Dreams came lightly.
Like smoke. Or a kind of coldness that seeped out from beneath the skin.
When Chu Ran opened his eyes, he found himself standing on a lake's surface—utterly still. Not a reflection—he was truly standing. No ripples beneath his feet. Even the daylight had forgotten how to move. The whole space felt like a sketch left unfinished, colorless and silent.
"Where is this?" he asked.
Even his voice had no echo.
All around, only a low-frequency resonance throbbed in the distance—like a bell tower trembling before the bell ever rang.
He looked down. Beneath the water, a shadow loomed—a vast skeletal tower piercing straight from the lakebed into the heavens. It wasn't a physical structure. It was something from his dreams, given form without warning. The tower was black. Along its bone-like spire were countless embedded eyes—all closed.
Except one.
His.
"You've finally come."
The voice echoed in his mind. It wasn't someone else's. It was his own—speaking words he'd never spoken.
Chu Ran didn't move.
By now, he had come to understand the logic of dreams: emotions shape the landscape; memories provide the materials. If a tower appeared here, it meant some fragment of his subconscious had taken root—fear, belief, or some unnamed thought.
"You're wondering what I am."
The open eye continued, its gaze eerily calm—too calm for a living thing.
"I am your mirrored self, born in the system's fracture. Your rejection of order. Your defiance of fate.
You believe in no gods, no destiny—but you want to live."
> "That is why I came."
—
As he stepped toward the tower's shadow, the water beneath him finally rippled.
With each step, a reflection surfaced from the lake—his face, but never as he was now.
A younger version of himself, bloodied, clutching his mother's earring, eyes wide with fear.
A version in sect robes, kneeling before a crowd, head forced down by the elders, reciting the system's oath.
A silent version, sitting among the ruins of a toilet, watching the divine light descend, the world kneel—and saying nothing.
"These are parts of you that can't be reclaimed," said the voice from the tower.
"They're no longer you, but you must still recognize them."
> "If you wish to leave this tower, you must let them stay behind.
Let them—guard it in your place."
Chu Ran stopped and closed his eyes.
—
When he opened them again, the black tower was no longer just a shadow.
It had substance. Roots. A door and a stair. Its height pierced the clouds. The walls were built from shattered memory, every fragment glowing with emotional hues—regret, fear, anger, coldness, hatred, silence.
> "Do you choose to become this tower's master?"
He didn't speak.
He simply reached out and placed his hand on the door.
In that moment, the entire dreamscape shuddered—as though some distant drum had been struck, sending a wave through the ocean of consciousness.
He heard other voices respond, far away.
The dream-voice of Suyin—soft, wet, like a crack weeping in the dark.
The voice of Qi Xiu—sharpened by sword intent, crushed into a blade-shaped cry suspended in the upper dreamfields.
The door opened.
Black flames devoured his final hesitation.
He stepped inside.
—
In reality, Chu Ran had been in seclusion at the heart of the Black Lighthouse for seven days.
The black mist outside grew thicker. The boundary between dream and waking had thinned like wet paper, until it was nearly invisible.
Suyin sat outside the tower.
She had neither eaten nor drunk for three days.
From the third day onward, the tower began to bleed.
This wasn't a normal tower—it was a mental construct, forged from Chu Ran's own consciousness. As his soul entered deep meditation, the tower resonated, suffering wounds with him.
The first crack began at the foundation—red lines like blood appeared in the black stone.
The second ran from the tower's peak downward—something had stepped across its summit.
"He's walking a path no one's ever walked before," Suyin said.
She hadn't blinked in hours.
Before the system locked down, she had severed her original mind-image and connected her awareness to Chu Ran's dream-path. Now, it could no longer be undone.
—
Qi Xiu arrived.
He stepped in from the edge of the dreamfield, stinking of wine. The sword on his back was broken, yet his eyes were unclouded—unlike his usual mad self.
"The third crack has formed.
One more, and his identity core will collapse."
He spoke without looking at Suyin. His gaze fixed on the tower's heart.
"This tower... it wasn't built for himself.
He built it for us."
Suyin trembled slightly.
"He wants to create a shared mental resonance field—a space where we can construct our own cultivation paths within his tower."
"But what about him?"
"He will stay in the center.As the core."
Qi Xiu closed his eyes.
"You said he's no god."
"But what he's doing… is more foolish than any god."
In the dream, Chu Ran stood upon the tower's inner altar.
Before him sat an empty chair—the Dream Seat, reserved for system-grade consciousness.
He had no right to sit there. The system did not allow it.
That was one of its fundamental laws.
"But didn't you say you refused to be the Chosen One?"
The eye returned—this time, behind him.
"Yet here you are, trying to rebuild the system.
Are you trying to replace it?"
Chu Ran turned, gaze cold as steel.
"Not replace. Rewrite."
—
"Do you know what that means?"
"I do. It means—"
He looked up, eyes burning like the final flame atop a lighthouse.
"This world shall have no gods."
—
At that moment, the Black Lighthouse's spire ignited its first true flame.
It wasn't system light.
It wasn't dreamfire.
It was something new—heartfire, born from human fear and belief.
That night, every dream cultivator in the world saw the same vision:
A black tower rising from a lake of blood, its tip ablaze.
The tower door stood open.
One man stood at its threshold, and said—
"This place belongs neither to you… nor to it."
"It belongs to those who refuse."