The bird bit me.
It wasn't a peck. It was a desperate, jagged snap that tore right through the skin of my thumb. I hissed, my breath hitching in the quiet of the Archive Terrace. A bead of dark red blood welled up, looking almost black in the moonlight.
"You've got to be kidding me," I whispered. My voice was raspy, still not quite used to the vocal cords of this new body. "Half dead and you're still a prick?"
The tiny black creature didn't move. It lay in my palms like a clump of charred coal, its feathers matted with something thick and foul-smelling. It should have been dead. Any normal creature with a hole in its wing that large would have stopped breathing hours ago.
But this thing... its chest was hitching in a broken, ugly rhythm. It was stubborn.
I knew that kind of stubbornness. It was the only reason I'd survived three years in the zombie-infested wasteland before waking up in this ornamental prison of a palace.
I shifted my weight on the cold stone floor. The silk of my robes—too thin, too expensive, and completely useless—rustled against the tiles. I shouldn't be here. A "low-rank spirit healer" like Lin Yue was supposed to be in her room, waiting for the empire to decide which old official she'd be sold to.
Or worse, waiting for the poison that the "original" Lin Yue had swallowed to finally finish the job.
I looked at my bleeding thumb. Then at the bird.
"Fine," I muttered. "Let's see if I'm actually a healer or just a very pretty corpse."
I didn't use the "proper" technique they taught in the academy. I didn't have time for meditations or chanting. I just closed my eyes and reached for that weird, humming warmth at the base of my spine. The spirit core.
It was small. Faint. Like a candle flickering in a windstorm.
I pressed my bleeding thumb against the bird's chest. Just a little, I thought. Just enough to close the wound.
The moment our blood touched, the world went silent.
The distant hum of the capital, the wind through the lattice windows, the sound of my own heart—it all just vanished.
Then came the pull.
It wasn't a "flow" of energy. It was a goddamn landslide.
My eyes snapped open, but I couldn't see the room anymore. I could only see the bird's eyes. They weren't bird eyes. They were pits of endless, swirling ink. Void.
"Wait—stop!" I tried to scream, but the air was being sucked out of my lungs.
The warmth at the base of my spine didn't just flow; it was ripped out. My vision blurred. My skin felt cold, like I was being dipped into an ice bath. The bird wasn't receiving my help. It was devouring me.
It's going to kill me, I realized. Panic flared, hot and sharp, but my muscles were locked. I was a battery, and this thing was draining me dry.
No. I just got this second chance. I am not dying for a fucking crow.
I tried to push back. I didn't know how, so I just pictured a wall. A thick, jagged wall of iron.
My life. Not yours.
The collision of my resistance and its hunger created a spark. A shockwave of pure, white heat slammed into my chest. My back arched, my head hitting the stone floor with a sickening thud.
Everything went white.
When the spots cleared from my eyes, the bird was gone.
I was gasping for air, my chest heaving, my hands shaking so hard I could barely pull them toward me. The Archive Terrace was empty. The window was still open. The jade lantern was still flickering.
But my thumb... the bite mark was gone. Not even a scar.
And my heart...
I clutched my chest. My heart was beating. Fast. Too fast. But beneath that rhythm, there was something else. A slow, heavy thrum.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It wasn't mine. It was distant, miles away, echoing from somewhere deep beneath the earth. But I could feel it in my own pulse. Like a tether made of invisible wire, pulled tight across my soul.
"What did you do?" I choked out, staring at my empty hands. "What the hell did I just bind with?"
The system, which had been silent for three days, suddenly flickered to life in the corner of my vision.
[Status Update: Soul Bind Successful.]
[Target: Unknown (Tier: Primordial).]
[Warning: Host's life force is now tethered to the Target. If the Target suffers, the Host suffers. If the Target dies, the Host dies.]
I stared at the glowing blue text until my eyes burned.
"Primordial?" I whispered. "I saved a bird. It was a bird."
The system didn't answer. It just pulsed a deep, ominous red.
[Warning: Target is experiencing extreme physical trauma. Synchronizing pain in 3... 2...]
"Wait, what—"
Pain.
It wasn't the dull ache of a bruise. It was the sensation of a thousand hot needles being driven into my skin at once. I collapsed onto the floor, my silent scream caught in my throat. My vision flickered between the stone tiles of the Archive and a dark, suffocating abyss filled with the smell of sulfur and old blood.
I could feel bones breaking. Not mine. His.
I could feel a heavy, crushing pressure on my chest. His.
The connection was so raw, so intimate, that I could feel his anger. It was a cold, absolute fury that made the palace's petty politics look like a joke.
And then, as quickly as it had started, the pain vanished.
I lay on the floor, shivering, my silk robes soaked in cold sweat.
The tether was still there. Quiet now. But I knew. Somewhere out there, the "bird" was no longer a bird.
And it was pissed.
Scene Switch — The Boundary of the Demon Realm
Mo Shen opened his eyes.
The abyss around him was silent. The chains of celestial iron that bound his arms and legs were glowing with a faint, dying light. They were meant to be unbreakable. They were meant to suppress his soul until it withered into nothing.
He didn't move. He didn't need to.
He looked at his wrist. The skin was scarred, burned by the iron, but beneath the surface, something new was pulse.
A heartbeat.
A small, frantic, human heartbeat.
Mo Shen's gaze was cold enough to freeze the air. For a thousand years, no one had dared to touch his soul. No god had been able to pierce his defenses. No demon had been able to survive his presence.
And yet, some... thing had not only touched him, but had dared to patch his broken spirit back together.
Without his permission.
He could feel her through the tether. She was weak. Fragile. She was currently lying on a floor somewhere, terrified and shivering. She felt like a flickering candle in a world of shadows.
His weakness.
The Great Demon Lord, the person who made the heavens tremble, now had a leash. And the other end was held by a girl who couldn't even handle a single surge of his energy.
His fingers curled, the celestial iron groaning under the pressure.
He didn't feel gratitude. He didn't feel curiosity.
He felt a cold, calculated necessity.
If she lived, he was vulnerable. If she died, he died.
The chains snapped.
Not because they were weak, but because the tether had given him exactly what he needed: a spark of life from the outside world. A bridge.
Mo Shen stood up, the shards of celestial iron falling to the floor like glass. He looked toward the horizon, toward the distant, golden light of the human empire.
"Lin Yue," he murmured. The name tasted like ash in his mouth.
He didn't need a map. He could feel her. Every frantic breath she took was a vibration in his own chest.
He would find her.
And then, he would decide whether to keep his new "healer"... or to find a way to rip the tether out of his soul, regardless of the cost.
He took a step forward. The shadows of the Demon Realm bowed before him, parting like a black sea.
The Princess and the Demon.
The tether was pulled taut.
And miles away, in the quiet Archive, Lin Yue felt a sudden, freezing chill.
He was coming.