Chapter 1
On the day I married Shane Yates, the thing that had bound my body for three years finally began to fall apart.
That night, beneath the red glow of wedding candles, I sat on the edge of the bed in a crimson gown, still and upright like a doll someone had posed too carefully. Through the veil, the room looked blurred, washed in soft scarlet light.
Then that mechanical voice rang through my mind again.
Plot task check in progress. Progress: 99%.
My lashes trembled.
For one fleeting second, I felt my fingers move under my own control.
Just for a second.
But it was enough.
The closer the story got to its ending, the weaker the system’s hold became.
Three years ago, I fell from a cliff during a training trial. When I woke up, something calling itself a “plot correction system” had already latched onto my soul. It told me my role was to “fix the storyline” by making Shane Yates fall in love with me.
What it really meant was this:
It hijacked my body and used my face to chase him in the most humiliating ways possible.
It made me bend.
Beg.
Flatter him.
Follow him.
It wore me like a skin and spent three full years groveling after a man who barely looked at me twice.
And now, after all of that, it had finally forced the ending it wanted.
Marriage.
This wedding was the final step in its absurd plot.
The door creaked open.
At once, the pressure in my mind slammed back down. The system seized control again before I could do anything with the brief freedom I’d stolen.
Through the gap beneath my veil, I saw a pale yellow dress.
I knew that dress.
Kira Quinn.
Shane’s childhood sweetheart.
My junior sister.
The girl I had once found half-starved by a trash heap and carried back to the sect with my own two hands.
She stopped in front of me and looked me over slowly.
“You look beautiful today, Senior Sister.”
Her voice was soft. Too soft.
Then she leaned closer and laughed under her breath.
“But where’s your groom?”
I heard my own mouth answer, smooth and obedient under the system’s control.
“Kira, Shane and I are married now. You lost.”
She lowered her eyes. “Maybe I did.” Then she lifted them again, and there was something strange in them. “But your perfect husband spent last night in my bed.”
My heart didn’t move.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
Because by then, I had watched the system humiliate me so many times that even pain had started to feel tired.
Kira’s hand slipped beneath the veil. Her cool fingers brushed my cheek, then glided down to my throat.
“Do you know what he said to me?” she whispered. “He said the immortal who stunned him at first sight all those years ago is nothing now. Just someone who comes running the moment he crooks a finger. He said marrying you was convenient. You’re obedient. Easy.”
My own voice answered at once, because the system forced it to.
“So what? I love him.”
The fingers at my neck tightened.
Kira’s breathing changed.
“Even now?” she asked, almost through gritted teeth. “Even after he treats you like this, you still want to marry him?”
A moment later, her grip loosened.
She sounded almost sad when she said, “Senior Sister… how did you become like this?”
She straightened my collar gently, as though she hadn’t just threatened to crush my throat.
“Maybe you still haven’t seen him clearly. Fine. Tonight, let’s see whether your dream groom actually stays with you on your wedding night.”
Her hand rose to the edge of my veil.
There was a short pause.
Then she lifted it.
Only a husband was supposed to do that.
The faint smile on her mouth froze the instant she saw my face.
More specifically—
My eyes.
She stared at me. “What kind of look is that?”
Hatred? No.
It was emptiness.
She leaned in closer, unsettled. Before I could move, something sharp pricked my neck.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered. “You can’t hate me, Senior Sister.”
Her voice grew fainter, blurred around the edges.
“You’ve always been terrible at seeing people clearly. Maybe tonight I should just kill him for you.”
The system exploded in fury.
It forced my body to shove her hard and scream at her to get out.
Inside my own mind, I fought it.
I failed.
All I could do was watch helplessly as my own hands pushed Kira out the door.
The sound of it shutting behind her felt heavier than the mountain.
For three years, I had lived like this.
Watching.
Unable to stop myself from hurting the people closest to me.
Kira had been a quiet little thing when I found her, eyes hollow, curled up in filth and ash. I had begged my master to accept her into the sect. I taught her to read. Taught her to practice the sword. She used to trail behind me everywhere, soft and smiling, calling me Senior Sister in the sweetest voice.
Only later did I learn she and Shane had known each other long before.
Childhood sweethearts separated by ruin and loss.
And somewhere along the way, all three of us had become tangled in this grotesque farce.
By dusk, Shane came.
He smelled faintly of alcohol.
The system pushed my body into his arms at once, making me lean against him bonelessly, whispering sugary nonsense in a voice that wasn’t mine.
I listened from inside myself, expressionless.
After three years, even that had become something I could endure in silence.
Shane casually lifted my veil and looked down at me.
“Kira’s in seclusion tonight, trying to break through,” he said. “I’m going to guard her.”
The red bridal curtain slipped to the floor.
In my mind, the mechanical voice spoke again.
Plot task check in progress. Progress: 100%.
At the same time, Shane sighed as if soothing a child.
“Be good, Evelyn. Wait for me.”
He didn’t get an answer.
He lowered his head, mildly displeased, only to find the woman in his arms quiet for once, looking down, saying nothing.
He kissed my forehead as though granting me a favor.
“Don’t throw a tantrum. Kira needs me tonight. We’re married now. You should be satisfied.”
He waited half a breath.
When I still didn’t answer, impatience flickered across his face. Then he turned and left.
The door closed behind him.
And in the silence, the system’s voice changed.
Task complete. System 036 requesting world exit.
My fingers curled slightly.
A smile touched my lips.
Then—
Warning. Warning. Energy source compromised. Unknown attack detected. Exit failed.
I lifted my eyes.
This time, there was nothing clouded in them at all.
Only clarity.
Golden runes blossomed beneath me, spreading across the floor, sealing the entire room. I raised my hand, formed a seal, and reached into the space before my forehead—
and dragged a golden orb screaming out of my own body.
It thrashed wildly, trying to escape, but every time it slammed into the rune barrier, it bounced back.
I looked at it and laughed.
“You really thought you could come and go from my body whenever you pleased?”
I stood slowly and pinched the little thing between two fingers.
“You borrowed my body for three years. Shouldn’t you at least greet the owner before you leave?”
The orb trembled with rage.
“I only carry out orders from headquarters! I’m just an executor!”
“Oh?” I said lightly. “So there’s a headquarters.”
Its voice sharpened with sudden arrogance.
“You’d better let me go now. Otherwise your soul will be erased.”
I smiled wider.
“Then I’ll just erase your headquarters first.”
My fingers closed.
The golden orb shattered in my hand.
A single thread of light shot out from the fragments and fled into the distance. My body, emptied by the system, slumped to the floor like a shell.
But my soul had already followed that thread.
For three years, while I couldn’t control my body, I had done the only thing I could do.
I had trained my spirit.
Again and again.
Until my consciousness could leave my body as easily as breathing.
I followed the escaping thread into a vast golden sea.
Countless glowing orbs rose and fell like waves. From each orb extended two fine threads of light, each thread attached to a floating soul. One soul grew clearer, denser, stronger. The other faded.
Fed on.
Drained.
Consumed.
I found the thing that had possessed me.
A middle-aged man’s soul, nearly solid, but lined with cracks, because the soul on the other end of his thread had broken free the moment I tore him out of me.
Around me, the golden orbs began to stir.
They had noticed an intruder.
The stolen soul sneered from a distance, hiding among them.
And in that instant, I understood everything.
Each pair was the same.
One invader.
One victim.
The invader latched onto a life, rewrote its fate under the excuse of “missions,” and used that stolen destiny to devour the original soul’s fortune, strength, and essence.
Thieves.
An entire nest of them.
The golden threads trembled with hunger.
“Drain him. Drain him.”
Their whispers hissed through the sea.
I looked down at the countless threads piercing my soul, trying to feed.
Then I looked up and smiled.
The soul that had stolen my body sneered. “Thought you were special? You’re nothing.”
I reached out and caught him by the throat.
He shrieked.
“Impossible. How can your soul still be—”
Solid?
The rest vanished in a blast of fire.
I used the heavens as my furnace.
My soul as flame.
A sword formed from raw spiritual force swept through the golden sea, and fire ran along every thread.
The screaming that followed felt endless.
Those parasitic souls burned.
The trapped souls they had bound broke free one after another.
When I finally opened my eyes again, I was back in my own body, seated before the bronze mirror in the bridal chamber.
The woman in the mirror wore pearl lipstick, gold hair ornaments, and a wedding robe bright enough to hurt the eyes.
I spread my fingers and stared at them.
White. Soft. Delicate.
The calluses from years of sword training were gone.
Of course they were.
For three years, that thing had used my body for only two purposes:
to make my skin paler
and my face prettier
so it could better seduce Shane Yates.
I stared at my reflection and started tearing the heavy ornaments from my hair.
“They really did leave me one giant mess,” I muttered.
Then, late that same night, still wearing my wedding dress, I headed for the dungeon beneath the sect.
Because there was one person I needed to see.
One person locked away in the dark.
One person everyone believed should already be dead.