The Hollow Spiral was not a place built by nature.
It was a wound.
A twisting depression in the Veinfield's terrain, where the soil was dark as dried blood and roots jutted out like ribs of a buried corpse. The mist that clung to it pulsed with pressureless screams—memory-sounds without source, emotion without context.
And Lin Fei stood at its rim, breathing shallowly as the invisible weight of the place wrapped around his lungs.
[Entering Outer Veinfield: Zone Classification – Deep Echo Territory]
[Environmental Status: Memory Saturation – 89%]
[Warning: Domain Instability Possible Beyond Threshold]
The System's alerts whispered in his mind like cautionary bells. But he stepped forward anyway.
His boots touched the spiral's edge, and the world… changed.
It wasn't a shift of terrain—it was the change of reality itself. A warp of the Veinfield's laws, where time cracked and folded, and the usual connection between his body, mind, and domain became strained, as if stretched across multiple overlapping reflections.
Shapes moved in the mist.
Not echoes, not phantoms—these were something else. Abstract fragments. Half-memories without owners. They flickered like candlelight in water, sometimes screaming, sometimes weeping.
He gritted his teeth and walked deeper.
Behind him, the mist closed.
🩸 A Vein That Consumes
The further in he went, the more the ground changed.
It wasn't just roots anymore—it was flesh. Dark-veined, pulsing soil that felt alive. Occasionally, Lin Fei would feel something shift beneath the surface, as if he were walking atop a sleeping beast.
[Spiritual Density Increase: +300%]
[Domain Link: Thinning – Proceed with Caution]
He activated a node of his domain to stabilize his footing.
Immediately, he felt something push back.
A jolt ran up his leg. Not pain—hunger. The earth wanted to feed. And it didn't want soil, stone, or rain.
It wanted memory.
"Feeding root structures…" Lin Fei murmured. "This whole place is a devouring echo."
Then the ground opened.
A fissure split beneath his feet, and something surged upward—fast, too fast. He leapt back, but not before catching a glimpse of the thing rising from below.
It wasn't a beast. It was a construct—a colossal, multi-jointed figure made of bone-white root and flowing qi strands, its face a mask of fused screaming visages.
[Deep Echo Anomaly Detected – "Root of the Forgotten"]
[Classification: Domain Predator – Intelligence: Partial]
[System Contract Objective Confirmed]
[Mission Updated: Survive, Observe, and Extract Anomaly Core]
"Figures," Lin Fei muttered as the monster charged.
🧱 Clash of Domain and Horror
He threw out his hand.
[Domain Rootlink – Formation Burst: Reversal Ring]
[Veinfield Response: Delayed]
The construct slammed its hand down just as Lin Fei activated the ring.
Time skipped.
Not paused. Not stopped. Skipped.
The Root of the Forgotten crashed into where he'd stood a moment ago—but Lin Fei was already behind it, eyes flashing.
His palm struck the creature's exposed spinal core.
[Technique Integration: Spineburst Qi Art – 62% Compatibility]
[Activating: Temporal Spike Sequence]
A brilliant violet light erupted from his fingers.
The creature shrieked, not in pain—but in resistance. Its form tried to hold—but fractures ran along its roots like shattered glass. Yet it didn't fall.
Instead, it turned—its face splitting apart into a spiraling vortex of distorted faces, all screaming in perfect unison.
Lin Fei felt a stab of something crawl through his thoughts.
Unwanted memories.
He saw glimpses of lives that weren't his—battlefields where mountains bled, temples drowned in skyfire, lovers dying in lotus-filled pools…
"Get… out of my head!" he roared.
[System Alert: Mental Overlap Detected – Initiating Defensive Protocol]
A wave of golden light burst outward from his chest—the Veinfield itself responding. The mist recoiled, and the creature stumbled back, one of its arms disintegrating into useless strands.
And then a voice echoed through the spiral.
"Oh, excellent! Marvelous! You're still sane! I was almost worried."
Lin Fei turned—and saw him.
🕴️ Return of the Bloom Broker
The Bloom Broker stood atop a broken rib-like root, sipping from a floating porcelain cup. His robes fluttered despite the windless air, and his eyes gleamed with mischief and calculation.
"You did accept a contract, remember?" the Broker said, raising a brow. "It would be a shame if you were eaten before delivering the results."
"What is this thing?" Lin Fei growled, still watching the Root of the Forgotten writhe in the distance.
The Broker shrugged.
"A mistake. Or a remnant. Or perhaps both. A creature born from too many overlapping cultivator deaths. It formed when a Domain Wielder attempted to merge all his Echoes into one."
Lin Fei narrowed his eyes.
"You said this was an investigation."
"I said it was high risk. You assumed it wasn't suicidal. That's not my fault."
Lin Fei sighed. "Are you going to help?"
"Oh no. That would violate neutrality. But I will offer you a little trade…"
A scroll unrolled in midair.
[Emergency Contract Addendum – Cost: One Personal Memory]
[Temporary Buff: +50% Domain Resistance, +20% Spiritual Clarity]
[Warning: Memory will be permanently extracted]
He hesitated.
"What kind of memory?"
"Randomized. Could be a scent. A moment. A name."
"…Fine."
He signed.
Immediately, he felt something pull from his chest—like a thread unraveling. It wasn't pain, just absence. A hollow. He blinked, confused.
"What did you take?"
The Broker smiled. "The feeling of rain on your tenth birthday."
"…What?"
"You'll never miss it. But you'll never feel it again either. Now go. Kill the root, before it learns to speak in your voice."
🩸 Bloom of the Thorned Core
Lin Fei didn't hesitate.
With the clarity buff rushing through him, his senses expanded again. The Veinfield responded. Roots twisted to form spears. Echo fragments whispered tactics.
The Root of the Forgotten lunged again—but this time, Lin Fei was ready.
He leapt straight into its chest.
[Domain Command: Internal Bloom – Root Override Attempted]
[Subdomain "Reclamation Spiral" Engaged – Tier Upgrade Triggered]
[Combining: Echo Binding + Memory Bloom Initiation]
He forced his will into the construct—not to destroy, but to seize. The system resisted. The creature resisted. But his domain answered.
From within, his Veinfield reached out—embedding blooming tendrils into the beast's core.
It screamed. It writhed. But it slowed.
And then—
It bloomed.
A massive lotus of bone and crystal erupted from its chest—burning with violet fire and fragments of voices. The creature froze, spasmed—
—and shattered.
[System Update: Domain Expansion Acquired]
[New Feature Unlocked: Echo Bloom Node (1/5)]
[Unique Drop Obtained: Thorned Core of the Forgotten]
[Memory Extraction Available: Confirm to Begin Transfer]
He fell to his knees, panting, as the mist began to recede.
The Hollow Spiral pulsed once—and then was still.
🌱 Consequences of Growth
Back at the heart of the Veinfield, Lin Fei stood before the Domain Nexus, watching as the Thorned Core floated in suspension, wrapped in tendrils of system light.
The Broker was gone.
But his words lingered.
"You grow… or you vanish."
Lin Fei looked down at his hand, flexing it.
What had he lost?
A feeling of rain.
Something so simple. So small.
And yet—gone.
He now had power. He now had a deeper domain. He had the core of a fallen predator, and new structures to build his internal world.
But every gain came with a cost.
He closed his eyes.
[Memory Transfer Initiated – 1%… 3%… 10%…]
From the Thorned Core, images spilled into his mind—broken, shattered recollections of the creature's origin.
A cultivator named Tai Ruin.
A man who had bound every fallen companion into himself, trying to create a perfect unity.
He'd succeeded.
And gone insane.
Lin Fei whispered the name once—and let it go.
📍 Next Objective
[System Directive: Build Echo Bloom Node in Domain Heart]
[Reward: Subdomain Autonomy Tier 1 – Summonable Echo Entities]
[Secondary Task: Investigate Bloomsite Marked "Veilgrave" (Unlocked via Spiral Map Fragment)]
He stood in silence as the information faded.
Then turned to the Nexus and gave the command:
"Begin construction."
Roots shifted.
Light spread.
And far above the Veinfield, somewhere in the invisible circuits of the cultivation world system—a watcher stirred.
Its lens narrowed.
Its records updated.
[Wielder Designation: Lin Fei]
[Status: Escalation Candidate]
[Tier Reclassification Pending…]