*Mount Taichan, Celestial Realm – 天境*
The sky above **Mount Taichan** split into streams of golden light as the **Ritual of Selection** neared its apex. Banners embroidered with phoenixes and dragons shimmered in the windless air. Hundreds of celestial monks stood still, arrayed in precise concentric circles on silverstone platforms floating over the sacred peak. Every breath of the crowd was synchronized—held in anticipation, hushed in reverence.
At the mountain's heart stood the **Divine Plaza**, where seven stairways met, each carved from a different elemental material: jade, flame-crystal, echo-glass, bone-wood, starlight steel, storm opal, and void marble. Only one path would accept the true heir.
In the center floated the **Word-Soul Vessel**, a translucent sphere thrumming with a voice that spoke no words but stirred every heart. It shimmered like the surface of a lake seen through a dream, whispering in fragmented syllables only the worthy could piece together. This was no mere artifact—it was **The Peace of the Word-Soul**, a shard of the divine language from before time.
Today, it was to choose a new **Celestial Guardian**.
---
"Keep moving, you orphan-born fool!"
The hissed insult came with a hard shove. **Orion Liu**—or **Liǔ Xīngchén**, as his name was officially logged—stumbled forward, nearly dropping the ceremonial incense bowl he was carrying. The contents sloshed, nearly tipping over. Smoke curled from the edge and shimmered violet in the divine light.
"Sorry," Orion muttered, steadying the bowl with shaking fingers.
He kept his head bowed, not meeting the sneer of **Wei Caine**, the enforcer from the Ember Realm with molten veins coiling around his arms like dragon tattoos. His presence burned—literally. The grass beneath his feet sizzled even on sacred ground.
"You shouldn't even be here. Your bloodline is dirt," Wei spat before turning his back.
Orion bit the inside of his cheek to keep his face calm. He'd heard it all before.
An orphan from no known lineage, raised by forgotten scholars in the outer provinces, he had no talent for spiritual cultivation. No spirit beast had ever responded to him. No scroll glowed under his touch. No inner sea to hold Qi. The only reason he was even at Mount Taichan was because he had begged for a servant's post, and they had laughed and agreed—so he could carry incense.
Still, something inside him today buzzed. A strange sensation in his chest pulsed—like a second heartbeat, silent but ancient.
---
At the top of the platform, the seven **Chosen Candidates**—one from each of the Guardian bloodlines—stood tall and regal, dressed in ceremonial robes corresponding to their Realm.
All eyes were on **Yu Silence** (玉无言), the girl from the Celestial Realm, veiled and barefoot. She did not speak but seemed to move in rhythm with the Word-Soul's pulse. They said she'd been born under a falling star and had never cried as a baby. Only **Oracle Xia** had been able to hear her thoughts.
Beside her, **Blaze Fang** (方烬), the Ember Realm's candidate, held a stance of perfect readiness, gripping his fire-forged spear with casual arrogance. He radiated controlled destruction.
One of them would be chosen. That was the truth of prophecy.
---
Orion reached the base of the seventh staircase—**the Void Marble Stair**, unused in over a thousand years. It was said to belong to the "unspoken heir"—a poetic way of saying: no one.
He knelt to place the incense bowl on the ceremonial pedestal.
The moment the bowl touched stone, the **Word-Soul flared**.
Sudden silence.
Then a wind rose—not from the air, but from **within**. Papers flew, light spiraled inward. The seven candidates stepped back, alarmed.
The Word-Soul tore from its stable place in the air and **raced downward like a comet**—not toward any of the chosen, but toward **Orion**.
---
"No!" someone screamed—perhaps a monk, perhaps a candidate.
But it was too late.
The Word-Soul struck Orion's chest like a spear of silk and thunder. Time stretched. Reality twisted. Colors inverted. Orion's knees buckled as **language itself** filled him—words of gods, meanings too vast for thought.
**His mind screamed.**
Visions flooded him: spirals of star-script, battles in flame, a forest swallowing a city, a tower with no top, a girl with no voice screaming through stone.
The Peace of the Word-Soul did not kill him. It **entered him**.
The prophecy shattered.
The runes in the sky **unwrote themselves.**
---
In the silence that followed, the High Oracle's staff cracked against the marble. She was not yelling—but every word she spoke landed like a storm.
"This was not… meant to be."
She looked at Orion.
Then she turned to dust and **vanished**.
---
Gasps rippled through the crowd like a sonic wave. The celestial monks—guardians of law and balance—stood frozen, their formation breaking for the first time in a century. From their mouths and minds poured confusion, fear, and a growing whisper:
> *The prophecy is broken.*
On the ceremonial dais, the seven chosen candidates had all instinctively backed away. Their divine sigils dimmed, their spirits recoiled, and even the ambient energy—the *Qi* of Mount Taichan—seemed to hesitate, disturbed by what it had just witnessed.
Orion knelt alone at the base of the Void Stair, clutching his chest, eyes wide, gasping like a drowning man dragged into light.
The divine essence within him writhed.
He felt language crawling through his bones—syllables of impossible shape, ancient grammar bending his blood into runes. The Word-Soul wasn't just inside him—it was **changing** him.
---
A voice rang out, trembling yet loud.
"Restrain the vessel!"
It was **High Master Yuan**, head of the Celestial Monks. His robes, usually calm and silver, now billowed violently from the spiritual wind surrounding Orion.
Two monks moved forward, spinning golden talismans from their sleeves. But as they stepped near, a pulse burst from Orion's body—unintended, uncontrolled. A wave of translucent energy surged outward and sent both men flying into the stone pillars.
He didn't mean to do it.
He didn't even **know** he did it.
The crowd erupted in chaos.
---
"He stole the Peace!"
"He is cursed!"
"Where is the Oracle?!"
"Did the prophecy lie?!"
From the upper tiers, nobles and family elders began arguing furiously. The Yu family looked outraged. The Mo family stepped back in contemplation. The Fang and Wei representatives began shouting that this was sabotage—a trick from one of the lower provinces.
Only the Lin elders of the Echo Realm said nothing. They stared, watching Orion with unreadable expressions.
---
Meanwhile, Orion was crumbling.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see straight. His skin burned with script. Runes scrawled themselves across his forearms like spiritual brands—symbols no one recognized.
A voice, not his own, but not quite foreign, whispered from within him:
> *You are the shell. The key was lost. The words… must awaken.*
And then…
**Black.**
---
When Orion next opened his eyes, he was in a cell.
---
The walls glowed faintly with runic restraint sigils. He lay on a slab of cold stone. No windows. No doors. Only silence.
He blinked.
Then sat up—slowly.
His chest ached. Not like bruises or broken ribs. No, this pain was deeper. It was like something was trying to settle inside him, but couldn't find space. Like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong box.
On his palms, the runes had faded slightly, but were still visible—faint and gold under his skin.
> *What happened to me?*
He tried to remember it all, but the memory was fractured. The ritual. The flash. The Word-Soul. Then visions—cities made of vines, people whose shadows bled backward in time.
And the Oracle.
> *She looked at me… and vanished.*
Was it fear? Recognition? Or…
...a plan?
The door to the cell opened with a hiss.
A man entered, tall and severe, with eyes like chipped obsidian.
"Orion Liu," he said, voice flat. "You have been summoned."
---
They marched him through underground corridors he'd never seen before, lined with silver veins in stone. He noticed his feet left **glowing footprints** that slowly faded—Qi discharge. He tried to hide it, but the guards escorting him gave him nervous glances. They weren't sure if he was divine… or dangerous.
Or both.
They entered a chamber shaped like a hexagon. Seven thrones.
The elders of each major realm sat in judgment.
> Celestial – Elder Yu
>
> Ember – Elder Fang
>
> Verdant – Elder Mo
>
> Echo – Elder Lin
>
> Storm – Elder Hei (present in spirit-form only)
>
> Depth – Elder Shui
>
> Skyless – vacant since the war
Only six of the seven thrones were occupied.
Where the **Oracle Xia** should have been—there was nothing. Just her empty staff, leaning against a column.
---
Elder Fang spoke first. His voice cracked like embers on stone.
"This child is unworthy. The Word-Soul has been desecrated."
Elder Yu followed, eyes cold behind a veil. "He bears no family mark. No prophecy connects to him. His spirit sea was void before the incident. He is an **error.**"
Orion stood frozen in the center of the circle. Every word struck like a hammer.
Elder Mo raised a hand, calm and composed. "Yet the power chose him."
"To choose in error," said Elder Shui, "is still a choice. The Divine can be misled."
Only Elder Lin remained silent.
Finally, he spoke.
"No prophecy is without interpretation. But punishment before understanding is weakness."
A pause. Then he added:
"Send him to us. If he survives, the truth will emerge."
---
The vote was cast.
Four realms voted for **exile.** Two abstained. None spoke in his defense.
The sentence was clear.
---
Orion Liu—the mistake, the misfit, the undeserving—would be **banished** to the forgotten realm of echoes.
Where broken students went to be erased.
The passage to the **Echo Realm** was not a road. It was a **ritual unto itself**—a punishment and a warning.
Orion was bound in a floating seal-prison: a transparent, rune-inscribed cube that hovered silently behind the **Celestial Monks** as they chanted. Inside, he was weightless, knees drawn to his chest, spinning gently in lightless space. Each rotation showed him nothing but reflection—his own face, pale and confused, caught between broken light.
No one spoke to him.
Not the monks. Not the guards. Not even the winds that howled as they crossed dimensional ridges.
Orion didn't know where they were going. Only that it was **downward**. Always downward.
Time fractured here.
He dozed once—woke to find days had passed, or maybe seconds. The silence was so vast, he began to imagine the Word-Soul whispering again.
> *Shell of breath… root of stone… mistake or meaning?*
The whisper wasn't from outside.
It was **inside him.**
---
At last, the cube slowed.
It hovered above an arch carved into a jagged ravine.
A lone stone stairwell twisted down into the throat of the mountain—worn, cracked, and old.
Above the arch were words written in six languages, one of which bled and shifted:
> **Academy of the Forgotten—Ghostspire Institute.**
Two monks released Orion from the cube.
They gave no explanation.
Just handed him a small linen bag and a scroll marked **"Failure: Classification E-77."**
Then they turned and left.
---
The moment their backs vanished into the air, the sky above the canyon **sealed shut.**
A low hum echoed through the stones.
The barrier returned.
He was trapped.
---
Ghostspire Institute had no welcoming gate, no attending official, no shining sigils like the outer Realms. The stairwell spiraled inward, and when Orion finally reached the bottom—ankles raw, stomach sick—he saw it:
An ancient structure built into the rock wall, half-crumbling, with torches that burned smoke instead of light.
Above the door was a rusted plaque:
> **"We Remember Those They Forgot."**
---
The moment Orion stepped inside, **he was struck by noise**.
Screaming. Laughing. Mock duels. Flashes of unstable Qi bursting from corners.
It was a school in only the barest sense. Cracked walls. Floating debris. Magic leaking from spells gone wrong. Students with bruises, scarred faces, and dead eyes. These weren't the hopeful. These were the **discarded**—people the Realms had deemed unworthy.
And now… he was one of them.
---
"Fresh meat?" a voice said behind him.
Orion turned—and saw a tall boy with grayish skin, eyes like polished granite, and a scar that curled around his left cheekbone.
"Name?" the boy asked.
"Orion."
"Don't care. You'll be gone in a month." He grinned and walked off.
Orion exhaled, still gripping the linen bag. He opened it and found only:
* A cracked spirit compass (broken)
* One week's worth of nutrient lozenges
* A robe two sizes too large
* A stone with a symbol he didn't recognize
No bedding. No room key. No map.
---
He wandered.
Hallways twisted unpredictably. Doorways opened into classrooms with no floor. Ghosts whispered calculus theorems backwards. Time stuttered in certain corners. The deeper he went, the **more wrong** things became.
Until he found her.
---
She sat on a suspended platform, alone. Pale skin. Black eyes like mirrors. Hair tied in an ink-black braid down her spine. She was reading a book upside down while levitating three pieces of chalk with a lazy hand.
She looked… peaceful.
> *Familiar?*
No. But something in Orion stirred when he saw her.
She looked up.
"You're bleeding," she said flatly.
He checked—nosebleed.
Probably from the shifting air pressure and divine rebound still warping his internal Qi pathways.
"You're not supposed to be here," she added.
He stepped closer. "I was sent here."
She nodded slowly. "Then you're either dangerous… or a mistake."
He didn't answer.
"Name?"
"Orion Liu. Or… Liǔ Xīngchén."
She tilted her head. "Celestial? No. Your accent's wrong."
"I'm… from the outer provinces."
She didn't laugh. That was rare.
"I'm **Yu Wuyan**," she said. "In English, I'm Silence Yu. Because I don't speak unless I want to." A pause. "This is the only stable part of the academy. Stay close to the pillars."
He noticed—six stone pillars surrounded the platform, each etched with containment glyphs.
"Stable how?" he asked.
She flicked her hand.
Behind her, a wall of the hallway collapsed into sand, then reversed time and rebuilt itself in a loop.
Orion stared.
"This place is breaking," Silence said. "The academy is dying."
---
As she turned back to her upside-down book, Orion sat down, cautiously, next to the outermost glyph.
His chest ached again.
The Word-Soul inside him pulsed—slightly stronger near her.
> *Why?*
Silence Yu didn't look at him again, but she muttered:
> "You're not the first mistake they've made."
Orion sat in stunned silence.
Around them, the Ghostspire Institute groaned as though it were alive—pipes rattling with phantom echoes, walls sighing under ancient spells. Dust drifted like memory. Somewhere nearby, someone screamed in frustration, followed by a violent burst of Qi that shook the rafters.
Yet here, inside this ring of pillars, all was still.
"You said I'm not the first mistake," Orion said finally, his voice quiet.
Silence Yu didn't look up from her book. "Did you think the Realms only discarded farmers and crippled cultivators? No. Sometimes they throw away their *questions.*"
"Questions?"
"People who prove the prophecy might be wrong."
Orion swallowed. "You mean people like… me?"
She finally turned a page. "I don't mean anything. The Word-Soul chose you. Or maybe it malfunctioned. But you're the first in three generations to come here under that kind of backlash."
He stared at her, blinking. "You… know what happened?"
She closed the book.
"The light above Taichan cracked. The Oracle vanished. And you walked away glowing with forbidden glyphs." She folded her hands. "So yes, I know."
Orion felt cold. "The Word-Soul… it didn't feel like it chose me. It *forced* itself into me. Like it made a mistake and didn't know how to fix it."
She nodded slowly. "And now it's your problem."
---
A loud bang echoed down the corridor—followed by laughter and footsteps.
Three students appeared from the misty hall. All older than Orion. All wrapped in faded academy robes—torn, patched, and stained.
The one in front had eyes that sparkled with mischief and madness. He was short, wiry, and carried a staff made of glass bones.
"Well well well," he said. "Looks like we've got ourselves a shiny new exile."
He stepped into the ring.
The glyphs flickered.
Silence Yu raised an eyebrow. "Don't."
"Relax, Princess Silent. I'm not here to kill him. Just… test his reflexes."
He grinned at Orion, then pointed the glass-bone staff.
Before Orion could react, a bolt of crimson Qi surged toward him.
But something strange happened.
The moment the energy neared his body, the **Word-Soul surged** inside him—light flaring instinctively.
Orion raised a hand without thinking—
And the bolt **shattered** mid-air into glowing letters.
The air snapped with sound as if a divine syllable had clapped its hands.
Everyone stared.
Even Silence's book levitated an inch before dropping back down.
"…what was that?" the older boy asked, not angry—*fascinated.*
Orion blinked at his own hand. "I—I didn't mean to—"
"No normal seal deflects like that," the boy said. "What kind of inner sea do you *have*?"
"I don't know," Orion said. "I didn't have one… until—"
"Until the Word-Soul," Silence muttered.
The boy turned to her. "So it's true? He's *that* one?"
"I didn't say that," she replied. "You're hearing what you want."
"Good," the boy said, grinning wider now. "Then I want to hear this: the Academy just got interesting again."
He pointed at Orion.
"Name's **Lan Ghost**, by the way. And you, little anomaly, just became my favorite new mistake."
He winked.
Then vanished in a blink of smoke and shifting floor tiles.
---
Silence sighed. "You'll want to stay away from him."
"Why?" Orion asked.
"Because he's brilliant," she said, picking her book back up. "And in this place, brilliance gets people killed."
---
Later that night, Orion was assigned a **room**—though it barely qualified.
A hollow stone chamber on the third broken floor. No bed. Just a threadbare mat, a flickering talisman-lantern, and a cracked window overlooking the abyss that surrounded the Ghostspire's outer cliffs.
He sat cross-legged, still shivering slightly.
The events of the day looped in his head:
* The Word-Soul's voice
* The Oracle's disappearance
* The exile
* The glass bolt shattering
* The glyphs on his hands glowing again
He looked down.
The runes had faded once more—but under moonlight, faint trails still moved beneath his skin like whispered ink.
> *What did it put inside me?*
He thought of asking the monks. Or anyone.
But then he remembered their faces.
Fear.
Not curiosity. Not reverence.
Just fear.
---
That night, Orion dreamed.
---
He stood in a white space where the **stars bled**.
Not blood, but ink—vast and dripping, falling onto the canvas of the void.
In the center floated the **Word-Soul**—but it was larger now. No longer a crystal orb. It was a vast, humming sphere, made of sentences and silence, of names he didn't know how to pronounce.
It turned to him.
He felt himself sinking into its presence.
Then…
A **figure** appeared. A silhouette. Tall, cloaked in letters.
No face. Just eyes—empty.
It said one word:
> "Repeat."
Orion tried to speak, but his throat filled with light.
He fell—
Woke—
Gasping.
---
It was morning.
If morning even *meant* anything here.
He rose. His robe hung loose. His body still ached. But the pulse in his chest had stabilized—slightly.
A knock echoed on his door.
"Mandatory orientation," said a voice.
He opened it.
A thin girl stood there—eyes red, one arm wrapped in a cast of paper charms.
"Welcome to Ghostspire"