The sky had no stars.
No clouds.
No wind.
Only an oppressive stillness, as if time had ceased to breathe.
Lan stood waist-deep in black water that shimmered like spilled ink. It stretched forever in every direction, an ocean without shores or sound. Each ripple against his skin felt like the echo of thoughts not yet formed—memories waiting to be reborn.
He exhaled. The sound barely made a mark in the still air.
Then, a ripple. Not from him.
Footsteps. Across water.
Xie Wuchen walked toward him—barefoot, his spectral reflection gliding just above the surface as though refusing to acknowledge the laws of this plane.
His black robes fluttered despite the windless void. His face was sharper now, clearer than usual—no longer a whisper of memory but something nearer to truth. Or inevitability.
They stood side by side, twin silhouettes beneath a sky that had never known light.
Silence bound them.
Until Wuchen spoke, voice like polished obsidian slicing through stillness:
