Greyfall Province noticed changes slowly.
Not because people were perceptive—but because noticing required admitting something had shifted, and Greyfall had learned that change was rarely kind.
Kael felt it before anyone else did.
The nights grew heavier.
Not darker.
Not colder.
Heavier—like the air itself had learned to wait.
When he cultivated now, sitting behind his home with his back to the old clay wall, the internal weight no longer startled him. It settled with familiarity, like something that had always belonged there and was only now returning.
There was no surge of power.
No warmth flooding his veins.
Just stillness, deepening.
And with it came something new.
Resistance.
Not inside him.
Outside.
The world did not push back. That would have been obvious. Instead, it behaved as if Kael occupied a space it had not planned for—paths subtly diverting, sounds dulling, attention sliding away.
It reminded him of how villagers spoke around certain topics.
How words learned to step carefully.
The first cultivator arrived on a windless afternoon.
Kael sensed him before he saw him—not through energy, but through disturbance. The internal weight inside Kael shifted slightly, as if acknowledging a foreign presence.
The man walked into Greyfall on foot, robes clean but unadorned, cultivation restrained to a polite level. A Stonepath Sect outer disciple, judging by the emblem stitched discreetly into his sleeve.
Outer disciples were rarely sent alone.
That alone made Kael cautious.
The cultivator spoke with the village head, exchanged pleasantries, and accepted tea. His manner was casual, practiced.
He was listening.
Not to words.
To the space between them.
Kael watched from a distance, posture relaxed, expression neutral. When the cultivator's gaze swept across the square, it passed over Kael without pause.
Then—hesitated.
Just a fraction.
The cultivator frowned slightly, eyes narrowing as if he had sensed a draft in a closed room.
Kael felt the internal weight press downward.
Instinctively, he breathed out.
The hesitation vanished.
The gaze moved on.
Kael exhaled slowly.
That was when he understood.
Attention could be disrupted.
The thought did not excite him.
It frightened him.
Later that evening, as the sun sank low and shadows stretched long across the fields, the cultivator approached Kael's home.
Kael was repairing a cracked fence post. He did not look up immediately.
"You live here alone?" the cultivator asked.
Kael nodded. "Yes."
"No family?"
"No."
The cultivator studied him openly now. Kael felt the faint brush of probing intent—careful, professional, restrained.
It slid off him.
Not violently.
Like water failing to find purchase on stone.
The cultivator's brows drew together.
"That's strange," he murmured.
Kael straightened and met his gaze.
"What is?"
The cultivator paused, then shook his head. "Nothing."
He lingered a moment longer, eyes flicking once more across Kael's face, then turned away.
As he left, Kael noticed the faintest thing.
The cultivator's steps were faster than when he arrived.
That night, Kael did not dream.
He sat awake, listening to the wind, replaying the encounter in his mind.
The cultivator had not seen him clearly.
Not because Kael was hidden.
But because the world had not pointed him out.
That realization settled deeper than any internal weight.
His parents had been erased because the world decided they did not fit.
Kael was becoming something the world could not easily categorize.
Not yet.
But soon.
Three days later, Greyfall's animals began behaving strangely.
Birds avoided the space above Kael's home.
Insects grew quiet near him.
Even the old well's echo sounded… muted.
Villagers noticed.
They whispered.
They did not accuse.
They never did.
One night, as Kael cultivated beneath a sky blurred with cloud, the internal weight trembled.
Not from growth.
From warning.
Kael opened his eyes.
Far away—beyond Greyfall, beyond the low hills, beyond the paths that rarely saw foot traffic—something had shifted its focus.
Not a person.
Not a sect.
A procedure.
Kael did not know how he knew.
He only knew that whatever had erased his parents once…
Had brushed against him now.
And this time—
It had not corrected him immediately.
It had paused.
Kael lowered his hands slowly, breathing steady, heart calm.
If attention could slip…
Then it could also return.
The world had noticed a flaw.
And for the first time, it was unsure what to do with it.