Zayeron's eyes flickered, the weight of Sunny's scream and visions still hanging in the air. Yet, unlike before, there was no fear in his face. Instead, a strange calm settled over him. He knew the truth now—no matter how dangerous, Sunny was essential. No one else had ever endured this far.
When he finally spoke, his words carried a sharp edge.
"We'll have to destroy a pillar. There's no other way."
Sunny snapped his head toward him, eyes wide.
"…What? Are you serious?"
The notion was absurd. The pillars were not merely stone—they were laws, anchors of the world itself. To shatter one was to invite the wrath of Heaven.
But Zayeron's gaze did not waver.
Sunny clenched his fists. "How could we possibly…? No, this has to be a joke."
Zayeron tilted his head, voice quieter. "Do you remember when you first came here? That pillar beneath this land—it wasn't silent. Something was stirring inside it."
Sunny's expression hardened. His breath slowed as fragments of memory returned. The vibration beneath the ground, the faint hum that gnawed at his bones.
Zayeron continued, "It wasn't just the pillar. An insect lives within—what ancient texts call a Heavenly Insect. When you arrived, it began to act. Those memories you saw? That wasn't madness. That was the insect trying to bond with you. Helping you awaken."
Sunny's heart sank. "…Bond… with me?"
Zayeron's eyes sharpened. "You felt it, didn't you? In your body."
Sunny paused. And then—he realized.
Something pulsed within his stomach. A hollow yet endless space. His breath faltered as he closed his eyes, peering inward. A realm had formed within him. Its walls bled crimson, dripping like veins across an infinite sky. It pulsed like a living heart. A Blood Realm.
Sunny staggered. "This… is inside me?"
Zayeron's voice lowered, reverent and grim.
"Yes. That is your realm. Both a blessing and a curse. Some cultivators are born with realms that consume entire lifetimes of resources to nurture. Rare, demanding, cruel. But you… you carry one that is even more dangerous. Blood Realms bring fortune—yet they also demand sacrifice. They feed, and they bleed."
Sunny's hand trembled against his stomach. The weight of it was overwhelming.
Zayeron stepped closer, his tone cutting through the haze.
"Do you understand what this means? When a cultivator awakens, the realm inside grants them authority. Power to shape their own world. To change it—or to leave it as it is. But Heaven hates this freedom. It will not allow realms like yours to exist unchallenged. It will send its will, its hunters, its chains to destroy you."
The wind howled across the grasslands, carrying the chill of unseen eyes.
Sunny whispered, almost to himself, "So… if I accept this, Heaven itself will come for me."
Zayeron's lips curved into something caught between grimness and pride.
"That is why people seek realms of the dead. They inherit ruins where the masters have fallen, using the leftover resources. Safer. Predictable. Balanced. Heaven tolerates that. But your realm—" He tapped Sunny's chest, hard. "—is yours alone. It makes you the enemy of balance."
Sunny stood in silence, staring at the blood-tinged horizon of his inner world. The thought of freedom, of forging his own reality, burned in him like fire. But so did the shadow of Heaven's wrath.
At last, he breathed out, slow and steady.
"…Then let them come."
Zayeron's eyes widened—not with shock, but with a glimmer of something far rarer. Hope.