The walls of the dimension burned. Not with flame, but with memory. A shadow stepped through them—without sound, without shape, only intent. Its presence did not tremble the air; it stilled it. Even the void dared not breathe.
Tian Zhen stood in the valley of dreams, surrounded by jagged shards of night, their edges humming with broken truths. The sky here was not a sky. It was a lid. A seal. A boundary drawn by those afraid of what lay beneath.
And beneath… was him.
But he was not alone.
The shadow did not walk; it arrived. Like a memory returning to the mind, it coiled through the folds of the dimension, its form shifting like language without tongue, its eyes—if they were eyes—bleeding silence.
Tian Zhen did not move. He could not.
The shadow raised a hand. Not to attack. To reveal.
From the fractures of space itself, visions erupted—temples collapsing in reverse, blood retreating into veins, stars folding inward like dying flowers. And through it all, a name echoed—a name older than time, more cursed than any sin.
His own.
Tian Zhen saw himself dying. Again and again. In thousands of worlds. On thousands of altars. Each death more sacred than the last.
And in each… the shadow stood watching.
Not as executioner. But as witness.
"Why?" Tian Zhen whispered, voice cracked with the weight of eternity.
The shadow leaned in. And for the first time, it spoke—not aloud, but into the marrow of his soul.
"Because your existence is a wound. And I… am the blade."
Pain lanced through him. Not physical. Existential. Like being erased from within. His knees buckled. The dream cracked.
Light exploded.
And he woke up.
---
He gasped, drenched in sweat. The hostel room around him was dim, lit only by the flicker of a half-dead bulb. The fan above creaked, turning slower than time itself.
His hands trembled.
His body was real. The walls were real. The noise from the hallway, the distant honking outside the university gates—all real.
But his breath tasted of ash.
He sat up on the thin mattress, clutching his chest.
He was in Planet Elaris.
Not Earth. Not Heaven. Not the dimension of shadow.
But even here, the air felt wrong. As if his body had dragged back a piece of that other place. As if the dream had teeth, and one of them had lodged in his spine.
A mirror stood across from him.
And in it, for the briefest second, his reflection smiled.
But he did not.
It vanished.
He wiped his face. Tried to breathe.
Then he noticed—
On his forearm, just beneath the skin, faint lines shimmered. Symbols. Not tattoos. Not scars. But remnants.
A mark from the dream.
Or the memory.
A knock came at the door.
Soft. Hesitant.
He stood, legs unsteady, and opened it.
No one was there.
Just a folded piece of paper on the ground.
He picked it up, opened it with fingers not fully his own.
Inside, a single line written in ink that moved like smoke:
"Do not trust the stars. They remember."
His pulse thundered.
The dream wasn't over.
It had just begun.
And somewhere, beyond even this waking world, the shadow watched. Still waiting. Still choosing…
The stars above Elaris blinked in quiet rhythm, their celestial dance lost to the bustling life beneath. Here, in the city of Liuyun—a metropolis built across the ridges of glowing quartz mountains and crystal-fused rivers—life pulsed with an arcane vibrancy. High above, manaflights soared like silver birds, trailing ribbons of blue flame, while below, people walked streets paved with enchanted tiles that whispered directions underfoot.
In the southern quarter of the city, nestled between the verdant gardens of Mount Ziyan and the gentle arc of the Crescent Waterfall, stood an ancient institution with walls that shimmered slightly in sunlight—Xihe Academy for Arcane Sciences and Celestial Harmony. Founded nearly two millennia ago by the twin dragon sages of the old world, it had become the heart of learning for the most gifted children across the floating isles of Elaris.
And among them walked a boy who should not have existed.
Tian Zhen adjusted the strap of his satchel as he walked through the outer gates, yawning. His black uniform jacket hung open, revealing a white shirt with its collar lazily upturned. A breeze rolled through, stirring his dark hair and carrying the scent of mana blossoms in bloom. Around him, students gathered in the courtyard, exchanging greetings and bursts of spelllight in mock duels.
He blinked once, his eyes adjusting to the golden morning sun. It felt strange. Too bright. Too warm. As though the weight of last night's dream—or was it something more—still clung to him like mist.
"Oi! Tian! You look like death tried to kiss you and you refused out of politeness."
The voice came from a tall, lanky boy sprinting down the steps two at a time. Renshu was his name—technically Ren Shu Wei—but everyone dropped the middle out of affection or laziness. His mana shimmered with a curious pink tint, always fizzing slightly like soda. He wore his uniform in a similar state of rebellion—tie loose, one sleeve rolled up, the other torn.
Tian smirked. "Maybe death has better taste than I do."
Renshu guffawed, clapping him on the back. "That's the spirit. Come on—if we don't get to first period before the bell, Professor Kaelin's going to recite that terrible poem again. You know the one. About the sun being a flaming fart of creation."
"She calls it divine illumination."
"She also drinks tea with chili flakes. Come on."
The two darted into the building, slipping past the ancient stone dragons at the threshold. Inside, the academy was a blend of old magic and modern marvel. Floating lanterns drifted above the marble halls. Stained glass murals told the stories of ancient battles and divine harmonies. Arcanotech bulletin boards flickered with announcements in three languages—Old Script, Common, and Mana-glyph.
Classrooms branched from the central atrium like starbursts. Tian and Renshu slid into Room 3-Q just as the bell rang—its chime not a sound, but a ripple of light that passed through the bones.
At the front stood Professor Kaelin, her robe made entirely of runic leaves that rustled even when she didn't move.
"You are late," she said, eyes glowing a soft emerald. "But not unforgivably so. Sit. Today we begin a new unit—Dimensional Anchors and Their Relevance in Post-Shatter Cosmology."
Tian sank into his seat beside the window, the laughter from earlier fading. Outside, the sun still shone. Birds darted through skypaths. But he couldn't shake the feeling. That dream—so vivid. That shadow.
It hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt like a warning.
Across the aisle, another student caught his eye. Elara. She always sat alone, a quiet girl with violet eyes that seemed to pierce through illusions. No one quite knew where she was from. Some said she was part celestial. Others whispered she had no shadow.
Today, she looked at him differently.
Not in curiosity.
In recognition.
Tian looked away.
He didn't know what scared him more—that she saw something in him, or that it might be true.
Outside, clouds began to gather slowly over Liuyun City—though no storm had been forecast.
And far beneath the foundations of Xihe Academy, deep in the ley-woven crust of Elaris, something shifted.
Something that remembered his name...
Before People reacts, the sky cracked.
It wasn't thunder. It was something else entirely. Like the sound of a blade dragging through stars. Above the city, the protective dome shimmered—and then fractured. A hairline split appeared in the sky, glowing deep violet. The birds scattered. The clouds reversed their winds.
Alarms howled across Mirithal.
Tian's breath caught as something ancient flared to life inside him.
The Academy grounds erupted in motion. Students poured from dorms, instructors lit glyphs into the air, and magical circuits embedded in the stone streets began to glow. Floating platforms descended from the sky, carrying battle mages in rune-clad uniforms.
"Evac protocols," Kai(Tian's roommate) muttered, pulling on his jacket. "No way this is a drill."
Then the crack widened.
Something came through.
A shape—monstrous, serpentine, wrapped in smoke and flame—slithered down from the breach. Its limbs were like the bones of titans. Its face was a skull that moved. Its roar did not come from a throat, but from the twisting laws of reality.
And that was only the first one.
Behind it, the rift pulsed again—and more followed. Insectoid beasts with black crystal armor. Winged abominations made of stitched flesh and metal. Creatures that should not exist in a world bound by logic or mercy.
"Voidspawn," Kai breathed. "They've broken through…"
Tian felt the memory of the dream—the obsidian mirror, the voice that said you were never meant to be born. The echo returned.
But this time, it came with fire.
He reached for the silver ring on his finger—a plain thing gifted by the Academy for mana regulation. It cracked under his touch. The glyphs in his veins, which should have been dormant, ignited.
And the darkness inside him stirred.
"Zhen," Kai said, staring. "What are you—"
Then he look toward the Tian.
Tian's eyes flashed. For a heartbeat, they were not human.
---
From the academy spires, battle formations were forming. The headmasters—the High Seven of Elaris—stood at the edge of the field, their auras pressing down like storms. Elemental dragons took flight. Glyph towers activated their defense barriers.
And then the war began.
The first wave of Voidspawn hit the city gates, unleashing devastation. The dome shattered fully. Explosions of mana lit the air. Civilians were teleported away in waves as young mages—some barely sixteen—stood shoulder to shoulder with war veterans to defend the walls.
Tian Zhen did not run.
He walked toward the front line…