If I, a death row inmate, am not to become a demon, am I to become a member of the Imperial Guard?

Zhou Yang closed the door.

The door bolt slammed shut with a heavy thud. He walked to the table and dimmed the wick of the oil lamp. The room was instantly enveloped in a hazy, yellowish light.

He took the fragment of the dragon's spine from his pocket.

The fragment lay quietly in his palm. It was icy cold to the touch, like a piece of iron retrieved from millennia-old ice. Its surface was rough, covered with fine scratches and ancient symbols he couldn't decipher. This was Qin Shuang's trump card, his hope for a comeback.

He closed his eyes.

The soul, like a thin thread, cautiously reached out and touched the fragment.

The moment they made contact.

Excruciating pain!

Zhou Yang groaned, his body jolting violently. It felt as if a red-hot iron rod had been plunged into his brain. Everything went black, and the world spun around him.

He felt as if an invisible hand was gripping him, violently pulling him into the wreckage. It wasn't a gentle guidance, but a brutal tearing. His bones were cracking, his flesh was burning. The feeling of his soul being stretched made him want to scream.

But he gritted his teeth.

He knew this was a hurdle. If he couldn't cross it, nothing else mattered.

"Get in...!"

He roared, gathering all his strength, and like a nail, he drove it in hard.

"boom."

A deafening roar erupted not in his ears, but deep within his soul.

Zhou Yang found himself standing in... an indescribable place.

There was no sky, no earth, no up, down, left, or right. Only endless darkness. In the darkness, countless fragmented points of light floated. Some as large as the moon, some as small as fireflies. They had no warmth, only an ancient, deathly stillness.

This is the world inside the fragment.

A graveyard of stars.

Those shattered points of light were fragments of stars. He could even see the shadows of mountains and rivers, and the skeletons of enormous creatures, remaining on some of the fragments. An immense, despair-inducing aura permeated every corner. It was destruction, it was the end, it was the law of all things returning to nothingness.

Zhou Yang felt as insignificant as a speck of dust.

Any single fragment, even the smallest one, could annihilate his soul with the slightest touch. He dared not move, and could only cower in a corner, sensing this power.

Just then, those shattered star fragments suddenly moved.

As if summoned by some force, they began to slowly rotate. One after another, they formed a line. A river of starlight flowed before him.

Ancient, distorted characters emerged from the river.

They did not belong to any script Zhou Yang was familiar with. Each character seemed to tell a story of a universe from its birth to its destruction. They did not enter his mind, but were directly imprinted on his soul.

"Buzz".

pain.

The pain was a hundred times more intense than the pulling sensation he had just experienced. It felt as if someone was carving into his soul with a red-hot iron. Every word brought a shiver down his spine.

He wanted to resist, but found himself unable to move. He was forced to accept it.

These characters combined gradually formed a name.

Shattered Stars.

A martial art.

A technique that involves grasping stars in one's hand and then crushing them.

Zhou Yang instantly understood. This was the secret hidden within the Dragon Spine fragment. It wasn't just a fragment of a divine weapon, but also a vessel for a inherited cultivation technique. And the power of this technique originated from this Star Graveyard.

Just as he grasped the true meaning of "Shattered Stars," a cold, mechanical voice rang in his mind.

Fragments of the ancient divine weapon "Dragon Spine" have been detected.

[Fragment of the accompanying cultivation technique "Shattered Star" has been detected.]

[Deduction begins...Deduction complete.]

[Repairing the divine weapon "Dragon Spine" and proving the cultivation technique "Shattering Stars" to its perfect state requires 100 years of lifespan.]

100 years.

Zhou Yang's heart sank.

His total lifespan is now just over a hundred years. Burning for 100 years means he'll be almost completely drained. The remaining time might be less than a year.

This is gambling with your life.

He would gamble the rest of his life on this one night of glory.

does it worth?

Many images flashed through his mind: the pursuit by the Heavenly Principle Sect, Chen Qianhu's treachery, and the impending arrival of the high and mighty "Celestial Envoy." He thought of the complex look in Qin Shuang's eyes when she handed over the fragment, and of her words, "This is all I can do for you."

If he doesn't fight tonight, he'll die sooner or later anyway. And he'll die meaninglessly, like an ant that gets stepped on.

But if you gamble...

He then qualified to arm wrestle. At least, he could die standing.

Slowly, a smile curved Zhou Yang's lips. That smile held a mixture of madness, resentment, and a desperate, all-or-nothing resolve.

"Add more money," he said in a low voice, hoarse like sandpaper scraping, "The biggest single investment of my life... I'll do it."

"System, transaction confirmed. Burn 100 years of your lifespan!"

The moment the words fell.

An indescribable sense of emptiness instantly swept over his entire body.

He felt his blood growing colder at a visible rate. A chilling aura began to seep from his bones. His skin sagged, losing its elasticity. More wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes, and strands of black hair were turning gray at an alarming speed.

Life is being taken away.

His body felt like a punctured sandbag, his strength rapidly draining away. The intense weakness made him almost unable to stand.

But he did not fall.

His eyes, however, shone with an alarming light. It was the light of a life burning with its last rays.

At the same time, the fragment of the dragon's spine in his palm underwent a dramatic change.

"Sizzle..."

The fragment began to melt. Instead of turning red, it transformed directly into a ball of pitch-black liquid. This liquid had no temperature, yet it seemed capable of absorbing all light. It flowed, swirled, and rose in Zhou Yang's palm.

The black liquid began to reshape.

First came the hilt, then the blade, and finally the guard. A short sword, entirely black, appeared out of thin air. It was less than two feet long, with a narrow blade, like a solidified black lightning bolt.

The strangest thing is the runes on the sword.

Those ancient symbols were no longer inanimate objects. They seemed to come alive, flowing slowly across the black blade. The alternation of light and shadow was like a miniature starry sky being created and destroyed within it.

An indescribable aura emanated from the short sword.

It's not sharp, nor is it menacing.

It's a sense of fragmentation. A sense of desolation and brokenness, like a star falling or the universe collapsing. To hold it is to hold the destruction of the entire world in your grasp.

Zhou Yang reached out, his hand trembling, and grasped the sword hilt.

The icy touch traveled up his arm and instantly spread throughout his body.

This chill, far from worsening his weakness, acted like a shot of adrenaline, rekindling a sliver of strength in his almost withered body. This strength did not belong to him, but rather came from the sword.

[Repair complete. The divine weapon "Dragon Spine" has been rebuilt.]

[The derivation of the cultivation technique "Shattered Stars" is complete.]

Current life expectancy: 1 year, 3 months, and 7 days.

The system's voice was cold and indifferent.

Zhou Yang looked down at the short sword in his hand. Then he raised his hand and touched the wrinkles around his eyes and his graying hair.

The cost is enormous.

But he just grinned and smiled silently.

He raised his sword, and in the dim light of the oil lamp, the runes flowing across the blade reflected on his aged face and his still remarkably bright eyes.

"Celestial Envoy..." he muttered to himself, his voice hoarse yet carrying a chilling ruthlessness, "Did you receive my gift?"

He waved.

There were no moves, no sword energy.

But the air seemed to have been ripped open by that sword strike. The oil lamp on the table suddenly shrank, almost going out.

Zhou Yang sheathed his sword.

He looked out the window; the night was deep.

Anyang County is still awaiting its sacrificial ceremony.

And he was ready.

A crazy opening that cost a century of lifespan.