CHAPTER 171 — UNDER THE CRIMSON SHADE
The massive crimson tree stretched above the island, its canopy spread wide enough to swallow the sky beneath its branches and cast a dense shifting shade across everything below.
Leylin sat beneath it.
Motionless.
The island had expanded again. Black soil extended beyond two hundred meters now, threaded with glowing red veins pulsing slowly beneath the ground like a living circulatory system. The air felt denser than before. Every breath carried weight, as though the realm itself had thickened around him.
Above, the branches creaked softly despite the absence of wind. Crimson roots spread throughout the island, anchoring deep into the terrain while streams of gathered essence flowed continuously through them.
That essence descended toward Leylin.
His crystalline body glowed faintly beneath the shade as fractures spread slowly across his skin, sealing and reopening in repeating cycles. It looked less like injury and more like strain, as though his form could no longer decide whether to evolve or collapse.
Seraphine stood several meters away watching him in silence.
For four days, nothing about this state had changed.
Leylin had not spoken. Had not moved. Had not even opened his eyes.
Yet the realm itself refused to remain still around him.
The waters surrounding the island had darkened over time, streaks of crimson drifting beneath their surface like submerged fire. Outside the canopy, violent spirals of wind tore endlessly across the chamber, but beneath the tree everything remained calm.
Too calm.
Leylin inhaled.
The essence in the air reacted immediately, streams of crimson light flowing toward him before sinking directly into his chest. The fractures across his body brightened.
Then one of the cracks widened sharply across his shoulder.
The island trembled.
The red veins beneath the soil flared violently as pressure surged outward from Leylin's body in a single uncontrolled wave. The crimson tree responded instantly, a deep vibration spreading through its trunk and branches like a living thing reacting to pain.
Seraphine stepped forward instinctively.
Then everything stopped.
The pressure vanished.
The cracks sealed. The light beneath his skin dimmed. The trembling across the island disappeared.
Even the wind outside the canopy calmed.
Leylin opened his eyes.
The island reacted immediately.
A strange pressure moved through the space around him, and everything beneath the tree seemed to align with it at once. The crimson tree gave a restrained tremor while the air beneath its shade tightened briefly before settling again.
Seraphine felt the change immediately.
Not against her body.
Against reality itself.
The world around Leylin no longer behaved naturally. Every movement, every interaction, every shift in atmosphere felt subtly recalculated around him as though the realm itself was adjusting to his existence in real time.
Leylin rose slowly beneath the tree, testing movement while crimson light pulsed faintly beneath his crystalline skin. The fire inside him no longer resembled ordinary flame. It carried density now. Weight.
"Come closer," he said.
Seraphine obeyed.
The moment she stepped beneath the canopy, the atmosphere accepted her presence without resistance. Outside the shade, the violent winds continued tearing across the island, but beneath the tree everything remained subdued.
Leylin noticed briefly before looking down at himself.
"You're naked again," Seraphine said.
He glanced downward, acknowledged the statement, then ignored it completely.
He moved toward the edge of the island where a basin of still water rested within the black stone.
Seraphine followed behind him.
"What is the purpose of this?" she asked. "You've been doing this for days."
Leylin crouched beside the water.
"I'm close to something," he said quietly. "My body has become denser than before, but it is unstable."
"How strong were you before this?"
Leylin looked at his hand.
"I could shatter mountains with a movement."
Seraphine's expression shifted slightly.
"That's already the level of Body Inscription."
Leylin looked at her.
"I was never told what it was called."
"There are stages," she replied. "You were already standing inside one."
Leylin lowered his hand into the water.
The basin accepted him instantly.
No heat. No steam. No rejection.
The water wrapped naturally around his fingers as though his body belonged inside it.
Seraphine watched carefully.
Leylin scooped some into his palm and drank.
The effect spread through him immediately. The unstable pressure inside his body condensed inward and aligned itself into a steadier flow, like a violent system temporarily finding structure.
Seraphine stepped closer.
Her eyes moved across the cracks still spread throughout his body.
"They're still there," she said quietly.
Leylin lowered his hand.
"It is limitation," he replied. "My form cannot contain what I am becoming."
Silence settled briefly between them.
Then Leylin looked toward the crimson waters again.
"What exactly is this place made of?"
Seraphine could not answer.
Because she no longer believed this realm was merely a chamber.
Her gaze remained fixed on him instead.
The cracks were no longer what unsettled her.
It was the pattern.
The island responded to him. The tree responded to him. Even the atmosphere adjusted itself around him instinctively.
And Leylin had started noticing it too.
He looked at his own hand again, expression quieter now, more focused than before.
"…My body is made from it."
Seraphine's eyes narrowed faintly.
Leylin continued slowly, piecing the realization together as he spoke.
"The fire inside me isn't separate."
His gaze lifted toward the chained crimson sun hanging high above the island.
"It comes from there."
The crimson light overhead pulsed faintly.
"The sun."
His fingers flexed once.
"And the stars…"
His eyes drifted upward toward the constellation above the chamber.
"The more they formed, the more stable my body became."
The pressure beneath the tree shifted subtly again.
Seraphine remained silent.
Leylin's gaze sharpened slightly.
"But every time my body stabilized…"
He looked back toward the crimson sun.
"It changed too."
The realization settled naturally this time.
"The stronger I became, the denser it became."
His voice lowered.
"And the denser it became… the less my body could contain it."
He stared at the water quietly.
Not growth.
A cycle.
The stars strengthened him. His stability strengthened the sun. The sun increased the pressure inside him. And that pressure pushed his body toward collapse again.
A loop that refused to settle.
Silence returned beneath the crimson tree.
Then Leylin spoke again.
"The stars stopped evolving."
His eyes remained on the water.
"I tried everything I could."
A pause.
"But I cannot increase them beyond eighty-one."
For the first time since opening his eyes, uncertainty entered his expression.
Not fear.
Understanding interrupted halfway.
Leylin slowly raised his gaze toward the sky above him.
"…So what am I missing?"