The wind over Dawnyu's southern ridge carried a silence far too thick to be natural.
Zhen Hu moved alone through the decay, deeper than any disciple dared venture. Moss carpeted the path, untouched for decades. The Ancestor Grove behind him faded like a dream. Here, on the outskirts of the sect's wards, was a place that knew death intimately—a grave site long forgotten by the living, but not by the earth.
Bones littered the ground like discarded prayer beads. Not just animals—human remains, crumbled talismans, shattered soul urns. Signs of an ancient purge or something older still.
Zhen Hu didn't come for answers.
He came for power.
The Nytherion in him stirred violently, thudding like a second heartbeat. The deeper he walked, the louder it became, as if the land itself welcomed him.
More, it whispered. Feed, break, bloom.
---
He found the center of the dead field—a collapsed altar, half-swallowed by roots and rot.
Zhen Hu fell to his knees.
His hands pressed against the cracked stone, and he closed his eyes. "Give me strength," he murmured. "I don't have time."
As if in answer, Aelira appeared. The guide spirit's form shimmered like moonlight, expression grim. "Zhen Hu. This place... it's too much. You must be careful."
"I know." His voice was steady, but inside, the storm was already breaking.
Then he let go.
---
The Nytherion inside him lunged.
Every corpse, every broken bone, every ounce of decayed essence in the soil—he drank it all.
Not just life essence.
Death.
It poured into him, ripping through his fragile core, fusing with his already unstable zen. His body twisted, eyes wide with agony. It was too much. Far, far too much.
But he endured.
He always endured.
Then—
Crack.
The barrier shattered.
The Kyrekh Realm inside him fractured like thin glass, and through the shards bloomed something darker, deeper—Aethonix.
A realm not of power—but of control.
Of the abyss.
The glade shook violently. The earth heaved. The skeletal altar split in two as a violent aura blasted upward in a pillar of black flame.
Back in the sect, bells tolled. Wards flickered. Elders jolted awake in meditation. Disciples screamed as the zen in the air warped and roiled.
One word passed between the sect halls in hurried whispers:
Breakthrough.
Zhen Hu collapsed, blood leaking from his nose and mouth. His body smoked where the Nytherion surged. He couldn't move. Could barely think.
But Aelira stood over him, her expression pale. "You've gone too far."
His voice came broken. "Second... realm?"
She nodded. "Aethonix Realm. First Layer. But the cost—"
"I know."
Because far above them, far away, a hundred eyes turned toward the epicenter of that darkness.
The door was no longer trembling.
It was open.
And something had finally stepped through.