The pulse beneath Luo Yanxue's feet was faint.
So faint that, had he not been kneeling with his palms pressed against the ground, he might have dismissed it as his own racing heartbeat echoing through his body.
But it was not his heart.
The soil itself had moved.
Not like an earthquake.
Not like shifting sand.
More like… a slow inhalation.
The cracked earth rose and fell by the tiniest margin, as if the land were breathing.
Luo Yanxue stood frozen.
The grey sky above remained unchanged, empty and silent. The small patch of grass swayed gently, unaware of the fear flooding his chest. Nothing visible moved beneath the surface, yet an instinct deeper than thought whispered a single word:
Danger.
He stepped back.
One step.
The ground did not pulse again.
But the sensation of being watched—no, of being felt—did not disappear.
"Alright…" he whispered, voice tight. "Let's not pretend that was nothing."
This world inside the ring was no longer just empty land. It was becoming something else. Something alive. And in living worlds, there were always things that lived within them.
He swallowed.
The memory of the massive shadow in the forest outside rose vividly in his mind. The sound of crushing branches, the heavy breathing, the way the ground had trembled with each step.
That thing had nearly killed him.
And yet, here he was, standing inside a space that might one day birth something far worse.
But fear alone would not keep him alive.
He forced himself to calm down.
Panic would only cloud judgment. He had learned that lesson too well in his previous life, lying on a hospital bed, surrounded by machines and uncertainty. When death waited quietly beside you, screaming achieved nothing. Only clarity mattered.
First, confirm safety.
He focused.
The ring responded, the familiar pull returning. The grey world blurred—and in the next instant, the forest and river snapped back into place around him.
Cold night air rushed into his lungs.
He was back outside.
The darkness between the trees seemed even deeper now. The creature that had chased him earlier was nowhere in sight, but the silence felt heavy, unnatural, as if the forest itself were holding its breath.
He did not linger.
He moved carefully along the riverbank, stepping on stones instead of soil, avoiding dry branches, listening to every sound. His muscles were still trembling from the earlier escape, but his mind was clear.
He needed shelter.
Not the ruined village.
Not the open forest.
Somewhere hidden.
Somewhere defensible.
A small rocky slope rose not far from the river, half-covered by thick bushes and tangled vines. He crawled through, scraping his arms and knees, until he found a shallow natural hollow between two large boulders.
Not a cave.
But enough to hide a body.
He squeezed inside and sat with his back against cold stone, pulling leaves and broken branches over the entrance to obscure it.
Only then did he allow himself to breathe.
Deeply.
Slowly.
One hand closed around the ring.
"If I can enter you… I can leave too," he murmured. "That means I have two worlds now. One to hide. One to survive."
But which one was truly safe?
He did not know.
The night passed in fragments.
He slept lightly, waking at every distant sound. Sometimes he thought he heard movement near the river. Sometimes he imagined heavy breathing in the dark. Each time, his heart would race, only to calm again when nothing happened.
When dawn finally came, pale light filtering through leaves, his body felt stiff and sore, but alive.
Still alive.
That alone was a victory.
He returned to the river to drink and eat the last of yesterday's fish. Then, hesitating only a moment, he focused on the ring again.
The world shifted.
Grey sky.
Cracked land.
The small field of grass.
Everything looked the same.
He crouched and pressed his palm to the soil.
No pulse.
No movement.
But the air still felt thicker than before, as if this space were slowly filling with something unseen.
"Maybe it's just changing," he said to himself. "Like a newborn world learning how to breathe."
He was trying to convince himself.
He did not fully believe it.
Still, he worked.
He gathered more seeds from the outside world—wild herbs, small berries, anything that might grow. He brought in a wooden bowl of water, carried carefully, and poured it over the dark soil.
The ground absorbed it greedily.
For a moment, he thought he saw faint light sink into the earth along with the water, vanishing as if swallowed.
His heart skipped.
"Did you see that… or am I just imagining things now?"
He planted the seeds one by one, covering them gently. His movements were careful, almost reverent. This tiny patch of life was now his greatest treasure.
His lifeline.
After finishing, he sat at the edge of the grass field and rested.
Time passed strangely inside the ring. There was no sun to mark hours, no wind to signal change. Only stillness.
He was about to leave when he felt it again.
A tremor.
Not from the ground.
From the air.
It was subtle, like the pressure shift before thunder, but localized—centered beneath the soil where the darkest earth lay.
Luo Yanxue stood slowly.
"Don't tell me…"
The ground did not crack. It did not burst.
It swelled.
Just a little.
Like something stretching from within.
A line appeared in the soil.
Not a crack.
A seam.
As if the earth were slowly being unzipped.
His breath caught.
The grass around the dark patch bent outward, pushed by an unseen force below. The seam widened by a finger's width, and a faint, warm mist seeped out.
Not smoke.
Not steam.
Something… denser.
It carried a strange scent—clean, sharp, and ancient, like rain that had fallen a thousand years ago and only now reached the surface.
Luo Yanxue stumbled back.
"This… this isn't normal land, is it?"
The seam stopped expanding.
The mist faded.
The soil settled.
Silence returned.
But the line remained.
A thin, dark mark across the heart of the world.
Like a closed eye.
Or a sealed door.
He stared at it for a long time.
Whatever lay beneath had not emerged.
Not yet.
But it had made its presence known.
A warning.
Or a promise.
He did not know which.
Slowly, he left the ring and returned to the forest.
The morning sun felt strangely bright after the colorless sky. Birds had returned to the trees. The river flowed as if nothing in the world had ever been wrong.
But Luo Yanxue's heart was heavy.
The outside world had monsters.
The inside world… might be growing something even more terrifying.
He stood between two unknowns.
Between a forest that wanted to devour him.
And a ring that was beginning to awaken.
That night, as he lay hidden between the rocks, clutching the ring to his chest, a single thought repeated in his mind:
If this world inside the ring is truly alive…
Then what will be born from it?
And will it see me as its master…
Or its first meal?
Far away, deep beneath the grey soil of that sealed realm, something ancient shifted again.
This time, not in its sleep—
But in anticipation.