Tpian Rui knelt before the stone steps of Azure Peak Sect's Hall of Ancients, his worn hands sweeping the cold, unforgiving floor. He had been cleaning these halls for years, an unnoticed shadow among cultivators who could bend the heavens with a thought. The scent of incense and aged scrolls filled the air, but it did little to mask the bitterness in his mouth.
He wasn't supposed to be here. Not as a disciple, not as anything. His spirit root was broken—sealed away the moment he was born. Instead of qi flowing through him like a raging river, it was as if his body had been locked from the inside out, denied the most basic foundation of cultivation. To those who wore the robes of the sect, his existence was as insignificant as the dust he wiped away.
A footstep broke the silence. Tian Rui stiffened, instinctively looking up. A senior disciple from the Azure Peak sect walked past, the hem of his robes swishing arrogantly. The disciple's eyes flicked over him, a sneer barely hidden behind his expression.
"Still cleaning the floors, servant?" The words were sharp, as cold as the wind sweeping through the temple courtyard.
Tian Rui lowered his gaze again, the familiar ache of shame settling in his chest. He didn't respond. Words were meaningless to them. In the eyes of the sect, he was nothing more than a tool, useful only in his labor.
But there was a faint, flickering ember inside him that refused to die. That ember burned whenever he was reminded of his difference, his weakness. He wanted to be more. To become something more.
Just once.
He picked up the cloth again, wiping away at the stone beneath him, though the task felt more like a curse with each movement.
---
Later that night, in the Hall of Ancients...
Tian Rui's chores had finally ended. The vast hall, where the greatest cultivators of Azure Peak were immortalized in jade statues and gilded scrolls, now stood empty.
But tonight, something felt... different. A strange hum filled the air, and an odd pulse seemed to come from the center of the room. His heart skipped, and for the first time in years, a strange power tugged at his very soul.
Curiosity overtook him, and he ventured further into the hall, his footsteps muffled by the dust-covered floor. In the very center of the room sat an ancient relic, its surface black as night, shaped like a single, jagged stone. The edges were etched with a symbol he didn't recognize—逆—the single character glowing faintly in the darkened room.
Tian Rui approached cautiously, the stone calling to him like a whisper. His hands shook as he reached out.
No one touches the relics here.
The thought raced through his mind, but his fingers found their way to the stone, trembling as they brushed against its surface.
---
In that moment, everything changed.
A sharp pain tore through Tian Rui's chest, and the relic pulsed violently under his fingertips. A flood of foreign memories rushed into him—memories of a time long past, of a dying god chained between stars, screaming a name lost to the ages.
"You are not broken... You were sealed."
The ground trembled. The walls of the Hall seemed to bend around him, the air growing thick with ancient power. He gasped, his knees buckling beneath him as his spirit flared to life, roaring within the confines of his body.
He was no longer a boy with a broken root.
He was something else.
---
Tian Rui's vision blurred as the memories of an ancient war, of the Pathless Dao, flooded his senses. He fell to the floor, breathing heavily, and as he touched the stone once more, the world around him seemed to split—a crack in the very fabric of reality.
He could hear something now. A voice, distant but familiar. Come.
With that single command, his fate had been sealed.