The pain was a living thing. It coiled around Li Wei's spiritual core—or rather, the vast, empty cavity where Mo Ye's core had once blazed. Now it felt like a shattered bell, ringing with a silent, agonizing vibration. Every step back to his chambers was a monument to willpower. He held his posture erect, his face a placid lake of absolute calm, while inside, a storm of nausea and piercing headaches raged.
The cheers of the demons followed him like a physical wave, a tide of adoration that now felt like a mocking weight. They cheer for a ghost, he thought bitterly. They cheer for the shadow I'm pretending to be.
He made it to his obsidian chamber. The door sealed. The moment the ancient runes flared with containment energy, the act dropped. He stumbled, collapsing to his knees on the cold floor, dry heaves wracking his body. No blood came up—this wasn't a physical injury. It was soul-deep, a fundamental mismatch between his weak, transplanted consciousness and the god-like vessel it now inhabited.
[Soul Strain: 47%]
[Warning: Repeated strain may cause permanent soul damage or identity fragmentation.]
"Fragmentation?" Li Wei croaked, wiping his mouth. "You mean I could just… come apart?"
[Affirmative. Host is a low-density soul occupying a high-density soul matrix. Stability is paramount.]
Stability. In a den of supernatural wolves, while leading a war. Right.
The 250 Apex Points glowed on his interface. A temptation. The Lucky Draw was a siren's call. But the pain was a sharper teacher. He needed a solution, not a gamble. He opened the Card Purchase Shop again, scrolling past the impossibly expensive Life Reversal Card.
[Soul Stabilization Card (Consumable): Immediately reduces current Soul Strain by 15%. Cost: 800 Points.]
[Minor Soul Comfort Card (Consumable): Gradually reduces Soul Strain by 5% over 24 hours. Cost: 300 Points.]
Too expensive. The minor one was almost all his points for a measly 5%. He needed a better way.
A memory, sharp and sudden, pierced the fog of pain. Not Mo Ye's. His own. Earth. A migraine. His small, shabby apartment. The only thing that had ever helped was silence, darkness, and… music. Not just any music. The gentle, complex strains of a guzheng piece he'd found online, 'Flow of the Forgotten Stream.' It was the one thing that could untangle the knots in his head.
Another memory, this one from Mo Ye's fragments: Ling Qi, the 9th Disciple. The Songweaver. Her music could mend broken bones, shatter fortresses, or… soothe raging souls.
A dangerous idea bloomed. It was insane. Inviting one of the most perceptive Disciples closer while he was vulnerable. But the pain was a relentless drill. He couldn't think, couldn't plan, couldn't survive like this.
He needed her skill. But he couldn't ask. Mo Ye would never ask. He would command.
With a groan, he pushed himself to his feet. He walked to a communication array etched into his wall—a complex diagram of silver and amethyst. He channeled a trickle of Qi, just enough to activate it.
"Ling Qi," he spoke into the silence. "Attend me in the Quiet Room. Bring your 'Soul's Reflection' guqin."
He severed the connection. No explanation. Just a command.
The Quiet Room was a smaller, circular chamber adjacent to his own, designed for deep meditation. It was soundproofed with layers of void-whale hide and ghost-silk, making it utterly silent. The perfect place for a soul in turmoil. Or a perfect trap.
He arrived first, sitting on a simple mat in the center. He forced himself into a lotus position, back straight, hands resting on his knees. The pose of a sovereign in meditation. The pain screamed in protest.
She arrived without a sound. The door whispered open and closed. Ling Qi stood there, her delicate frame looking even smaller, her moonlight-string guqin cradled in her arms like a child. Her large, innocent eyes were downcast.
"Master," she murmured, kneeling at the room's edge, a respectful distance away.
[Ling Qi, The Songweaver – 9th Disciple]
Cultivation: 4th Stage of Core Formation Realm (Mid)
Approximate Combat Strength: Mid-High (Support/Specialist Tier)
Emotional State: Nervous Curiosity / Professional Focus
Immediate Intent: Fulfill the command. Assess the Master's request.
"The recent exertion was… beneath me," Li Wei began, his voice a low, weary rumble that wasn't entirely feigned. "Yet it has left a discordant echo in my spirit. A reminder of mortality's tedious whisper." He was weaving a story, using the original Mo Ye's arrogance. The fight was so trivial it bored my soul into discomfort. "Your music has tempered the rage of the Bloodfire Legion before. Temper this minor dissonance."
He opened his eyes and looked at her. His Eyes of the Unseen Soul activated passively. He saw her aura, a shimmering, melodic wave of silver and blue. He saw her Nervousness spike, then be ruthlessly suppressed by Professional Focus.
"It would be this disciple's highest honor to assist the Master," she said, her voice gaining a steadier, more musical quality. She settled, placing the guqin across her lap. Her fingers, slender and pale, hovered over the strings made of solidified moonlight. "May I… perceive the nature of the dissonance?"
A test. She wanted to scan him with her spiritual sense. To a true Mo Ye, this would be an inconsequential request. To a fraud, it was a potential death sentence.
Li Wei's heart hammered. He had to allow it. Refusal would be more suspicious. He gave a single, slow nod, closing his eyes again.
He felt it then—not a brutal probe, but a gentle, sonar-like pulse of energy. It was a vibration, a searching note that washed over him. It touched the edges of his soul strain, the jagged, raw places where Li Wei met Mo Ye. He held his breath, praying the colossal, dormant power of the Demon Lord's body would mask the foreignness of the soul within.
The pulse lingered. He saw through his Eyes that her Professional Focus intensified, tinged with a flicker of… Confusion.
She feels it. She feels something's off.
"The echo is… deep, Master," she said carefully, her fingers beginning to move. "It is not of injury, but of… resonance. A powerful chord struck, with the instrument slightly out of tune." Her metaphor was dangerously accurate. "This disciple will play 'The Unwinding of the Celestial Knot.' Please, simply listen."
Her fingers plucked the first note.
It was not a sound heard with ears. It vibrated directly in his soul, in his bones, in the very Qi in the air. It was a clear, cool, single tone that spread through the Quiet Room like a ripple on a still pond.
Then came the second note, harmonizing with the first. Then a melody began, slow, intricate, and profoundly gentle. It was the musical equivalent of a skilled surgeon's hands, meticulously seeking out the tangled, frayed ends of his spiritual self.
The pain didn't vanish. It began to… unclench.
As the music flowed, Li Wei's guard, held so tightly for days, began to slip. The melody was too familiar. It wasn't the same as his guzheng recording from Earth, but it shared a soul—a quality of endless, flowing peace. A memory surfaced, unbidden and powerful.
Earth. Rain against his window. The glow of his laptop screen. The weight of loneliness so heavy it felt physical. The first notes of 'Flow of the Forgotten Stream' filling his tiny room, and for three minutes and forty-two seconds, the weight lifted. He could breathe.
A single, hot tear escaped his tightly shut eyes, tracing a path down his cheek—the cheek of the feared Demon Lord Mo Ye.
The music faltered. For a single, catastrophic half-second, a note went sharp.
Li Wei's eyes snapped open.
Ling Qi was staring at him, her fingers frozen above the strings. Her large eyes were wide, not with fear, but with utter, world-shattering shock. She had seen the tear. She had felt the shift in his soul's resonance as he remembered Earth—a flavor of emotion, a texture of memory, that had no place in the centuries-old, heartless Demon Lord.
The Eyes of the Unseen Soul flashed the data at him, screaming danger.
[Emotional State: Profound Shock / Whirling Confusion / Dawning, Terrifying Realization]
[Immediate Intent: Understand. Process. (Survival instincts overriding)]
Silence, thick and suffocating, filled the Quiet Room.
Li Wei knew, with cold, absolute certainty, that he was one wrong word away from death. She knew. Maybe not everything, but she knew the man before her was experiencing something the real Mo Ye never could.
He did not wipe the tear away. To acknowledge it was to make it real. Instead, he let the silence stretch, let the weight of his gaze—now filled with the complex, human pain she had glimpsed—settle on her.
He spoke, his voice softer than it had ever been, yet carrying a new, different kind of power. The power of raw, unmasked truth. "You play a song of unwinding knots, Ling Qi," he whispered. "Yet some knots… are not of Qi, or of battle fatigue."
He was not speaking as Mo Ye. He was speaking as Li Wei, through Mo Ye's lips.
Her breath hitched. She understood the unspoken message: What you felt is real. Do not speak of it.
"Some knots," he continued, holding her terrified gaze, "are tied in the deepest dark, from threads of lives long past, or… paths not taken. They are the price of walking a lonely peak." He was giving her a story, a possible explanation that fit the Demon Lord mythos. A past sorrow. A regret.
The Whirling Confusion in her aura began to crystallize into a fragile, desperate Acceptance. It was easier to believe her Master had a hidden, tragic depth than to believe he was an imposter. The latter thought led to mental places too dangerous to go.
"This disciple… understands nothing," she whispered, bowing her head deeply, her forehead touching the floor before her guqin. It was a submission, but also a plea. I will not understand. I choose not to see. "The music was inadequate. This disciple begs for punishment."
"The music was adequate," Li Wei said, his voice returning to its more familiar, colder register. The moment of vulnerability was sealed away, the mask hastily reaffixed. "The echo is lessened. You may leave."
She scrambled up, clutching her guqin, and almost fled the room without a backward glance.
When she was gone, Li Wei slumped forward, head in his hands. The soul strain was indeed better, reduced to around 35%. The music had worked.
But he had almost died. Not from a sword, but from a single tear. From a memory of home.
[Critical Social Encounter Survived. Identity Preservation: 92%. Apex Points +150.]
[New Parameter Unlocked: 'Mask Integrity' – Currently: 92/100. Dropping below 70 may trigger suspicion cascades.]
He had a new meter to manage. Great.
[Current Apex Points: 400]
He stared at the points. The gamble with Ling Qi had paid off in points and pain reduction, but it had been too close. He needed an edge, something more reliable than bluffing and borrowed power.
"System," he said, resolve hardening in his gut. "Conduct four Lucky Draws. Use all 400 points."
[Deducting 400 Apex Points. Points remaining: 0.]
Four slots spun. The first two were disappointingly common.
[Common Grade – High-Quality Spirit Stone x10]
[Common Grade – Basic Sword Art Manual 'Shadowstep']
The third slot glowed green.
[Rare Grade – Artefact: 'Cloak of the Whispering Dusk']
Effect: Automatically blends with ambient shadows. Muffles sound and slightly disperses low-level spiritual probes. Passive concealment.
A cloak. Something to help him move, to hide. Not power, but utility. Precious utility.
The fourth slot spun, slowed, and clunked to a halt with a dull grey light.
[Common Grade – Consumable: 'Memory Fragment (Incomplete)']
A jolt of… something that wasn't pain shot through him. An image flashed.
A young Mo Ye, not yet a Lord, kneeling in the rain before a simple grave on a windswept hill. A feeling of loss so acute it turned to ice inside him. The first knot.
Then it was gone.
It was a piece of the real Mo Ye's past. A piece of the mask. Li Wei understood. To wear the mask perfectly, he needed to know the face beneath it. These fragments weren't just memories; they were tools. Dangerous, painful tools.
He sat in the deepening quiet, the new cloak—a wisp of darkness folded beside him—and the ghost of a dead man's sorrow his only companions.
The facade had cracked. Only one person had seen, and she was too scared to believe it. But cracks spread. And he now knew the terrifying truth: the greatest threat to his act wasn't the enemy outside, or even the Disciples' suspicion.
It was his own humanity, stubbornly clinging on, and its tendency to leak out at the worst possible moments.