Elder Ji and Elder Meng stared in silence at what they had just done—firing an energy arrow at the most talented disciple their sect had seen in a generation. For a moment, they believed they had just killed him.

  But then Elder Ji knelt down, pcing two fingers on Han Ye’s neck to check for a pulse. His eyes narrowed.“…He’s alive.”

  Elder Meng followed suit, sensing Han Ye’s Qi flow. “That’s impossible,” he muttered. “My energy arrow created a hole—one centimeter wide, eight centimeters deep. That should’ve killed him on impact…”

  “And yet, he’s still breathing,” Elder Ji interrupted, eyes locked on Han Ye’s twisted neck. “His neck rotated 180 degrees. He shouldn’t be able to breathe. His airway should’ve been severed, his spine shattered…”

  “But he is breathing,” Elder Ji said again, almost to reassure himself. “Somehow.”

  They stared at the unconscious youth, his chest rising and falling slowly. The cursed book still hung at his side, completely unharmed.

  “What happened when he spoke the book’s name?” Elder Meng asked.

  “I felt something… wrong,” Elder Ji said quietly. “Something that doesn’t belong in this world. I didn’t think. My instincts screamed at me. And I attacked.”

  “Me too,” Elder Meng admitted. “It wasn’t even a decision. Just the kind of fear you feel when you’re face to face with something ancient. Something… unnatural.”

  “I’ve met someone like him before,” Elder Meng added suddenly.

  Elder Ji turned to him, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

  “Not exactly like him. But simir. People who don’t belong. People who talk like they’re from another world. You try to connect with them, to understand them—but it’s like talking to a wall.”

  “Have you really?”

  “Yes. A long time ago. Two hundred years, maybe more,” Elder Meng said, eyes distant. “One of them tried to expin something to me… but it sounded like madness. Now, I wonder if I was just too small to understand.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the rustling of leaves.

  From the bushes nearby, two figures emerged—Lan Ji and Xue Lian, pale and visibly shaken.

  “You two,” Elder Meng said without a hint of emotion, “carry your friend to the pharmacy. I’ll stabilize him.”

  Lan Ji rushed to Han Ye’s side. “Elder, is he—”

  “Still alive,” Elder Ji cut in. “But don’t celebrate just yet. We don’t know what’s truly happening to him.”

  Xue Lian gently lifted Han Ye’s shoulders, while Lan Ji held his legs.

  As they lifted him, Elder Ji’s voice turned cold.

  “Don’t speak a word about what you saw today.”

  Both disciples nodded quickly.

  “Y-yes, Elder,” they answered in unison, careful not to meet his eyes.

  As they walked away, Elder Meng exhaled deeply.

  “…This kid, Han Ye. He’s not ordinary.”

  “No,” Elder Ji said, watching the cursed book sway with each step.

  “He’s something else entirely.”

  Han Ye awoke in the sect’s pharmacy.

  He didn’t gasp or panic. He simply y there, staring at the ceiling, motionless. Then, without a word, he sat upright with a slow, deliberate motion. His fingers moved instinctively to his head—right where the energy arrow had pierced through him.

  A hole… or there had been one.

  But now, as his fingers brushed over the wound, something impossible happened.

  The hole healed.

  Skin knitted itself together beneath his touch. Muscle reformed. Bone realigned. Within seconds, not even a scar remained.

  “What… happened to me?” he asked aloud, voice empty, eyes hollow, like when he had uttered the name of the book. But this time… there was something different. Emotion. Barely visible, but it was there.

  Elder Meng stood nearby, arms crossed and face unreadable. “My disciple… you almost died. You were struck by my arrow.”

  He sighed, holding the cursed book in one hand—the very same book Han Ye had named before losing consciousness. Elder Meng had tried to open it multiple times, using Qi, force, even delicate techniques. But it was as if the book refused him. No matter what he tried, it remained shut—its spine cold, its weight unnerving. Defeated, Elder Meng walked over to Han Ye and handed him the book.

  Han Ye took the book gently, wordlessly, and hugged it close to his chest like a treasured friend.

  Elder Meng scratched the back of his head, baffled. The arrow wound that had nearly ended Han Ye’s life? Gone. Erased as if it never existed.

  This boy, Elder Meng thought, shaking his head. What are you?

  He stood, brushing off his robe. “Once you’ve recovered, go to the Elders’ Pavilion. We wants to speak with you.”

  Han Ye said nothing. He didn’t even acknowledge the command.

  Elder Meng lingered at the doorway, watching the youth hold the strange book with quiet affection.

  ‘What happened to you, kid…? What in the heavens are you becoming?’

  And with that, Elder Meng turned and left—leaving Han Ye alone in the quiet, sterile room, the cursed book rising and falling gently with each breath he took.

  After Elder Meng left, Han Ye put the book down then looked down at both of his hands. The bck lines—usually invisible—were now crawling along his arms. In the center of his palm, a rhombus-shaped mark pulsed faintly. As he channeled his Qi, it formed fwlessly into the shape of a bow, dark and elegant. With one deep breath, he pushed the Qi through his meridians, and without resistance, his cultivation broke through into Arc III.

  But there was no joy in his expression.

  “Just weeks ago, breaking through in cultivation was a source of pride… something I believed defined my talent. But after that book appeared, everything changed. Cultivation ranks no longer bring me joy. It's knowledge—new, forbidden, unknown—that makes my heart race. This hunger… it has no border, no end. I’m trying to suppress it, but it feels like I’ve either fallen... or ascended...”

  Stillness consumed him, but inside, his mind raced.

  Through sheer will, he reached out with his mental sense—unnoticed by even the sect's vice master—and connected to the vast library of the Archer Sect. Scrolls, techniques, histories—all flooded into his mind and organized themselves into yers of crity.

  “Shadow Gale Breathing... and the Howling Whisper Doctrine... interesting techniques, refined and deadly.”He paused.

  “But... no, I mustn’t tamper so easily. Ah, damn it, not again—this reckless urge...”

  From the outside, Han Ye looked calm and emotionless. But within, he was alight with a joy bordering on madness—an obsessive joy reserved only for those who found true purpose in understanding the unknown.