Chapter 154
Night did not fall naturally.
It collapsed.
Darkness poured over the settlement like ink spilled across parchment, swallowing torchlight and muffling sound. Even the insects fell silent, as if instinct warned them that noise invited death.
Shenping sat cross-legged inside the largest stone hall, crude talismans etched into the floor around him. They were not containment arrays—Han Zhi had forbidden that—but anchors, meant to keep Shenping's awareness rooted in his own body if something tried to drag it elsewhere.
His eyes remained open.
Inside him, the convergence throbbed restlessly.
It no longer felt like a single mouth. It felt like many, layered and overlapping, each learning faster than the last. It remembered the clans' techniques, the way their energy fractured when taken, the inefficiencies they had never noticed. The convergence was adapting.
That frightened him more than the ancient presence.
Han Zhi leaned against a pillar near the entrance, arms folded, gaze sharp. "It's already started, hasn't it."
"Yes," Shenping said quietly. "It's… optimizing."
Qiao Mu sat opposite him, sharpening her blade in slow, deliberate strokes. "Is that bad?"
Han Zhi answered for him. "It means the world will respond faster next time."
As if summoned by the words, the air inside the hall rippled.
The talismans flared dull red.
Shenping's breath hitched as his perception was yanked outward—not violently, but irresistibly, like sinking into deep water. The walls faded. The settlement vanished.
He stood somewhere else.
A vast stone plain stretched in all directions, carved with symbols so old they no longer aligned with any known language. Above, the sky was not a sky at all, but a slow-turning spiral of pale light.
At the center of the plain stood a figure.
It was humanoid only in outline. Its body looked sculpted from layered stone and bone, seams glowing faintly with restrained power. Its face was smooth, unfinished, as if the concept of identity had never been necessary.
"You persist," the figure said.
The voice did not travel through air. It pressed directly into Shenping's mind.
"You consume what should circulate. You erase what should return."
Shenping forced himself to stand straight. "I didn't ask to exist."
"That is irrelevant," the entity replied. "Errors do not require consent to be corrected."
Pressure descended.
Shenping felt the convergence recoil, then surge forward in instinctive defiance. The entity paused, attention sharpening.
"You change," it observed. "Faster than projected."
Shenping clenched his fists. "Then update your projection."
For the first time, something like hesitation entered the vast presence.
"You will destabilize the cycle," it said. "You will provoke collapse."
"Or evolution," Shenping shot back. "Your system leaves no room for anything else."
Silence stretched.
Then the entity raised one massive hand.
"Containment has failed," it declared. "Erasure will follow."
The stone plain fractured.
Shenping gasped as he was thrown backward into his body, slamming against the anchors with bone-jarring force. He screamed—not in pain, but in overload—as the convergence flared violently, drinking in the residual pressure left behind by the contact.
Talismans shattered.
Han Zhi was at his side instantly, blood trickling from his nose as he reinforced the anchors with raw will. "Stay with me," he commanded. "Do not let it finish defining you."
Qiao Mu stood at the doorway, blade raised, eyes burning as the night outside erupted with distant howls—signals, alarms, awakening beasts.
Shenping's breathing slowed, inch by inch.
When the convergence finally settled, it felt heavier.
Sharper.
He looked up, eyes reflecting a faint, unnatural light.
"They're not sending clans anymore," he said hoarsely.
Han Zhi's jaw tightened. "Then what are they sending?"
Shenping stared into the darkness beyond the hall, where multiple powerful auras were already moving toward the settlement from different directions.
"Solutions."