Chapter Nine: After the Rift
The sky did not close.
It remained split—
like a wound that refused to heal, watching everything beneath it.
Lin Chi stood amid the devastation, the Core of the Beginning now gone within his body. He did not feel power surging… but something far more dangerous:
Calm.
The calm that comes after a decision that can never be taken back.
[Path Status]
Unclassifiable
Unpredictable
Irreversible
Han Ruo coughed blood and laughed.
"So… this is the price."
Xiao Yin did not smile.
She looked at Lin Chi as if seeing him for the first time.
"You're no longer inside the game," she said slowly.
"You broke the board."
At that moment—
the air trembled.
And they appeared.
Not sects.
Not envoys.
But observers.
Five translucent entities with no clear features, each bearing a slowly pulsing circular symbol.
[Entities Detected: Guardians of Balance]
One of them stepped forward.
"The path that was never born… has crossed the limit."
Lin Chi raised his head.
"The limit never existed."
Silence.
Then the second entity spoke:
"Then correction will be enforced."
The sky pressed down.
Not energy…
but erasure of existence.
Han Ruo collapsed instantly to one knee.
Xiao Yin barely managed to stand.
Lin Chi felt his body being erased from the edges inward.
The old legacy did not move.
The new path did.
[Manifestation: Rejection of Correction]
The pressure stopped.
The Guardians stepped back half a step.
For the first time—
It happened.
"Impossible…"
one of them said.
Lin Chi stepped forward.
Each step rewrote his position in the world.
"You guard a broken system."
He raised his hand.
"And I… am the result of that fracture."
Space rippled.
The Guardians of Balance vanished.
Not defeat…
but a postponed withdrawal.
The City No One Dares to Touch
Three days later, they arrived at the city.
It was not on any map.
A city built over a bottomless pit.
Its name: Zero Point.
Here, there were no sects.
No declared paths.
And no stable laws.
The city teemed with people who shared nothing in common:
Exiles.
Survivors.
Rule-breakers.
The moment Lin Chi entered—
The city fell silent.
[Unconscious Environmental Response]
A massive man at the gate swallowed hard.
"You're… the cause?"
Lin Chi did not answer.
Xiao Yin did.
"He is the cause… and the consequence."
Deep within the city, an ancient stone door opened.
A door that had not been opened for a hundred years.
The Academy That Teaches the Impossible
Beyond the door—
There was no training hall.
But a theater of decisions.
Teachers without titles.
Students with no clear ages.
Each bearing a distortion in their path.
A white-haired woman stepped forward.
"We do not teach power."
She looked at Lin Chi.
"We teach those who broke it… how not to die."
[Special Location Discovered]
[Rift Academy]
Han Ruo exhaled deeply.
"So… we're not alone."
Lin Chi felt something new.
Not a threat.
But the beginning of a network.