They crashed into the world with no warning.
Not from above.
Not from a portal.
They simply appeared,
as if reality had been forced to accept something it didn't want.
Concrete buckled beneath their bodies.
A shockwave burst outward in a perfect ring—
rippling through the empty street,
shaking lampposts,
rattling broken windows in nearby buildings.
Qin Mian gasped under the weight of it all.
The first thing she felt was cold.
Not the cold of ice.
Not even the chill of winter wind.
This cold came from the man collapsed across her lap—
a cold like the breath of an unfinished world.
"Lie… Lie, wake up."
Her voice trembled.
He didn't move.
But the world around him did.
Frost spread from beneath his fingertips,
delicate at first,
then branching outward in jagged lines,
creeping across the concrete like hungry roots.
Qin Mian lifted his shoulder.
"Lie—please—look at me."
His eyes opened.
And she froze.
His pupils weren't normal.
One glowed silver—
bright, sharp, predatory.
The other burned with blue fire—
liquid, shifting, painful to look at.
And behind that glow,
something deeper pulsed—
Keystone resonance struggling against the rules of the city.
He exhaled shakily, breath turning to mist.
"…Mian…"
His voice didn't sound like his.
It was layered—
like two or three versions of him overlapping,
fighting for dominance.
Qin Mian swallowed hard.
"You're… changing.
Lie, your body—your resonance—something's wrong."
He tried to sit up.
The moment he did—
reality bent.
A distortion rippled outward,
warping the air like heat haze,
bending the light around him.
The streetlamp above them flickered wildly—
then burst in a shower of sparks.
Qin Mian pulled him against her chest instinctively.
"What's happening to you?!"
He clutched his ribs, face twisting.
"I… broke something, Mian.
Something I wasn't meant to break."
"The dimension?" she whispered.
"No."
His breath hitched.
"My place in this world."
Qin Mian felt the blood drain from her face.
"What does that mean…?"
Yin Lie's eyes unfocused.
"Mian… listen.
When I shattered the rule-chains…
when I forced myself through a world that didn't permit me…"
His voice shook.
"…this reality stopped recognizing me as something that belongs here."
A chill shot through her veins.
"Lie, don't say that—
you're real. You're here—"
"No."
He coughed, icy mist escaping his lips.
"My existence is… glitching."
He tried to stand.
The world reacted like it was taking offense.
The concrete warped beneath him—
bending downward, then snapping back.
A traffic sign vibrated violently
before twisting into a shape that shouldn't exist.
A cat across the street arched its back,
fur standing on end,
eyes locked on Yin Lie as if seeing a predator made of nightmares.
Qin Mian grabbed him, terrified.
"Lie—stop—don't force your body—!"
But he wasn't forcing anything.
His power was forcing him.
Ice crystals formed around his arms.
Blue fire flickered, refusing to extinguish.
Keystone symbols snapped in and out of sight like glitching holograms.
He swayed.
"Mian… the world is pushing back.
Like I'm… a foreign object."
He collapsed into her arms again.
Her breath broke.
"No.
NO.
You are not—
you are not something this world can reject."
He gave a weak, tired laugh.
"You always say things like that…"
Then he grimaced as another pulse of distortion burst from his chest—
large enough to send dust and debris flying outward.
Qin Mian shielded him with her own body.
The ground beneath them cracked, spiderwebbing outward.
And then—
A thin white line appeared in the air beside them.
A Rift.
Small, unstable, flickering.
Qin Mian's heart nearly stopped.
"No…
Not again—
Lie, it followed us—!"
Yin Lie lifted his head, barely conscious.
The Rift pulsed,
as if sniffing for him,
drawn to something inside his chest.
It leaned toward him—
And then jerked backward.
Like a frightened animal.
Qin Mian stared.
"…Did it just run from you?"
Yin Lie frowned weakly.
"I don't know…"
The Rift trembled—
then snapped shut as if fleeing for its life.
Qin Mian pressed a shaking hand to his cheek.
"Lie… even the Rifts themselves fear you now."
He didn't answer.
Because his body convulsed.
His aura flared outward—
a pulse of cold,
a pulse of fire,
a pulse of alien geometry—
merging into one violent shockwave.
The street around them flickered as if reality itself glitched.
Windows shattered.
Birds dropped from the sky.
Distant car alarms screamed.
Qin Mian cried out:
"Lie—stop—your resonance will tear you apart—!"
He grabbed her wrist with surprising force.
"Mian…
don't… let go…"
His eyes rolled back.
His body fell limp in her arms.
She screamed.
"LI—E!!"
But he wasn't unconscious.
And he wasn't dying.
He was—
changing.
Becoming something the world was not prepared to hold.
Something it instinctively rejected.
Something that should not exist.
—
Chapter 107 End