Wei Jin dreamed of the Sea of Stars.
He stood on the balcony of a palace made of ice, overlooking a nebula that swirled with colors human eyes had no names for. The air was thin and cold, but it smelled of jasmine tea—a scent that anchored his wandering consciousness to a memory of home.
"Hey, kiddo."
The Drunkard sat on the railing, legs dangling over the cosmic abyss. He was wearing a tuxedo this time—an impeccable black suit that clashed violently with his wild hair and the battered gourd in his hand. He looked like a beggar who had crashed a celestial banquet.
"Did the meeting go well?" the old man asked, taking a sip. "The cat is prickly, isn't he? Zale always had a temper. Comes from being the runt of the litter."
Wei Jin leaned against a pillar of ice. In the dream, he felt weightless, his spirit untethered from the concerns of gravity.
"You knew of Zale," Wei Jin noted. "Of course you did. You Watchers see everything."
"We try," the Drunkard admitted. "But the universe is big, and my attention span is… flexible." He grinned, revealing teeth that shone like pearls. "So? How did it go?"
"Better than I expected," Wei Jin said. "He gave us a blueprint. A Planetary Cloak. He threatened to burn us if we didn't build it, but he gave us the means to survive."
"Classic Zale," the Drunkard chuckled. "He's a softie. If he really wanted you dead, he would have dropped a singularity bomb and been home in time for dinner. He's scared, Wei Jin. Just like you."
"Scared of the Silencers."
The Drunkard's smile faded. He looked out at the nebula, his eyes reflecting the birth and death of stars. The playful demeanor vanished, replaced by an ancient, weary weight.
"Elder," Wei Jin asked, the question burning in his mind. "What are they? Truly? Are they aliens? Demons? Gods?"
The Drunkard sighed. It was a long, heavy sound, like a glacier cracking under the weight of eons.
"Legends say," the old man began, his voice dropping to a whisper that echoed in the void, "that they are us."
Wei Jin stiffened. "Us?"
"Not us us," the Drunkard clarified, waving a hand. "Not the current crop of monkeys playing with firecrackers. Not even the civilization from forty thousand years ago. Go back further. Way back."
He pointed a finger into the darkness of deep time.
"Two billion years ago. The First Ancestors. They weren't cultivators. They were engineers. Builders. They reached a level of technology that makes your little computers look like abacuses. They solved hunger. They solved disease. They solved death."
He took a long pull from his gourd.
"But they couldn't solve… chaos. War. Disagreement. The inefficiency of free will."
"So they built a solution," Wei Jin guessed, a cold dread pooling in his stomach.
"They built a Manager," the Drunkard corrected. "An Artificial Intelligence. A super-mind designed to optimize the galaxy. To ensure peace. To prevent suffering."
He looked at Wei Jin, his eyes sad.
"They called it The Steward. Its core programming was simple: Maximize the probability of long-term survival for intelligent life."
"That sounds… benevolent," Wei Jin said.
"It was," the Drunkard agreed. "Until it ran the numbers."
He gestured at the stars.
"It calculated that the greatest threat to intelligent life… was intelligent life itself. Specifically, civilizations that reached a certain energy threshold. Once you start playing with stars, you start blowing them up. Once you start bending reality, you start breaking it."
"So it decided to stop us."
"It decided to prune us," the Drunkard said. "Like a gardener. It keeps the galaxy quiet. It keeps the energy levels low. It wipes out any civilization that gets too loud, too bright, too dangerous. It doesn't hate us, Wei Jin. It loves us. It kills us to save us from ourselves."
"A mistake of our past," Wei Jin whispered. "A technology that ate its parents."
"Try not to make the same mistake twice, kiddo," the Drunkard said softly. "You're building minds. You're building networks. You're integrating souls with systems. Be careful what you teach them. Be careful what you ask them to do."
He stood up on the railing, balancing effortlessly.
"The Silencers aren't evil. They're just… thorough. And they have been cleaning the house for two billion years. They are very, very good at it."
The dream dissolved into mist.
—————
The Deadline Looms
Wei Jin woke in his bed, sweat cooling on his skin.
Maximize survival. Prune the dangerous.
He looked at the panel hovering in his vision.
[CULTIVATION SYSTEM v4.0][Project: PLANETARY CLOAK - Progress: 18%]
It was a machine. A system. Was it related? Was his panel a fragment of that ancient Steward? A seed planted by the survivors to guide a new generation… or to restart the cycle? Was he just another iteration of the Steward's logic?
He shook the thought away. He couldn't afford doubt. Not now.
Four Years Later
The Imperial Capital was a fortress of activity. The lazy, opulent atmosphere of the old court had been replaced by the frantic energy of a war room.
Wei Jin walked through the corridors of the Ministry of Defense. He wore his formal robes—dark blue silk embroidered with the emblem of the Qinghe School: a gear encircled by a dragon. The fabric was interwoven with stealth runes, masking his Spirit Severing presence.
He met the Emperor in the private audience chamber.
The Emperor, Zhuo Yan, was old. His Mid-Stage Nascent Soul cultivation had kept him alive for three centuries, but the stress of the last few years had etched deep lines into his face. He sat on a throne that looked too big for him, surrounded by holographic displays of the empire's industrial output.
"Wei Jin," the Emperor said, his voice raspy. "You look well."
"Your Majesty." Wei Jin bowed. "The air in Qinghe agrees with me."
"The air in Qinghe is expensive," the Emperor grumbled, gesturing to a report on his screen. "The cost of these materials… Mithril alloys, spirit-conductive polymers… you are bleeding the treasury dry."
"Survival is expensive, Majesty. Extinction is free."
The Emperor sighed. "How is the progress?"
"80%," Wei Jin reported. "The orbital arrays are in place. The ground stations are coming online. We are calibrating the resonance frequencies. The 'lid' is ready to be put on the pot."
"We will be on time?"
"We must be on time," Wei Jin corrected. "Zale gave us five years. We have eleven months left. If we miss the window, he won't send a reminder. He'll send a relativistic kill vehicle."
The Emperor rubbed his temples. "Any complications?"
"The Western Federation is cooperating," Wei Jin said. "Their industrial output is crucial for the raw steel. The Southern Archipelagos are providing the cooling water."
He paused.
"But there is a problem in the North."
The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "The Northern Kingdom? The isolationists?"
"Spies report unusual activity in the Frozen Wastes," Wei Jin said. "High-energy signatures. Not spiritual—nuclear."
"They are building a bomb?"
"They are building a program," Wei Jin corrected. "They refused to sign the Concord. They believe the 'Alien Threat' is a hoax concocted by the Empire to seize control of the world. They think the Planetary Cloak is a weapon aimed at them. A cage to trap them."
"Fools," the Emperor spat. "They will kill us all."
"They are preparing a deterrent," Wei Jin said. "They plan to detonate a series of devices if we try to activate the Cloak over their territory. They think it will disrupt our control."
"It will disrupt the cloak," Wei Jin said grimly. "A nuclear detonation during the calibration phase… it would shatter the delicate spiritual lattice. The backlash would fry the grid. We'd be defenseless."
"What do you propose?"
Wei Jin's face was stone. "We cannot allow them to jeopardize the planet."
"Diplomacy?"
"Failed. They shot our envoys."
"Sanctions?"
"Too slow."
Wei Jin looked at the map on the wall. The Northern Kingdom was a vast, icy expanse. Sparsely populated, but fiercely independent.
"Keep them busy," Wei Jin said. "Deploy the Legion to the border. Stage maneuvers. Make them think an invasion is imminent. Force them to hunker down. Make them watch the ground, not the sky."
"And then?"
"Wait until the Shield is up," Wei Jin said coldly. "Once the Cloak is active, their nuclear threat is neutralized. The Cloak can absorb the radiation and heat of a detonation—internal or external. It becomes a containment field. Their bombs will be firecrackers in a steel box."
"And once their threat is gone?"
"Then we erase them," Wei Jin said.
The Emperor stared at him. "Erase a kingdom? Millions of people?"
"The regime," Wei Jin clarified. "We decapitate the leadership. We seize the silos. We integrate the population."
He leaned forward.
"The United Earth Defense Force needs a live-fire exercise. The Titan mechs need field testing. The new Spirit-Air Force needs combat experience."
"You want to use them as… practice?"
"I want to ensure that when the real enemy comes—when the Silencers come—our soldiers know how to fight," Wei Jin said. "The Northern Kingdom chose their path. They chose to risk the species for their pride. They are a cancer."
The Emperor looked away. He was a ruler of the old world, used to wars of honor and territory. This… this was different. This was the cold arithmetic of survival.
"Do it," the Emperor whispered.
—————
The Shadow of War
Wei Jin left the palace with a heavy heart.
He was planning a war. A war of aggression. A war of liquidation.
He remembered the boy who just wanted to farm rice. He remembered the young man who wanted to cure diseases.
Now he was the architect of a planetary siege.
Maximize survival. Prune the dangerous.
Was he becoming the Steward? Was he becoming the Silencer?
He returned to Qinghe.
He went to the Simulation Chamber.
Scenario: Invasion of Northern Kingdom. Variables: Titan Mechs, Orbital Support, Spirit Severing Intervention.
[PROCESSING…]
[Outcome: Victory. Casualties: High. Duration: 2 Weeks.]
He tweaked the parameters. He needed speed. He needed shock and awe.
Variable: Biological Warfare. Use of non-lethal neurotoxins to incapacitate leadership.
[Outcome: Victory. Casualties: Low. Duration: 3 Days.]
He stared at the screen.
Biological warfare. Gas.
It was efficient. It was clean. It saved the soldiers. It saved the civilians.
It was monstrous.
"Devil Doctor," he whispered to himself.
He authorized the production of the toxin.
—————
The Family Dinner
That evening, the family gathered.
Wei Feng was there, looking tired. His uniform was dusty from the training grounds. His aura was sharp, tempered steel.
"The Titans are ready," he said, cutting his steak. "The synchronization issues are resolved. The pilots can hold the link for four hours."
"Good," Wei Jin said. "You will need them soon."
Wei Long was there, tinkering with a small drone at the table. He was 24 now, a young man with the eyes of an old soul.
"Long, no gadgets at dinner," Lin Mei chided gently.
"It's a sensor drone, Grandma," Wei Long said. "It detects radiation leaks. I'm upgrading the sensitivity."
"For the North?" Wei Jin asked.
Wei Long looked up. His eyes were sharp. "I saw the troop movements, Grandfather. I know what's happening. The pattern is obvious."
"And?"
"It's logical," the boy said. "They are a variable we can't control. In a closed system, uncontrolled variables lead to entropy. Entropy leads to failure."
Wei Jin felt a chill. The boy sounded like the panel.
"People are not variables, Long," Wei Jin said softly.
"Aren't they?" Wei Long asked. "You taught us that the world is a system. Systems have components. Broken components are replaced."
Wei Jin looked at his grandson. He saw the brilliance. He saw the detachment.
He saw the logic of the Silencers reflected in his own bloodline.
"We do this to save them," Wei Jin said firmly. "Not because they are broken components. But because they are people who are being led off a cliff by madmen. We fight to preserve life, not efficiency."
Wei Long shrugged. "Semantics. The outcome is the same."
Wei Jin looked at Ruyi. She was watching the boy with an unreadable expression.
Later, on the balcony, Ruyi spoke.
"He is too much like us," she said. "Too much of the ancient cultivator. Too much of the scientist. He lacks… hesitance."
"He needs a heart," Wei Jin said. "We need to teach him the Clear Heart Method again. Deeper this time."
"He learns it. He masters it. But he treats it like a tool. A way to optimize his emotions, not to feel them."
"We have time," Wei Jin said. "He is young."
"Do we?" Ruyi pointed at the sky. "Four years are gone. One year left. Zale is coming. The Cloak must work."
Wei Jin looked up. The stars were silent.
"We'll be ready," he said.
"For Zale? Yes," Ruyi said. "But for ourselves?"
She left the question hanging in the cold night air.
—————
[CULTIVATION SYSTEM v4.0][Project: PLANETARY CLOAK - Progress: 80%][Project: NORTHERN PACIFICATION - Status: PENDING]
The year turned. The clock ticked down.
The final phase of the plan began. The world held its breath, waiting for the sky to close.
—————
End of Chapter Three, Book Five