At a distance, the carcass of the Devouring Spider slumped across the uneven ground, its limbs folded at broken angles, its swollen body sinking into a pool of dark blood. The stench hung heavy, bitter and metallic, pressing into Xiao Lei’s lungs. He stood at some distance from it, silent, his shadow stretching thin across the wall ahead.
Something pressed against his thoughts. Not a voice, not even a sound—more like the echo of a thought that was not his own. He reached for it, again and again. Each time he thought he had it, it slipped away, like water through clenched fingers. The harder he grasped, the less remained.
What am I missing? His chest tightened. He had been chasing it so desperately, but the pursuit left him with nothing but frustration. Then, like a ripple through still water, another thought surfaced: What if I stop? What if I simply give it up?
He froze. The words felt alien. Had they come from his own mind, or from the thing he hunted within the silence? The difference blurred.
For a long breath, he considered it. Then his body moved. He turned, leaving the spider behind, and walked toward the hole he had fallen from. Each step was weighted, not with certainty but with something else—testing, probing. Perhaps giving up was the answer… or perhaps it was the trap. Either way, he would press the thought to its edge.
Yet before he reached the hole he had fallen from, a shift prickled the back of his neck. He stopped, and when he looked again, the cavern had changed.
Behind him, the carcass of the Devouring Spider sagged further into its own black pool, as though even death bent before the change. The stench thinned, drawn away by a current he could not feel. The stone that had blocked the way was no longer there. In its place stretched a narrow passage, lit with the same unnatural glow that filled the chamber.
His heartbeat faltered. So it was never a wall at all… an illusion?
He did not let himself dwell on it. Not this time. He pushed thought away, forced his mind blank, and walked forward—no longer clinging to the idea of treasures or secrets, only placing one step after another.
The passage opened, widening into a hall. Its shape was crude, not built by human hand. The walls were jagged, uneven, almost raw, as though the earth itself had been gouged out by a blow too heavy to heal. It was no perfect circle, but closer to a crater—something collapsed, pressed deep into the stone.
Xiao Lei’s gaze pulled to the centre.
There it lay. A mass of black, immense and strange, rising like a boulder yet too smooth, too deliberate. The glow pooled faintly around it, as though it were the source, though its surface drank the light rather than reflecting it.
He circled it warily, never closing the distance, every sense sharp. The walls offered no threat, no sign of life, only silence. Still, his steps were measured, as though the thing at the heart of the cavern might stir at the wrong breath.
Finally he stopped.
The shape—the more he traced it with his eyes, the more it betrayed its secret. Vague at first, only fragments, until the mind began stitching them together. The surface, the slope, the ridges. The outline etched itself into him, and the realization struck so violently he nearly doubted his own sanity.
A heart.
A human heart.
One he had sketched countless times in his past life.
Yet here it was, impossibly real, immense in the dark—silent, but his own chest stuttered as though it beat in place of his. For a breath he almost believed the marrow in his bones was answering its call.
The revelation struck like a thunderclap, leaving Xiao Lei rooted in place. Breath caught in his chest, he stood unmoving, the echo of what he had just pieced together ringing through him. A single thought flickered in the stillness: How could this possibly help me?
No whisper rose in answer. Neither foreign thoughts nor the puppy’s annoying voice stirred his mind. Only silence pressed back, heavy and absolute.
At length, he forced himself forward. Step by step, he approached the massive heart. Black as ink yet faintly lustrous, it loomed with an uncanny stillness, suspended in the air like a relic torn from another world. Its surface seemed neither stone nor flesh, and yet something deep within it suggested life—dormant, waiting.
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Xiao Lei circled slowly, his breath shallow. Curiosity warred with unease, but his choice was already made. Whatever this thing was, he was here now, and hesitation would bring him nothing. If there was even a chance he could turn it to his use, he would.
He leaned closer. The faintest metallic tang touched his nose, sharp like blood left too long in the air. He inhaled once, steadying himself, then stretched out a single finger.
Even before his finger touched it, a phantom beat stirred in his chest, as though his own heart strained to be in sync with it.
The instant his skin brushed its surface, the world tore away.
His body vanished. The heart convulsed to life, thundering with sudden rhythm. Boom. Boom. Each pulse resounded through the unseen cavern, echoing like a war drum, like the heartbeat of some ancient beast roused from slumber.
When awareness returned, Xiao Lei stood barefoot upon a seashore. Wind curled against his cheek, cool and damp. Before him stretched an endless span of water, black-blue beneath a horizon without end. Behind him, only pale sand. A world of two halves—sea and shore—and nothing more.
Then the air fractured.
A jagged seam split open before him, light spilling through the tear like molten glass. From that breach stepped a woman. Her beauty struck him first, sharp as a blade. Her presence pressed upon the shore like the weight of mountains, yet her aura did not suffocate. Still, Xiao Lei’s instincts screamed. If she willed it, he would not even have the time to cry for help.
She smiled. “It has been thousands of years since I set foot here. Thank you.”
Xiao Lei said nothing.
Her gaze lingered on him, calm, unhurried. “Do not fear. I will not harm you. I am only a will—bound to this heart.”
His gaze sharpened, suspicion coiling tighter. “Those thoughts… they were yours?”
She inclined her head. “Yes. Were they wrong?”
He did not answer directly. Instead, his voice carried the weight of caution. “What is this place?”
For a moment, she seemed far away, her expression touched by sorrow. When she spoke, her words fell like fragments from a ruined past.
“Millions of years ago, the people of this world reached the apex of cultivation. From their struggle rose beings so formidable that no mortal tongue sufficed to name them. The world called them gods.”
Her tone deepened, every syllable thick with memory. A faint shadow passed through her smile, but she let it fall aside.
“Each of us was a singular existence, unmatched, unique. How else could we stand above all others? I was one among them. Yet among us was one who refused to share the summit. His desire for supremacy twisted into madness. He devised a plan to claim strength that none could contest. He chose six gods—the strongest among us, myself included—and slew them, harvesting the uniqueness that set us apart.”
Xiao Lei’s spine prickled cold. His imagination clawed at the vision. Gods chosen like livestock from a herd, butchered for their essence.
His lips felt dry. Still, he forced the question. “Did he… succeed?”
Her answer was a whisper edged with bitterness. “Yes. And in his triumph, all others were condemned.” She looked toward the sea, voice softening. “The heart you saw—that was mine. He tore it from my body with his own hands… and grafted it into himself.”
The words struck like a blow. His balance betrayed him, the world tilting as though the ground itself recoiled. His stomach lurched, bile burning at the back of his throat. It felt wrong—sacrilegious—that something once divine pulsed only an arm’s reach away. She had spoken with calm simplicity, yet his mind reeled at the image—two gods clashing, and one ripping free the heart of another with bare hands.
What kind of monster could such a god have been? His own chest ached, phantom pain blooming where his ribs met, as though the theft had reached across ages to wound him too.
Although Xiao Lei clamped his face into calm, the mask was thin. The woman’s eyes, sharper than blades, pierced straight through the facade. A soft laugh slipped from her lips, brittle as frost thawing under sunlight.
“It’s long past,” she said, voice carrying a quiet echo as if memory itself trailed behind it. “You need not carry worry that belongs to another age.”
But his heart refused to rest. “What of the other six gods?” His voice was low, clipped. “And if he truly succeeded… why is the heart here? Did he fall?”
The woman did not answer. Instead, her gaze drifted beyond him, toward some unseen distance. Her stillness was deliberate, as if the question itself was beneath response.
“To know such things now,” she murmured at last, “is fruitless. If you wish truth, then prove you deserve it. Answer my question first.”
Xiao Lei inclined his head. “Ask.”
Her eyes returned to him, unblinking. “Earlier—I asked. Were my thoughts wrong?”
“Yes.” His voice was steady, each syllable weighted.
Her brows arched, not in surprise but curiosity. “And why? Do you think kindness belongs only to the weak?”
Xiao Lei’s jaw tightened. “Is this a test?”
“What if it is?” The question curved, taut, as though she laid a snare in the silence.
He met her gaze without flinching. “Then tell me—what do I gain if I pass?”
Her lips tilted into something neither smile nor sneer. “Strength. Is that not what you seek? To become strong? My heart could lend you that.”
“No.” His answer came like iron striking stone. “I don’t want to be strong. I want to be the strongest.”
The air shifted, brittle with sudden tension. A flicker of fracture cut across her composure, for the first time darkening her voice. “The strongest… just like that demon?” The words cracked like thunder, and with them came pressure. Her voice was not merely sound—it rang like judgment, cold and absolute, the echo of a will that had once commanded gods.
His knees staggered as if the marrow in his bones turned to lead. The edges of his vision blackened.
Yet he lifted his head. “What’s wrong with that?”
Her glare sharpened. The force thickened, gnawing at his bones. “So you think what he did… was right?”
Xiao Lei’s voice rasped, but his will did not bend. “If he believed himself right—and was strong enough to carve that belief into the world—then it was right. If he lacked strength, then he was wrong. But to him, dead, it would mean nothing by then.”
Her silence grew heavier than words. Power leaked from her like storm-winds, growing ever more violent. A hush fell that threatened to split the world itself.
Xiao Lei’s tongue felt leaden, his mind splintering under the weight of her aura. Still, he forced sound past clenched teeth. “Don’t tell me… that in life, you never killed because you thought yourself right. Even now, you crush me simply because you disagree. So tell me… am I wrong—”
His eyes locked on hers, unyielding.
“—or are you only strong?”
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Destiny Reckoning. It’s set in the same universe, and you definitely don’t want to miss it, because the stories will eventually crossover.
Release Schedule:
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The Silent Monarch → Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
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Destiny Reckoning → Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday