Years passed, and Li Yan was twelve years old; a child growing up amidst the dark clouds of hostility and ostracism. The other clans saw in his luminous black eyes an indelible curse and attacked him with words and blows, a merciless bullying that weighed heavily on his small chest.
His twin brother, Li Yun witnessed all this pain, but he didn't extend a hand to protect him. Instead, he secretly sent someone to shatter the beating heart within Li Yan , gently killing every pulsation of hope that grew within him.
Li Yun wasn't just a distant brother; he was a poisoned sword thrust into Li Yan's back, strangling him with a silence heard only in the deepest corners of his soul.
Thus, amidst the coldness of his family and the harshness of his days, Li Yan lived, struggling with loneliness and betrayal, unaware that this pain was only the beginning of his inevitable fate...
Li Yan felt a heavy sense of injustice. One night, when the tireless eyes watching him disappeared, he silently walked toward the Wen Lin Forest—the ancient forest that surrounded the clan to the east and was known as the "place of the spirit."
He sat there on a broken tree trunk, quietly watching the moonlight flow through the dense leaves of the forest. The shadows of the trees danced around him as if whispering ancient secrets.
In the quiet of that place, Li Yan continued to feel his chest, where his heart was, sensing this feeling every time it beat, every time he closed his eyes, and every time a bright light appeared as he closed them.
Amidst the silence of the forest, its leaves whispering ancient secrets, and the beating of his heart, aword began to echo in Li Yan's mind like a mysterious song:
"Awaken consciousness... Awaken consciousness... Awaken consciousness..."
Until he gathered his weak voice and whispered it, as if calling out a buried secret:
"Awaken consciousness..."
Li Yan felt a severe headache erupt from the depths of his skull, as if a sharp sword had plunged into his mind, severing and destroying all thoughts. The pain flared until it became like the sting of a merciless fire. He bent his body over the broken tree trunk, clutching his head with both hands, trying to stem the storm raging inside him.
But despite the pain, he did not back down. The voice in his head kept whispering insistently: "Awaken consciousness... Awaken God... Awaken consciousness..." as if it were the key to an ancient secret waiting to be revealed, a call from worlds only a few could fathom.
Light surged from Li Yan's heart, spreading like a hidden flame through his veins. Suddenly, his head slowly rose, his gleaming black eyes opened to a world no longer as he had known it, He saw himself for a moment in a vast void containing bright purple colors mixed with black, and then he returned but he was just watching, Watching another consciousness move and talk instead of it...
This awareness.... He looked at his hand before him, that small hand that now seemed strange to him, as if it held boundless power.
He stood silent, the awakened consciousness within him possessing him for a brief moment, as if a soul had emerged from its deep slumber. His consciousness looked at
Li Yan's hand as if it were a piece of a mysterious cosmic puzzle, then began to whisper inwardly in a cold, calm voice:
"Humans... this incarnation seems like a puppet walking on the strings of the cosmic order, captive to merciless laws, caught in an endless cycle of incarnation. Its life is woven into a web of illusions, claiming freedom... but freedom? This incarnation seems unfree... bound by the chains of an inevitable fate that it doesn't know how to break..."
Then he looked at the moonlight and said in a calm voice, "This light is beautiful, but it is bad to look at it."
"Moon spirits... feed on incarnations in this universe when they look at the moon."
"Shadow spirits feed on incarnations when they are afraid."
"Dark spirits feed on incarnations when they are crying, angry, despairing, happy, or sad."
"And incarnations feed on the least energetically arranged."
At that moment, Venterus realized the truth about this universe. He said calmly, his features cold.
"This universe isn't unjust because it wants to be, but because it's programmed to be so. Its laws tend toward a deliberate imbalance. Balance isn't fair, but rather a deception used to hide the deep deviations in the fabric of existence. The spirits here don't wait for permission to devour; they are part of the structure. And humans? They're just a morsel between multiple mouths."
Shadows began moving below around Venterus's embodiment, unable to approach him or move away from him because of their thirst for his energy. But Venterus remained seated, unmoving. The moonlight fell on his half-open eyes, as if they were windows to something not of this world.
He said sarcastically, in a low voice, "Spirits of darkness... How miserable you are. Hungry, craving energy even while you fear its master."
He raised his hand, trying to muster some energy, but nothing moved, because the body that now contained him was exhausted, weak not from his birth but from the moment his light was dimmed by rejection, repression, and accumulated pain... all of which left invisible scars on his cosmic field. Venterus smiled.
Not because the light had returned, but because he realized something. These spirits aren't the only ones feeding on human incarnations. Humans themselves feed on each other, draining each other.
Venterus assumed a sleeping position, breathing deeply, indifferent to his surroundings. But the shadows didn't stop. They continued to creep slowly around him, making overlapping circles as if in a silent ritual, or as if waiting for an unspoken command. Despite their closeness, they didn't dare touch him. Something in them hesitated, afraid, as if realizing that what was before them was more than just a fragile body.
Suddenly, from among those shadows, one rose... not clearly, but like a thread blacker than black, forming into a fluid form. Then a voice spoke, deep, mouthless, and melodyless:
"Why have you returned?"
Venterus opened his eyes fully for the first time. They were still and silent, but behind them was the bottomless sea. He answered in a low voice, without To move:
"I'm no longer... you're the ones who didn't leave."
The shadow swayed as if the answer bothered him. Then he asked again:
"Do you think this body can handle you? What good is consciousness in a broken vessel?"
Venteros laughed quietly, a laugh that carried not pleasure but knowledge:
"Consciousness doesn't need a full vessel... just a small crack enough for the light to seep in. And this body is just a wide crack, perfect for passage."
The shadow fell silent, as if contemplating what it hadn't yet understood. Then, this time, he asked, in a low voice:
"Do you want to start the journey over? The world hasn't changed. "The cage is still a cage."
"I'm not here to break the cage..." Venterus replied, slowly rising from the tree trunk, as light as if he weren't carrying a body at all.
"At that moment, something stirred within the shadows. One of the dark circles exploded in a brief flash of pale light. It was the first pulse—the first true ripple of his old consciousness seeping into the body, testing it, feeling its eroded walls.
"This pain... is useful," Venterus muttered, placing a hand over his heart.
"Pain is maps. Those who don't suffer, don't cross over."
The forest around him suddenly fell silent. Even its leaves stopped dancing.
Something had changed..
For the first time, the shadows felt fear. Not because the light had returned... but because consciousness had begun to stir.
...the shadow wobbled, as if the answer had disturbed it. Then a slit-like mouth formed within it, and it spoke in a hoarse voice as if emanating from the depths of an ancient crypt:
"You say you are consciousness... but you have forgotten. You are now nothing but an echo, broken, lost between embodiment and nothingness. This earth does not open its doors to those who remember too late."
Venteros stood silently, not responding, but his eyes remained fixed on the shadow, as if its words had not hurt him... but had confirmed something he had suspected.
The shadow continued, his voice growing more sarcastic:
"Everyone who thought they had awakened has become food for us. Because you, who claim to know, are the ones who produce the sharpest taste... In your consciousness, we eat meaning, not flesh."
He drew closer, whispering, as if sowing poison:
"This body... will betray you, just as time, space, and destiny betrayed you before it."
But Venterus, contrary to what he expected, smiled.
"Let the body betray, for betrayal is the seed of freedom. As long as the body collapses, I will know that it is not me."
A heavy silence fell.
...the shadow receded, but it did not disappear. Instead, it began to stretch across the floor like a living carpet of black ink, its invisible eyes following every pulse in Venterus's chest, trying to measure how much of him remained... how much of the old "being" remained.
Another, deeper voice emerged from behind the shadows, unlike the previous one. It was slow and sonorous, dragging the words as if they were being carved into the air:
"It's not just the body that betrays... it's memory. It's time itself. You will try to remember, but every attempt will open a door... that will not close."
Venterus understood what was meant to be forgotten. This wasn't just an encounter with random spirits... it was a hidden test: if the human incarnation could endure in the presence of consciousness—without collapsing, without going mad—then something, something older than time, would begin to reveal itself.
Venterus reached out into the darkness, not to fight... but to touch it.
"If you feed on pain, on contradiction, on doubt... then eat. Let me be the banquet."
The shadows froze. They hadn't expected this kind of response. Because everyone who feared them had fled. Everyone who challenged them had fought. But no one had ever stood in their midst and said:
"I know you. You are not my enemies... You are a mirror to test me."
Then he said in a sharp, calm voice, Addressing the Council of the Gods: "I see that the Akasha encompasses not only your knowledge of Me, but all of your creation will know, huh?"
---And suddenly, everything changed.
The air around him grew heavier. The ground beneath the broken tree began to slowly crack, breathing like a living being. The Wenlin Forest wasn't still... it was watching, as if another consciousness deeper than the shadows was awakening.
Far away, in the heart of the Shen Clan, an Elder suddenly opened his eyes in contemplation and whispered to himself:
"The key... has moved.".