The stench of the Prison of Black Roots never changed.It was as if time itself had surrendered to rot.But there was a path where the smell was older—like bones soaked in time—where not even the crawling monsters dared to go.And it was there that Mo Han walked, guided not by words he heard, but by ones he felt.
Seated beneath a broken stalactite, his body twisted like a dried-up tree, he sat.
The man was more bone than flesh.One eye dead.The other marked with tattoos—runes burned into the skin, ancient and cracked.There was life in that eye, but not sanity.Something worse: clarity on the edge of ruin.
— "How long... you took," said the old voice, as if greeting a visitor expected for a thousand years.
Mo Han didn't reply right away.The man didn't look at him directly, but seemed to see through the wall, through time—through everything.
— "You carry the scent... of what does not yet exist. The air around you trembles. Do you know what that means?"
— "That I'm changing."
— "No.It means you're rewriting the rules.As I once tried.But I was weak."
Mo Han stepped closer. The old man didn't flinch.Instead, he extended a small fragment—black as coal, pulsing with foul, noisy energy.
— "Sealed Maw Crystal.They say it contains the first Qi of this prison.The rawest. The most lethal.All who tried to purify it... died."
— "Why give it to me?"
The old man smiled, but it wasn't joy.
— "Because you have something we never did: silence.We screamed when the pain came.You... listened."
Mo Han took the crystal.It was warm.It pulsed like a mutated heart.
— "And if I die?"
— "Then it will be a worthy end.A new end."
The old man touched his chest.His fingers were thin, but firm.
— "Your center is clean.That terrifies the world.They hate what they cannot corrupt."
Mo Han looked at him seriously.
— "What did you lose when you tried?"
The old man's smile turned sad.
— "Everything—except the fear of trying again."
Silence.
In that moment, Mo Han understood something no rune could ever describe:The path he walked did not lead upward.
It led inward.
And maybe the real exit was never at the top of the prison...but at the bottom of myself.
He pocketed the crystal.And with one last glance at the man who was what he might one day become,he turned to leave.
— "If I survive, I'll come back."
— "If you survive…you won't be you anymore."