Wei Jun stood still for exactly two breaths.
Then he cursed and followed.
---
"Shen Luo!"
No response.
"Shen Luo!"
Still nothing.
Not because Shen Luo ignored him.
Because his attention had narrowed completely.
---
The world looked different now.
Not visually.
Structurally.
---
The brief contact with the eye had changed something inside him.
The pathway no longer felt like a foreign presence pressing against his thoughts. It felt integrated deeper than before, spreading through instinct, perception, and understanding.
Not control.
Alignment.
---
That distinction mattered.
Because if he ever stopped recognizing the difference—
he would lose himself without noticing.
---
Ahead, the central mountain pathways had become almost unrecognizable.
Massive fractures split through the stone roads leading toward the ancestral summit. Ancient halls hung partially suspended over expanding voids where entire sections of the mountain had folded inward and vanished.
Fire burned across shattered courtyards.
Formation pillars drifted through the air where gravity had stopped behaving correctly.
---
And everywhere—
people were dying.
---
Not heroically.
Not dramatically.
Randomly.
---
One disciple stumbled while fleeing and stepped too close to a convergence fracture. His body compressed instantly inward and disappeared.
Another managed three more steps before his meridians ruptured from pressure imbalance.
A third simply sat against a broken wall staring at the sky, eyes unfocused.
Already gone mentally.
---
Shen Luo kept walking.
Not from indifference.
From necessity.
---
Wei Jun caught up beside him.
His breathing had grown uneven now.
Blood still stained his robes.
"You really intend to walk directly into the center of this?"
"Yes."
"You understand how insane that sounds?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Wei Jun paused.
"…I needed confirmation."
---
Another pulse rolled across Qingyun Sect.
Stronger than before.
The dark pillars surrounding the mountain had nearly completed their inward convergence now.
Only a few remained disconnected.
Not long.
---
Above them, the hidden elders continued feeding power into the sect-wide sacrificial formation.
The mountain screamed under the strain.
Still they persisted.
Still they misunderstood.
---
Shen Luo saw it clearly now.
Every suppression method they used strengthened pressure imbalance beneath the convergence network.
Every attempt to force separation accelerated synchronization.
---
The pathway adapted through resistance.
---
Like water finding cracks.
Like pressure seeking weakness.
---
Like systems protecting themselves.
---
They reached the upper ascent paths thirty minutes later.
Or what remained of them.
---
The stone staircase leading toward the ancestral grounds had collapsed entirely. Huge sections now floated suspended in distorted space around widening fractures stretching upward toward the summit.
Reality itself had become unstable here.
Distance shifted strangely.
Some steps appeared close until approached.
Others seemed impossibly far despite standing only meters away.
---
Wei Jun stared upward.
"…How are we supposed to cross this?"
Shen Luo looked once.
Then pointed.
"There."
Wei Jun frowned.
"There where?"
---
Shen Luo narrowed his eyes.
The pathway inside him pulsed again.
And suddenly the distortions clarified.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
---
The fractures weren't random.
They formed patterns.
Pressure routes.
Flow structures.
---
Weak points.
---
"Step where I step," Shen Luo said quietly.
Wei Jun looked at him.
Long.
Carefully.
---
Then:
"I really hate that I trust you."
---
Shen Luo moved forward.
Not quickly.
Precisely.
---
One step onto a floating section of broken staircase.
Another toward empty air.
Then another.
---
Wei Jun nearly shouted when Shen Luo stepped directly off the visible edge—
only to stop when space folded strangely beneath him.
Invisible structure.
A stable pressure path hidden inside the distortions.
---
Shen Luo kept walking.
The pathway showed him where reality remained coherent enough to support movement.
Not sight.
Recognition.
---
Wei Jun followed carefully behind.
"Tell me later how you knew that."
"No."
"What do you mean no?"
"If I explain it properly, you'll understand less."
"…That answer somehow makes sense."
---
Halfway toward the summit, they heard screaming again.
Not distant this time.
Close.
---
Ahead, near a shattered ceremonial platform overlooking the ancestral grounds, several inner disciples had become trapped between expanding fractures.
Three were still alive.
Barely.
---
Two struggled desperately against convergence marks spreading beneath their skin.
The third—
was eating one of them.
---
Wei Jun froze.
---
Not consuming flesh.
Something worse.
---
The infected disciple had both hands pressed against the other cultivator's chest, drawing streams of visible spiritual energy directly from his dantian while dark fractures spread rapidly across his own body.
The victim wasn't even screaming anymore.
Just shaking.
Eyes empty.
---
Convergence adaptation.
Active stage.
---
Shen Luo understood immediately.
The pathway had progressed again.
---
Wei Jun moved first.
Instinct.
Sword already halfway drawn.
---
"Wait," Shen Luo said sharply.
Wei Jun stopped.
Barely.
---
The infected disciple suddenly lifted his head.
Slowly.
---
Its eyes found Shen Luo instantly.
Not Wei Jun.
Shen Luo.
---
And then—
it smiled.
---
Not like a person.
Recognition again.
---
The thing wearing the disciple's body tilted its head slightly.
Then whispered:
---
"…Found."
---
Silence.
Absolute.
---
Wei Jun looked toward Shen Luo immediately.
"…Did it just—"
"Yes."
---
The infected disciple stood.
Its body twisted unnaturally as dark fractures spread across its limbs.
Behind it, the remaining survivors started screaming again.
---
But Shen Luo barely heard them.
Because for the first time—
the pathway had spoken back.
Not through pressure.
Not through instinct.
Not through visions.
---
Directly.
---
And suddenly he understood something horrifying.
The eye beyond the fracture hadn't just recognized him.
---
It had been searching for him.
---
The infected disciple took one step forward.
Then another.
Its smile widened.
---
"…Found."
---
Behind it—
the sky cracked wider.