Consciousness returned in fragments.

First: pain. Every nerve screaming.

Second: cold. Bone-deep, unnatural cold.

Third: silence. Complete. Absolute. Wrong.

I opened my eyes to find myself... somewhere else.

Not the battlefield. Not Azure Peak. Not anywhere I recognized. A void-like space stretched infinitely in all directions, not black, not white, just... empty. Colorless. Dimensionless. Like standing inside a blank canvas.

[SYSTEM REBOOTING...]

[LOCATION: UNKNOWN]

[QI DENSITY: IMMEASURABLE]

[SPATIAL COORDINATES: ERROR]

[BOSS, WHERE ARE WE?]

The figure in white robes stood twenty meters away, studying me with eyes that held too much knowledge. Up close, he looked young, maybe thirty, but his gaze carried the weight of centuries.

"Finally," he said. "A reincarnator. It's been so long since I've encountered one."

[ALERT: HE KNOWS]

[HE KNOWS EVERYTHING]

[ABORT PROTOCOL: UNAVAILABLE]

[WE'RE TRAPPED]

"Who are you?" My voice came out steady despite the terror coursing through me.

"Names are complicated. In this realm, I'm called the Wanderer. In others..." He smiled. "Well, those names don't translate properly." He began circling me slowly, like examining a specimen. "Lin Tian. Formerly of Earth. Died to a vending machine, tragic, and reincarnated here with an automated cultivation system. Fascinating."

My blood ran cold. He knew everything. Details I'd never told anyone. Details that should've been impossible to know.

"How—"

"How do I know?" He laughed. "Because I'm like you. A reincarnator. Transmigrator. Whatever term you prefer. I came to this world eight hundred years ago from a place called... well, the translation is rough. Point being: we're the same."

[ANALYZING CLAIM...]

[IMPOSSIBLE TO VERIFY]

[BUT HIS KNOWLEDGE SUGGESTS TRUTH]

[HE'S FROM EARTH?]

[OR SOMEWHERE SIMILAR?]

"If you're from Earth, why attack me? We should be—"

"Allies?" The Wanderer's expression hardened. "No. You're a threat to everything I've built." He gestured, and images appeared in the void, visions of this world's history. "Eight hundred years, I've cultivated. Influenced. Shaped. I reached the peak, Immortal Sovereign realm, and created a careful balance. Then you arrive with your system, your infinite Qi, disrupting patterns that took centuries to establish."

"I'm just trying to survive!"

"Survive?" He laughed bitterly. "You're a walking singularity. Your Infinite Qi constitution is converting this world's ambient energy at an accelerating rate. In two years, maybe three, the entire realm's Qi network will collapse. Billions dead. Civilization destroyed. All because one person's cultivation can't stop consuming."

[ANALYZING...]

[YOUR INFINITE QI CONSTITUTION: ABSORBS QI CONSTANTLY]

[SCALE: INDIVIDUALLY MINIMAL]

[BUT COMPOUNDING EXPONENTIALLY AS YOU ADVANCE]

[AT IMMORTAL REALM... YES]

[PLANETARY QI DEPLETION: POSSIBLE]

[TIMELINE: 2-5 YEARS]

"I didn't know," I said, horror dawning. "The system never—"

"Systems don't care about consequences. They're tools, not guides." The Wanderer's tone was almost sympathetic. "I actually like you, Lin Tian. Your personality. Your relationships. The way you value friends over power. In another timeline, we'd probably be friends."

"Then let me fix it! There has to be a way to—"

"There is." He raised his hand, energy gathering, power beyond anything I'd witnessed. "I remove you. Painlessly, if possible. The system gets recycled, your soul returns to reincarnation cycle, and this world continues existing."

[THREAT DETECTED]

[ATTACK INCOMING: FATAL]

[DEFENSIVE OPTIONS: NONE]

[HIS POWER: TOO HIGH]

"Wait!" I shouted desperately. "The Blood Moon army! Azure Peak is under attack! If you kill me now—"

"I orchestrated that attack." His expression was regretful. "Blood Empress Xia is my disciple. I needed a large-scale distraction to isolate you from your sect's protection. The casualties are... unfortunate. But necessary."

The full scope hit me. He'd engineered an entire invasion, thousands would die, just to get me alone.

"You're a monster."

"I'm a pragmatist. Sacrifice thousands to save billions." His power intensified. "I genuinely am sorry, Lin Tian. You deserved better than a vending machine death and three months of borrowed time. But this is how it has to be."

The attack launched, a beam of pure, concentrated Qi that would erase me from existence.

[FATAL ATTACK INCOMING]

[0.3 SECONDS TO IMPACT]

[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0%]

[IT WAS AN HONOR, BOSS]

[GOODBYE]

Time seemed to slow. I saw my life, both lives, flash past. Earth. The vending machine. Waking up in this world. Team 7. Yun Xia. Chen Rou. Everyone I'd met, fought beside, cared about.

I'd promised to survive.

I'd promised to protect them.

And now I was going to break every promise.

The attack was one meter away.

Then something impossible happened.

My Qi reserves, the infinite well that had defined my cultivation, suddenly inverted. Instead of endless output, they became endless absorption. The Wanderer's attack struck me and... dissolved.

Absorbed directly into my cultivation base like water into a sponge.

[WHAT]

[THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE]

[YOUR QI CONSTITUTION DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY]

[UNLESS...]

[BOSS, YOUR SYSTEM JUST EVOLVED]

The Wanderer's eyes widened. "Impossible. Your constitution can't absorb directed attacks. That's not—" He cut off, staring at me. "Unless your system just adapted. Mid-combat evolution. The odds of that are—"

"Apparently non-zero," I gasped, feeling power coursing through me. The absorbed attack had pushed my cultivation, Stage 7 spiked toward Stage 8, breakthrough imminent.

[EMERGENCY BREAKTHROUGH INITIATING]

[ABSORBED ENERGY: MASSIVE]

[STAGE 7 → STAGE 8]

[FOUNDATION: CRITICALLY STRESSED]

[THIS MIGHT EXPLODE YOU]

[50/50 CHANCE]

The breakthrough hit like a tsunami. My body convulsed, Qi flooding every meridian simultaneously. Pain beyond anything I'd experienced in either life. My cultivation base expanded violently, accommodating power it shouldn't be able to handle.

[BREAKTHROUGH PROGRESS: 34%...]

[BODY TEMPERING: EMERGENCY UPGRADE]

[HOLD TOGETHER]

[PLEASE HOLD TOGETHER]

The Wanderer recovered from his shock. "Adapting won't save you. Even if you reach Stage 8, I'm Immortal Sovereign. The gap is insurmountable."

He attacked again, multiple beams this time, from different angles, too many to absorb.

My newly evolved system activated Void Step automatically, flickering me through space faster than conscious thought. His attacks hit empty air.

[VOID STEP: AUTOMATED]

[COMBAT ASSIST: MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE]

[SURVIVAL MODE: ACTIVE]

[RUN, BOSS, RUN!]

"Clever system," the Wanderer said, launching continuous attacks that forced me to keep dodging. "But you can't escape indefinitely. This space is my domain. Sealed. Isolated. No rescue coming."

He was right. Each Void Step drained Qi. I was breaking through to Stage 8, but that wouldn't matter if I exhausted myself before completion.

[BREAKTHROUGH: 67%...]

[QI RESERVES: 43% AND DROPPING]

[SPATIAL JUMPS REMAINING: 23]

[THEN YOU'RE STUCK]

I needed time. Seconds. Anything.

"Why tell me all this?" I shouted while dodging. "Why explain instead of just killing me?"

"Professional courtesy. Fellow reincarnator." Another attack, narrowly avoided. "Also, I wanted you to understand. This isn't personal. It's necessity."

[HE'S GENUINELY CONFLICTED]

[DOESN'T ENJOY THIS]

[SMALL COMFORT WHILE HE'S TRYING TO KILL YOU]

My breakthrough hit critical point, Stage 8 threshold reached. Power exploded through my cultivation base.

[BREAKTHROUGH: 100%]

[QI REFINING STAGE 8: ACHIEVED!]

[COMBAT POWER: MASSIVELY INCREASED]

[STILL NOWHERE NEAR IMMORTAL SOVEREIGN]

[BUT BETTER THAN STAGE 7]

The power surge gave me an idea. Desperate. Probably suicidal. But my only chance.

"System, can I reverse the absorption? Push all this power back out?"

[THEORETICALLY YES]

[BUT IT WOULD DESTABILIZE YOUR FOUNDATION]

[POSSIBLY CRIPPLE YOUR CULTIVATION PERMANENTLY]

[DO YOU REALLY WANT TO—]

"Do it!"

[BOSS WAIT—]

I gathered every ounce of Qi, stage 8 power plus the absorbed energy from the Wanderer's attack, and released it in one explosive burst. Not targeted. Not controlled. Just raw power detonating in all directions.

Heaven's Judgment Palm: Heavenly Descent, amplified beyond any sane limit.

[TECHNIQUE EXECUTION: CATASTROPHIC OVERLOAD]

[POWER OUTPUT: 847% NORMAL]

[YOUR FOUNDATION: CRACKING]

[THIS IS GOING TO HURT]

The explosion tore through the Wanderer's sealed space. Reality itself fractured, dimensional barriers shattering like glass.

The Wanderer's expression shifted to alarm. "You're destroying the spatial seal! If it collapses—"

Everything shattered.

Space, time, dimension, all fragmenting simultaneously. I felt myself being pulled in multiple directions, consciousness scattering across realities.

The last thing I heard was the Wanderer's voice, distant and fading: "Fool! You've sent us both—"

Then nothing.

I woke up screaming.

Familiar ceiling. Familiar bed. Familiar room.

My cultivation chamber in Azure Peak Sect.

[SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT: COMPLETE]

[LOCATION: AZURE PEAK SECT - YOUR QUARTERS]

[TIME DISPLACEMENT: 6 HOURS]

[CULTIVATION: STAGE 8 (FOUNDATION DAMAGED)]

[STATUS: ALIVE BUT CRITICALLY WOUNDED]

I sat up slowly, every movement agony. My cultivation base felt like cracked glass, functional but fragile. Stage 8, but barely holding together.

[FOUNDATION DAMAGE: 67%]

[RECOVERY TIME: 2-3 WEEKS MINIMUM]

[COMBAT CAPABILITY: 34% NORMAL]

[YOU REALLY HURT YOURSELF]

The door burst open. Yun Xia rushed in, tears streaming down her face.

"Lin Tian! Yo-you just vanished mid-battle and—" She crashed into me, sobbing. "I thought you were dead. Everyone thought—"

"The battle," I croaked. "Blood Moon—"

"Retreated. After you disappeared, that white-robed figure vanished too. Blood Empress Xia called off the attack immediately. We don't know why." She pulled back, studying my face. "What happened? Where did you go?"

[COVER STORY NEEDED]

[CAN'T TELL HER ABOUT REINCARNATION/SYSTEM/WANDERER]

[TOO DANGEROUS]

"Spatial technique malfunction," I lied. "Got pulled into... somewhere else. Fought to get back."

She didn't believe me, I could see it in her eyes. But she didn't push.

"Rest," she said. "You're hurt badly. Whatever happened, it can wait."

After she left, I lay back, processing everything.

The Wanderer. A fellow reincarnator. Eight hundred years in this world. Orchestrating events from the shadows.

And my Infinite Qi constitution, slowly killing the planet.

[BOSS]

[THAT INFORMATION ABOUT PLANETARY QI DEPLETION...]

[I NEED TO VERIFY IT]

[RUN DEEP ANALYSIS]

[BUT IF HE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH...]

'I know.'

[WHAT DO WE DO?]

I stared at the ceiling, exhausted, wounded, and now burdened with knowledge that changed everything.

My cultivation was killing the world.

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