In the beginning, when history had yet to be written, the voice buried beneath time forged the path of cultivation.
He embodied Hunger, Will, and the Silence that exists between stars, as well as the fire that instilled fear in the Heavens. He did not walk among mortals, for there was no necessity. Instead, mortals moved in the form of his shadow, their tongues acquiring speech only after echoing his name. But even gods fall. And when he fell, he fell beyond memory.
Now, none remember him. Not the Immortal Courts, not the Celestial Archives. Not even the Heavens, where the Eidolons have since rewritten the tapestry of truth. Only one truth endured.
He lives still. He suffers still. He grieves still.
And he cannot die.
He was cursed, a body that does not bleed, carrying a mind that does not forget. The curse that sealed him did not take his power. It took his name. It took his meaning. It left behind a hollow being, cursed by his pride, abandoned by time.
He has tried, again and again, to die, to end his eternal torment.
Yet his pride, old, holy and terrible. Guard against the blade he so desperately tries to use on himself. It binds him more cruelly than chains ever could.
So, he devised another path. He broke himself. Not into pieces. Not into children.
Into fragments.
Into weapons.
Into hope.
And he cast them into the Mortal Domain, hidden in the torrential current of reincarnation.
Wrath, grief, memory, silence, and hope.
He no longer remembers what they are called. But through the silence of the hollow throne, he listens.
And he waits.
The world, like the god who shaped it, was not whole. It was layered, drifting, fractured, and vast.
The Mortal Domain, the lowest realm, where common men dwell, where Qi hardly flows, and the soil remembers blood more than peace. Kingdoms rise here, fall here, and dream of reaching higher across millennia, yet only a few find the gateway to the immortal world.
The Immortal World, a realm of cloud cities, divine beasts, and cultivators who have transcended death. The spiritual laws are sharper here, and ambition cuts as deep as any blade. Qi flows like a river, enabling children to be born with a cultivation base.
The Outer World, the broken shell beyond structure, a drifting graveyard of forbidden arts and shattered truths. Gods were cast here. Forgotten things crawl here. It does not forgive. Only the strong survive and begin to create their domains.
The Heavens, the seat of the celestial court, distant and cold. Its lords sing truths into law and erase heresy with a thought. From here, the last threads of the voice buried beneath time were severed. The remaining Eidolons are in constant fear, driving them to madness, fearing the God they banished will someday return.
And beneath them all, a silence waits. The hollow throne, the once angelic seat of power, was held only by the strongest, now sealed in fear from a ruler they once deemed too prideful to lead.
And in the lowest realm, where war breeds death and the heavens feel farthest away, the first fragment stirred.
In the shattered borderlands where the Mortal Domain merges into the lost wilderness, a boy named Revyn awoke from a dream of stars vanishing beneath the veil of the universe. He gasped, and his body shivered. He did not remember why he began crying.
The hermits who raised him said he was born silent, even as lightning cracked the sky and ice rained from above. He had never cried since the loss of his parents, not when the storms came, not when the sea swallowed half the coast.
But now, the tears started falling on their own, seemingly endless.
And something beneath his chest pulsed in time with them. Cold. Deep. And still.
He pressed his feeble hands to his ribs. The ache was not his own. It came from elsewhere, from something powerful, mourning through him.
The Ashlight had awakened.
That night, the stars above the ruins dimmed to a near void, and those who gazed skyward felt a weight behind their hearts. Revyn wandered alone beneath their light, guided by instincts not his own, and the first whispers of a dream that did not belong to him.
His shadow stretched farther than it should have. And it watched him back, looking deep into his soul.
Far north, where winter never loosens its grip, the sky burned red. Flames engulfed the wilderness as if rebelling against nature.
Astrid ran. Snow broke beneath her feet. Behind her, the screams of her village curdled into silence. Fire clung to the wind, searing her back, marking her as one who fled.
She hated that more than anything.
She turned.
The Ironskull Raiders advanced with slow, deliberate cruelty. One of them, towering and cloaked in archaic armour, raised his great sword.
She had no weapon. No training. No Qi.
Yet she felt nothing but rage.
The moment the blade fell, her breath ignited.
Ashlight exploded from her bones, blinding white and red flames scorching from her body. The raider screamed as the air shattered. The snow melted and boiled. Her scream rose higher, ripped directly from her soul.
When she snapped out of her rage, she stood alone in the ruin of scorched earth and smoking bodies.
High in the mist-covered peaks of Virelen, a boy sat unmoving in meditation, his breath as still as iron. The monks of the forbidden pantheon watched in silence. Not daring to disturb his meditative state. The child had not spoken once in seven years.
But today, he opened his eyes.
And all sound ceased.
Not by will, not by technique. The wind paused. The chimes froze. Even the heartbeats of nearby monks slowed.
In the void of that silence, Ashlight glimmered faintly from his skin, similar to light passing through glass.
He stood, the silence following him like a wave. One monk wept, another begun praying, though they knew not why.
Caelum simply walked past, never speaking a word. As if words are not worth his time.
But as he descended the stone steps toward the temple's edge, the mists parted without wind, and the soundless world encompassing him revealed something waiting beneath a monument, weathered and shattered, carved with symbols no living monk could read.
Without hesitation, he touched it, believing it to be part of his purpose.
The silence around him deepened.
Through the absence of noise, a voice echoed not in his ears, but behind his thoughts.
In the drifting river city of Liyuan, a girl sat frozen, dreaming with her eyes open.
Yuna sat beside the water as boats drifted by, a journal in her lap. Its pages were empty. Her pen trembled with ink she did not recall using.
People strolled by her, believing her unnatural detachment was something not to be noticed. Living in the city of dreams, many cultivators experience strange phenomena.
The moonlight shimmered strangely on the water.
As she blinked, the world changed.
She stood in a palace of mirrors. Overwhelming and divine, a place not suited for a child like herself.
A man in a mask offered her a scroll. With hesitation, she reached for it, and it turned to ash. Panicking, she inhaled, and it flowed into her mouth like breath.
She woke with a gasp. Cold sweat was beating down her forehead, and shivers were unstoppable, aching her small body.
On the page before her, words curled like smoke in the wind.
'I remember him'
She did not know who. But her hand glowed faintly. A divine hue pulsing along with her thoughts.
And she wept, not in sorrow, but recognition. She felt as if something precious to her that had been lost was found.
At the edge of the Sea of Mist, in a crumbling temple garden, a child kneeled beside a dying monk. His body was malnourished as his illness restricted him from consuming food.
He smiled at her, eyes hollow and bleak.
"Not all lights fade," he said, smiling, attempting to soothe the child in her moment of loss.
She took his hand. Her palm shone. Not bright, but warm, soothing. The monk exhaled softly and passed, healed from his illness in his last moments granted him a painless death.
The other monks watched, stunned.
No one had ever healed like that before. Even among the greatest talents in healing sects
Senn said nothing. She only looked at her hands as the Ashlight lingered, curling like dawn between her fingers.
'I won't let the suffering continue, I will be the one to help those who cannot help themselves'
She clenched her small hand in resoluteness. An unwavering determination coursing through her body.
The fragments have stirred for the first time in centuries.
The Ashlight breathes.
And far beyond the Heavens, a forgotten god lifts his head for the first time in thousands of years.
He does not know their names.
But he watches. In silence and solitude.
Through broken monuments, silent storms, and flickering dreams.
He waits, not for salvation or purpose.
But for release.
Even if it kills him.
He hopes it does.
He prays it does.