The darkness was absolute.
Not the darkness of a moonless night, where your eyes might eventually adjust and pick out vague shapes in the gloom. Not the darkness of a shuttered room, where cracks of light might seep through gaps in walls and doors. This was something far more fundamental, far more complete—the absolute absence of light, the total negation of illumination itself, a void so perfect that it seemed to swallow even the concept of sight.
It was the kind of darkness that existed before the first star ignited, before the first candle was lit, before the first human opened their eyes to a world that could be seen.
Within this darkness, something stirred.
The transition from nothingness to awareness was neither gradual nor jarring. It simply... was. One moment, nothing existed—no thought, no sensation, no consciousness of any kind. The next moment, he existed within the nothing, aware of the void that surrounded him and, more disturbingly, aware of the void that comprised him.
The paradox didn't trouble him. It never had. Paradoxes were simply truths that mortal minds couldn't reconcile, contradictions that only seemed impossible from limited perspectives. He was no longer mortal enough to be bothered by such trivial limitations as logical consistency.
**Xu Jun** opened his eyes.
The cave around him materialized in his perception, though not through vision in any conventional sense. His eyes saw nothing—there was no light to see by—but he perceived the space nonetheless through senses that operated on principles that would have baffled any scholar of cultivation or natural philosophy. He could sense the contours of the stone walls, the texture of the rock ceiling above, the cold hardness of the slab beneath his body, all without needing something as crude as photons to carry the information to his mind.
His first thought was a calculation, automatic and emotionless as breathing would have been for a normal person.
> *Hibernation cycle: Complete. Duration: 297 years, 8 months, 14 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes. Variance from projected timeline: Negligible—within acceptable parameters for natural temporal drift.*
His second thought was an assessment of his current state, running through systems and functions with the methodical precision of an engineer checking machinery after a long shutdown.
> *Void Debt threshold: 89.7% of maximum sustainable load. Critical range reached. Immediate action required within 3.2 years or existential collapse becomes inevitable. Margin of error: ±47 days.*
His third thought was emptiness itself.
Not the productive emptiness of meditation, where thoughts were deliberately stilled to achieve clarity. Not the peaceful emptiness of rest, where consciousness drifted in gentle darkness. But the literal, physical, ontological void at his core—the fundamental wrongness that defined his existence more surely than flesh or bone ever could.
Where other beings had souls, he had absence. Where they possessed essence, he contained negation. He was, in the most literal sense possible, a consciousness that had learned to exist without any of the prerequisites that normally made consciousness possible.
It didn't bother him. Nothing did. That was rather the entire point of what he was.
**Xu Jun** sat up slowly, his movements precise and economical, each motion executed with the minimum expenditure of energy necessary to achieve the desired result. The stone slab beneath him was cold enough that frost had formed on its surface during the long centuries of his hibernation, but temperature was merely data to him—information his nervous system registered and filed away without any accompanying sensation of discomfort or displeasure.
He could feel the cold. He simply couldn't care about it.
Around him, the cave was exactly as he'd left it nearly three centuries ago when he'd lain down to enter his long sleep: barren walls of grey stone, a ceiling of limestone worn smooth by ancient water that no longer flowed, a floor littered with loose rocks and the scattered debris of geological time. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like frozen tears, their formations unchanged by his absence, testament to the glacial pace at which such things grew.
Time moved differently for geological features than it did for living things. They had a patience he could almost respect, a capacity to endure without change that resonated with something deep in his nature.
Almost respect. Not quite. Respect implied emotional investment, and emotional investment implied the capacity for emotion itself.
He raised one hand before his face, studying it in the absolute darkness with senses that transcended mere vision. The hand was pale, almost luminously so, with skin that showed no signs of the three centuries of stillness it had just endured. No wrinkles. No age spots. No calluses or scars beyond those that had been present when he'd first claimed this body as his own, so many lifetimes ago that he'd long since forgotten the details of that acquisition.
The hand was real. Solid. Present. It obeyed his commands with perfect precision, the fingers curling and uncurling without hesitation or tremor.
For now, at least. The 89.7% threshold meant that wouldn't last much longer without intervention. His existence was degrading, the fundamental architecture of his being slowly collapsing under the weight of accumulated debt that could never truly be paid.
He clenched the hand into a fist, watching the play of tendons beneath the skin, the perfect biomechanical efficiency of bones and muscles working in harmony. Then slowly, deliberately, he released the tension and let his fingers relax.
The motion was smooth, controlled, showing no sign of the centuries of stillness that preceded it. His body didn't atrophy during hibernation the way flesh normally would. It barely qualified as a physical body in any traditional sense—it was more accurate to say he was a void that had learned to wear flesh like a particularly convincing costume, maintained through principles of reality negation rather than biology.
> *Primary systems: Operational. Physical integrity: 73.4% of baseline standard. Negation capability: Tier 4, peak stability achieved. Cognitive function: Unimpaired—all memory access functional, reasoning capacity optimal. Emotional response: Absent, as designed.*
>
> *Status: Functional but deteriorating. Action required to prevent cascade failure.*
**Xu Jun** stood, his movements creating no sound despite the loose stones scattered across the cave floor. Silence came naturally to him, not through any conscious effort but as a fundamental property of his existence. Even the air seemed reluctant to acknowledge his passage, as if reality itself was uncertain whether he truly occupied space in any meaningful sense.
Perhaps it was right to be uncertain. He'd never been entirely sure himself.
He walked to the cave entrance, each step measured and purposeful, his bare feet finding purchase on the uneven stone without hesitation. The entrance was narrow, barely wide enough for a man to pass through sideways, hidden behind a curtain of vines that had grown thick and tangled during his long sleep. Through the gaps in the foliage, he could see fragments of the world beyond: a sliver of grey sky suggesting either dawn or dusk, the distant silhouette of mountains rendered in shades of blue and purple by atmospheric haze, and—most significantly—the faint shimmer of what might be a city on the horizon, where before there had been only wilderness.
> *Observation: Significant structural development detected in formerly rural region. Previous reconnaissance data from 297 years ago indicated minimal urbanization—scattered villages, dirt roads, subsistence agriculture. Current visual evidence suggests major settlement, possibly 40,000+ population based on visible smoke patterns and architectural density.*
>
> *Conclusion: Civilization has expanded during hibernation period. Variable: Unknown extent of technological and cultivation advancement. Probability of substantial change in power structures, economic systems, and social organization: 87% or higher.*
>
> *Recommendation: Comprehensive reconnaissance required before initiating contact. Proceed with caution.*
He pushed aside the vines with one hand, his touch negating their structural rigidity for just long enough to let them part like water. The plants didn't resist—they couldn't. For the brief moment his skin made contact with them, he negated the fundamental property that made them solid, that made them barriers rather than suggestions. They hung limp and lifeless, then slowly began to recover their normal state once his hand withdrew, cell walls reasserting their integrity, structural proteins remembering their purpose.
The landscape that greeted him was both familiar and utterly alien, a dissonance that would have been unsettling to anyone capable of feeling unsettled.
Familiar because the fundamental geography remained unchanged: the same mountain range to the north, their peaks still wearing caps of snow even in what appeared to be late spring or early summer. The same river valley to the south, though the river itself seemed narrower than he remembered—perhaps the climate had shifted, or perhaps upstream development had diverted water for human use. The same peculiar rock formation to the east that resembled a crouching beast if you tilted your head and squinted, the same landmark he'd used to navigate back to this cave three centuries ago.
Three hundred years was nothing to mountains. They endured while empires rose and fell in the valleys below.
Alien because everything human had transformed beyond recognition.
Where once there had been scattered villages of perhaps a few hundred people each, connected by dirt roads that became impassable mud tracks during the rainy season, now there sprawled what could only be described as a city. Not a massive metropolis on the scale of the great capitals he'd seen in previous eras, but certainly no longer the rural wilderness he remembered. Buildings rose in the distance, their architecture a blend of traditional curved roofs—suggesting continuity with older building styles—and more modern straight lines that spoke of new techniques and materials. Smoke rose from countless chimneys, the combined output creating a haze that hung over the settlement like a grey blanket.
Even from this distance, perhaps three or four miles as a bird might fly, he could sense the density of human presence. Thousands of lives clustered together, their existence creating ripples in the fabric of reality that his heightened perception could detect like a spider sensing vibrations in its web. Each person was a tiny distortion in the natural order, and thousands together created a roar that was simultaneously deafening and utterly silent.
> *Population estimate: 40,000-60,000 based on settlement size and energy signature density. Classification: Tier 2 urban center—significant regional hub but not national capital. Cultivation energy signature detected: multiple sources, ranging from weak (Tier 1 novices) to moderate (Tier 2-3 practitioners). No signatures detected above Tier 3 within immediate sensing range.*
>
> *Threat level assessment: Low to moderate. Current capabilities sufficient to handle anticipated resistance if conflict becomes necessary. Stealth and infiltration remain optimal strategy.*
**Xu Jun** tilted his head slightly, a gesture that might have indicated curiosity in someone capable of feeling such an emotion. For him, it was simply the optimal angle to gather sensory data, positioning his perceptual focus to maximize information intake.
The city was called Sky Abyss City—**Tianyuan Chéng** in the local dialect. The name came to him through the faint threads of conversation carried on the wind, through the barely perceptible vibrations of reality that surrounded all places where humans gathered and gave names to things and invested those names with meaning and belief. He didn't need to hear the words spoken aloud to know them. Information had a way of reaching him, as if the universe itself was reluctant to hide things from someone who could simply negate ignorance if he chose to expend the effort.
He studied the city for several long minutes, his silver-grey eyes unblinking, cataloguing every visible detail with photographic precision. To an observer—if anyone had been present to observe—his gaze might have seemed intense, focused, perhaps even hungry. In truth, it was merely thorough, the visual equivalent of running one's fingers over an object to learn its contours through touch.
The layout of streets, visible as lines of movement even from this distance. The flow of people, their patterns suggesting commercial districts here, residential areas there, administrative centers marked by larger buildings with more formal architecture. The distribution of cultivation energy, denser in some regions than others, indicating where the powerful lived and worked and trained. The architectural styles that suggested not just aesthetic preferences but technological capabilities—the height of buildings, the span of bridges, the engineering required for structures that would have been impossible in cruder eras.
Every detail was data. Every observation was a potential tool for future use.
After precisely seven minutes and forty-three seconds of observation—he tracked time automatically, unconsciously, another function that ran in the background of his consciousness—**Xu Jun** turned away from the city and began walking along the mountain path that led away from his cave.
His destination wasn't the city itself. Not yet. First, he needed to conduct proper reconnaissance, to gather information about how the world had changed during his sleep, to understand the new power structures and social systems before attempting integration. Entering an unknown environment without adequate preparation would be inefficient, and inefficiency was intolerable.
Inefficiency was waste. Waste was failure. Failure was death.
And **Xu Jun** had not survived fifteen centuries by being wasteful.
The path was overgrown, barely visible beneath three centuries of accumulated vegetation. Ordinary travelers would have struggled to navigate it, stumbling over hidden roots, slipping on loose stones concealed beneath moss and fallen leaves, fighting through thorny bushes and low-hanging branches. But obstacles were only obstacles to those who acknowledged them as such.
**Xu Jun** simply walked, and the obstacles ceased to be obstacles. Branches that would have blocked his way found themselves temporarily negated of their structural presence at his approach, allowing him to pass through as if they weren't there. Rocks that would have tripped him discovered their existence temporarily irrelevant, becoming insubstantial for just long enough to pose no threat. Thorny bushes found their thorns briefly convinced they were actually soft grass, harmless to passing flesh.
He left no trail. The plants returned to their original positions after he passed, branches snapping back into place, roots remaining undisturbed, thorns reasserting their sharpness. It was as if he had never been there at all, a ghost passing through the world without leaving so much as a footprint.
Perhaps that's what he was. A ghost wearing the shape of a man, haunting the world long past any reasonable time when something like him should have ceased to exist.
> *Observation protocol initiated. Primary objective: Assess current state of civilization including technological advancement, cultivation hierarchy, political structure, and economic systems. Secondary objective: Identify potential threats, resources, and opportunities. Tertiary objective: Establish preliminary infiltration plan for optimal integration into urban society.*
>
> *Timeline: 48 hours for preliminary reconnaissance phase. Extended observation as needed based on complexity of discovered systems. No fixed deadline—thorough understanding takes priority over speed.*
As he walked, **Xu Jun**'s mind was already working through scenarios and possibilities, running calculations and projections with the cold precision of someone who had done this countless times before in countless different contexts.
Three hundred years was a long time for mortal civilizations. Kingdoms could rise and fall multiple times in that span. Cultivation sects could be destroyed and reborn under new names and philosophies. Technologies could advance beyond recognition, transforming daily life in ways that would seem like magic to those from earlier eras. The power structures he had known before his hibernation were almost certainly obsolete now, replaced by new hierarchies and alliances and conflicts.
This was both a complication and an opportunity, two sides of the same coin that he would need to carefully navigate.
Complication because he would need to relearn the landscape from scratch, identify new threats he couldn't anticipate, understand new systems of power and influence that didn't exist in his previous operational framework. Every assumption he'd made three centuries ago was potentially invalid now. Every contact he'd cultivated was long dead. Every carefully constructed identity was meaningless dust.
Opportunity because in times of change, there were always gaps—cracks in the social order where someone clever and ruthless could insert themselves and gain leverage. New power structures meant new weak points. Unfamiliar systems meant uncertainty, and uncertainty meant people would be more willing to accept strange newcomers who offered useful services. Change created chaos, and chaos could be exploited by those who understood how to turn disorder into advantage.
And **Xu Jun** was nothing if not clever and ruthless. He lacked many things—emotion, morality, the capacity for genuine human connection—but intelligence? That remained sharp and cold and utterly relentless, honed by fifteen centuries of survival against odds that would have destroyed lesser beings.
The path eventually led him to a vantage point overlooking a main road, a proper paved road rather than the dirt track he remembered from before. This alone told him much about the region's development—roads required significant investment in infrastructure, which meant stable governance and surplus resources and trade important enough to justify the expense.
He settled into a crouch behind a cluster of large stones, his presence completely masked through the simple expedient of negating any impulse observers might feel to look in his direction. From this position, he could observe without being observed, see without being seen, gather information without revealing his own existence.
The optimal position for an intelligence operative. Which, in a sense, was what he was.
The road below was well-maintained, its surface paved with smooth stones fitted together with impressive precision, speaking of significant investment and skilled craftsmanship. A steady stream of traffic moved along it in both directions: merchant caravans with covered wagons pulled by horses or oxen, individual travelers on horseback moving with the purposeful speed of people on official business, groups of what appeared to be cultivators based on the weapons they carried openly and the subtle energy signatures that clung to them like invisible cloaks.
**Xu Jun** watched with the patience of stone.
And watched.
And continued watching as the sun traced its arc across the sky, as morning became afternoon became evening, as the traffic patterns shifted and changed but never stopped entirely.
Hours passed. The sun moved visibly across the dome of the sky, though he barely noticed its progression. Observation required patience, and patience was something he had in abundance when needed. Time meant little to someone who had existed for over fifteen centuries. What were a few hours of reconnaissance compared to the centuries he'd spent in hibernation? What were days or weeks when measured against the vast span of his existence?
Nothing. Less than nothing. Barely worthy of notice.
From his observations, he began to construct a picture of the current world, building a mental map of power structures and social systems from the countless small details that most people would never think to notice or analyze.
First observation: Cultivation remained the dominant power system, but the distribution had shifted compared to his memories from three centuries ago. He could sense more Tier 2 cultivators moving along the road than he would have expected, suggesting either improved cultivation methods that allowed more people to advance, or greater access to resources that had previously been restricted to elites. The average power level had increased noticeably. This suggested either a golden age of cultivation advancement, or simply that this region had developed more than the backwater he remembered.
Second observation: Technology had advanced, but not dramatically. The wagons were better constructed than before, with improved suspension systems and more efficient wheel designs. The roads were superior to anything that had existed in his previous experience. Clothing showed signs of better textile production. But nothing suggested a fundamental revolution in how humans interacted with the physical world. No obvious signs of mechanical power beyond draft animals. No evidence of technologies that would completely alter his operational assumptions.
This was good. Dramatic technological change would have complicated his reintegration significantly, requiring him to learn entirely new systems and adapt to capabilities he couldn't easily predict or counter. Incremental improvement was manageable.
Third observation: Social stratification appeared rigid and clearly visible even to casual observation. The cultivators carried themselves with obvious arrogance, moving through crowds of ordinary travelers who quickly stepped aside to avoid any accidental contact that might give offense. The merchants dressed in fine silks and traveled with armed guards, their wealth displayed openly as both status symbol and deterrent. The common folk wore rough homespun clothing and kept their eyes downcast when anyone important passed, the body language of people who had learned that attracting attention from their betters rarely ended well.
A hierarchical society with clear power dynamics and minimal social mobility. Predictable. Familiar. Exploitable.
Such societies had rules, and rules could be learned and then leveraged. Such societies had gaps between the powerful and the powerless, and those gaps could be filled by someone who understood how to make themselves useful to both groups without fully belonging to either.
Fourth observation: Commerce was thriving. The merchant caravans were numerous and well-protected, suggesting stable trade routes and economic prosperity. Where there was wealth, there were opportunities for someone with his particular skills. Where there was trade, there was information flowing along with goods. Where there were markets, there were people willing to pay for services that couldn't be advertised openly.
The pieces were assembling themselves into a coherent picture. This was a prosperous region with stable governance, an active cultivation community, thriving commerce, and clear social hierarchies. It was developed enough to offer opportunities but not so advanced as to make infiltration prohibitively difficult.
Perfect, really. Almost suspiciously perfect, as if the universe was presenting him with an ideal operational environment.
He didn't trust perfect. Perfect usually meant you'd missed something important.
But he'd work with what he had.
As the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that he registered without appreciating—beauty was wasted on someone incapable of aesthetic pleasure—**Xu Jun** finally stirred from his observation post.
He had seen enough for now. Enough to confirm that the world hadn't changed so dramatically as to make his previous experience worthless. Enough to identify the basic power structures he'd need to navigate. Enough to begin planning his next moves.
His next objective was clear: infiltrate the city, establish a base of operations, and begin the careful work of integrating himself into society. He would need an identity—false but convincing. He would need resources—wealth, information, connections. He would need to understand the current power structures well enough to navigate them without drawing unwanted attention from anyone capable of threatening his existence.
All of this would take time. Weeks, perhaps months, of careful work and patient manipulation.
He had three years before the void debt reached critical threshold and his existence began to collapse. Plenty of time, by his standards, to establish himself and secure the resources needed for survival.
**Xu Jun** descended from his vantage point and began walking toward the road, timing his approach to coincide with a large merchant caravan that would provide cover for his integration into the traffic flow. As he walked, he made subtle adjustments to his appearance through the simple expedient of negating certain perceptions.
His robes, which had been plain and ancient in style—relics from an era three centuries past—shifted in how they appeared to observers. Not through any physical change, but through the negation of their outdated aesthetic. To anyone who looked at him now, they would appear as simple but respectable traveling clothes, the kind a moderately successful merchant or low-level cultivator might wear. Nothing that would attract attention through either excessive quality or obvious poverty.
His long black hair, which had hung loose in an old-fashioned style no longer common, now appeared tied back in a simple practical manner appropriate to a traveler. Not through any physical binding, but through observers' perception of it being bound.
His bearing, which had been perfectly still in a way that unconsciously unsettled people who looked at him too closely, now carried a calculated hint of weariness—the posture of someone who had been traveling and was tired but not defeated, looking forward to reaching their destination but not desperate enough to draw sympathy or suspicion.
These weren't illusions. He wasn't creating false appearances through light manipulation or mental suggestion. He was simply negating specific perceptions, removing certain qualities that would make him memorable or suspicious, leaving behind only the most generic and forgettable impression possible.
The difference was subtle but crucial. Illusions could be detected by those with the right skills or tools. Negation was undetectable because it wasn't adding anything false—it was merely removing truth in very selective ways.
As he reached the road and joined the flow of traffic heading toward the city gates, not a single person gave him a second glance. He was just another traveler among hundreds, unremarkable and forgettable, one more face in the crowd that would leave no impression on anyone's memory.
Exactly as intended. Exactly as required.
Invisibility wasn't about being unseen. It was about being seen and immediately forgotten, about existing in the space between attention and memory where minds slid past without finding purchase.
The city gates loomed ahead, massive wooden structures reinforced with what appeared to be some form of cultivation array—he could sense the energy patterns woven into the wood and metal, defensive formations designed to resist attack and detect threats. Guards in uniform stood at attention, checking credentials of those who entered, a routine barrier that separated the city from the wilderness beyond.
**Xu Jun** joined the queue, positioning himself between a merchant's wagon and a group of young cultivators who were arguing loudly about something inconsequential, their raised voices providing perfect audio cover. He adopted the patient but slightly bored expression of someone who had waited in many such lines before and would wait in many more, just another traveler dealing with the tedious necessities of urban entry protocols.
When his turn came, the guard—a middle-aged man with a Tier 1 cultivation base and the thoroughly bored expression of someone who had asked the same questions ten thousand times and would ask them ten thousand more—barely glanced at him.
"Name and business," the guard recited in a monotone that suggested he'd long since stopped actually listening to the answers.
**Xu Jun** met his eyes calmly, and as their gazes connected, he made the smallest of adjustments to the man's mental state. Not mind control—he didn't have such crude abilities. Just a gentle negation of the guard's impulse to scrutinize him carefully, a removal of any sense of suspicion that might arise, a deletion of the very idea that there was anything worth investigating about this particular traveler.
"Chen Wu," he said, the name flowing smoothly from his lips as if it had always been his, as natural as breathing. "Merchant. Here to explore trade opportunities in your prosperous city."
The guard nodded, already losing interest before **Xu Jun** had finished speaking, his attention already drifting toward the next person in line. "Entry fee is two silver coins. Main commercial district is straight down the central avenue. Don't cause trouble."
**Xu Jun** produced two silver coins from seemingly nowhere—in reality, he had negated a small stone's identity as stone and temporarily convinced reality it was silver, a transformation that would last perhaps twenty-four hours before degrading—and placed them in the guard's outstretched hand.
The guard waved him through without another word, without a second glance, without any memory that would survive longer than the next person in line demanded his attention.
And just like that, with no drama and no difficulty, **Xu Jun** entered Sky Abyss City.
The streets beyond the gate were crowded, noisy, filled with the chaotic energy of human commerce and interaction operating at full intensity. Vendors called out their wares from storefronts and street corners, their voices competing in a cacophony of commercial enthusiasm. Children darted between adults' legs, laughing and playing games that involved rules only they understood. Cultivators strode past with their heads held high and their hands resting on weapon hilts, their robes marked with various sect insignias that proclaimed their allegiances. Ordinary citizens went about their business with the purposeful efficiency of people who had places to be and things to accomplish—carrying baskets of goods, leading pack animals laden with supplies, arguing over prices with the practiced intensity of experienced hagglers.
Life, in all its messy, inefficient, emotional, chaotic glory, flowed around him like a river around a stone.
**Xu Jun** walked through it all like a ghost, observing but not participating, present but not truly there in any meaningful sense. His silver-grey eyes took in everything with mechanical precision: the layout of the streets and how they connected, the locations of guard posts and administrative buildings, the types of businesses that seemed to thrive and those that struggled, the way people interacted and moved and organized themselves according to unspoken rules and social hierarchies.
Every detail was catalogued. Every observation filed away. Every pattern noted for future exploitation.
He was a void walking among the living, studying them with the detached interest of a scholar examining insects under glass, learning their behaviors and patterns with no emotional investment in their individual fates.
And not one person noticed there was anything wrong with him at all. Not one person sensed the fundamental emptiness beneath his perfectly crafted human facade.
To them, he was just Chen Wu, a new merchant in town, perhaps a bit quiet but certainly harmless, exactly the kind of person who moved through cities every day without leaving any lasting impression.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
> *Assessment: Initial infiltration successful. Identity established without incident. Surveillance network construction: Ready to initiate upon securing base of operations. Timeline: Proceeding as calculated with acceptable variance.*
>
> *Next objective: Secure lodging. Establish financial base. Begin systematic information gathering about power structures, economic systems, and potential threats.*
>
> *Estimated time to full integration into city society: 45 days, plus or minus 7 days depending on complexity of discovered systems and speed of relationship cultivation.*
>
> *Estimated time to existential collapse: 1,168 days remaining.*
>
> *Margin of safety: Adequate for current operational requirements. Proceed with standard protocols.*
As the sun fully set and Sky Abyss City lit up with lanterns and cultivation lights, casting everything in a warm glow that **Xu Jun** registered without feeling, he allowed himself something that might have been mistaken for satisfaction if he were capable of such an emotion.
The first move had been made. The game had begun. And he'd made it look effortless because it was effortless—fifteen centuries of experience distilled into muscle memory and instinct, the accumulated wisdom of countless infiltrations and countless identities worn and discarded like masks at a festival.
In games of this nature, **Xu Jun** had never lost. Not once in all his long existence.
After all, how could anyone defeat someone who could simply negate the possibility of their victory?
He turned down a side street, already identifying through careful observation which establishments the local merchants favored for lodging—neither too expensive nor too cheap, respectable but not prestigious—and disappeared into the evening crowd.
Behind him, the city continued its bustling existence, completely unaware that something fundamentally wrong had just entered its boundaries.
Something that wore the shape of a man but contained nothing but void.
Something that had walked the earth for fifteen centuries and would continue walking for as long as efficiency demanded.
Something called **Xu Jun**.
*The Void Sovereign.*
And the city's fate, though no one knew it yet, had just been sealed the moment he'd passed through those gates.