five elites.
Silent.
Perfectly coordinated.
Crimson let them reach his chamber.
The first blade pierced his lung.
He did not dodge.
He grabbed the assassin's face and bit—tearing flesh from bone with his teeth. Blood sprayed across the walls as he ripped the man's throat out.
The second assassin severed Crimson's tendon.
Crimson dragged himself forward anyway, laughing, and drove his fingers into the man's eyes, crushing his skull inward.
The others hesitated.
That was enough.
Crimson slaughtered them slowly.
When it was done, he sat among the corpses, drenched in blood, breathing raggedly.
Seo Rin arrived seconds later, weapon drawn.
She froze.
Crimson looked up at her, eyes burning.
"Send word," he said calmly. "Tell Murim the truth."
She swallowed. "What truth?"
Crimson smiled—a broken, terrifying thing.
"That Heaven tried to erase me," he said.
"And failed."
Far above, unseen, the sky shifted.
Correction Unit Zero recorded new data.
Deviation escalating.
And for the first time—
Heaven considered intervention.