Swen shrugged, a mocking smile playing on her lips.
> "That story doesn't sound believable at all."
"You opened your dantian and gathered the essence of the Void in your eye, huh?"
"If it were that easy, everyone would have the Eye of Darkness."
Koharu didn't even breathe for a moment.
The muscles on Shinju's face tightened.
> "Every word I said is true," he replied in a low voice.
He extended his hand.
The dark energy threads around Swen's body tightened.
Swen gritted her teeth but refused to look away from him.
> "If this frightens you," Shinju said calmly, "it means you're hiding something even more important."
Just then, something fell from Swen's pocket.
A metallic clink echoed in the silence.
A familiar orb—the same type used to locate Mikail's Spear—
followed by three glowing round pills rolling slowly across the stone floor before stopping.
Shinju quietly bent down.
He picked up the orb and the three golden pills.
Light shimmered between his fingers.
But then… that light began to tremble.
The pills started to dissolve.
The golden glow melted like liquid, seeping through his hands and into his veins.
The veins in his arms began to glow one by one—
as if the sun itself was rising beneath his skin.
Swen stepped back.
Koharu held her breath.
Shinju's eyes widened.
For a brief moment, pain struck him—then that pain turned into a burning heat.
> "What… is this warmth?"
The heat spread to his chest,
then surged throughout his body as his dantian points lit up one by one.
Each flared for a heartbeat—then merged together.
Shinju fell to his knees, steadying his breath.
He forced the energy down, guiding it from his veins toward his dantian core.
As the golden radiance coursed through him,
his right eye flashed once—
the cold hue of the Void colliding with the brilliance of gold.
Darkness and light intertwined; within Shinju, the two opposing forces screamed in silence.
Then, suddenly—everything stopped.
Swen's eyes widened in horror.
After a single heartbeat of silence, she shouted:
> "NO!"
She rushed toward him, glancing at his hand—
but it was too late.
The golden pills were gone, completely absorbed into Shinju's veins.
> "Years of work—wasted!" she roared.
"What have you done, Shinju?! What kind of monster are you?!"
Shinju lifted his head in shock but said nothing.
He simply breathed, struggling to contain the surging power inside him.
Swen's voice shook with fury and disbelief.
> "Those were Yang Pills!"
"For a lord, even absorbing one takes a whole month!"
"And you… you consumed three of them in seconds!"
Her voice trembled, torn between awe and terror.
> "Just one of those pills could make a human immortal…"
"But you— you destroyed them, Shinju! You destroyed them!"