The Sovereign's Archive Academy was no longer just a collection of buildings on a hill. Using the Primordial Path Stone and the massive wealth he had "persuaded" from the Gilded Chamber, Gaurav had done the impossible. He had lifted the entire academy into the sky.
The Sky City of Archive now hovered three thousand feet above the ground, held aloft by a complex array of gravity-defying runes that Gaurav had drawn with a piece of charcoal while eating breakfast. Below, the commoners looked up in awe at the floating island, but Gaurav was currently more concerned with his tea.
"Teacher, Yan Ling has woken up," Elara reported, walking onto the balcony. She looked at the woman following her.
Yan Ling looked different. The dark, arrogant light in her eyes was gone, replaced by a deep, hollow exhaustion. Her "System" was dead, and with it, much of her artificial power had vanished. She was no longer an Earth-Realm goddess; she was a fragile cultivator whose foundations had been shattered.
"So, the parasite is gone," Gaurav said, not turning around. "How does it feel to have a brain that belongs to you again?"
Yan Ling looked at her trembling hands. "It feels... quiet. And terrifying. I don't know who I am without the 'Voice' telling me what to do."
"You're a student," Gaurav said, finally turning around with a smirk. "And a student's job is to learn. Since you're the one who caused the most trouble, your first task is to scrub the dragon-stables. Manual labor is good for a shattered ego."
Yan Ling bit her lip, but she didn't argue. She had seen him delete a god-like entity with a single word. She bowed low. "I... I will do as you command, Teacher."
The Arrival of the Silent Shadows
As night fell over the floating academy, the air around the island began to ripple. Space itself seemed to bleed.
The Silent Shadow Assassins were the Emperor's ultimate weapon. They were ten men who had traded their souls, their names, and their physical bodies for the power of the Void. They didn't breathe; they didn't have heartbeats. To a normal cultivator, they were invisible. Even a God-Realm master would find it difficult to detect them.
They emerged from the shadows of the academy's pillars like ink drops in water. Their leader, Shadow One, signaled with a ghost-like hand.
Target: Gaurav. Objective: Decapitation. Secondary Objective: Retrieve the Path Stone.
They moved toward Gaurav's private chambers with the silence of falling snow. They passed through solid walls and avoided every visible trap. Within seconds, they were standing around Gaurav's bed, where a figure lay sleeping under silk sheets.
Shadow One raised a blade made of "Soul-Eating Iron." He plunged it down into the heart of the sleeper.
POOF.
Instead of blood, the bed erupted into a cloud of golden confetti and a small, mechanical voice that said: "Gotcha, you sneaky bastards!"
"You know," a voice drawled from the balcony, "for 'Silent' assassins, you guys are remarkably loud. I could hear your void-energy vibrating from three hallways away. It sounds like a broken refrigerator."
Gaurav was sitting on the railing, bathed in moonlight, casually tossing a small, glowing orb—the Archive's Heart—up and down.
Shadow One spun around, his eyes (which were just two pits of darkness) glowing with malice. "Gaurav. The Emperor has revoked your right to exist. The Void does not care about your 'Flaws.' The Void has no structure to analyze."
"Is that what they told you?" Gaurav laughed, stepping down onto the floor. "The Void is just unformatted data. And I... I am the ultimate Formatter."
The Debugging of the Void
The ten assassins vanished, reappearing in a circle around Gaurav, their blades striking from ten different angles simultaneously.
"Instant Domain: The Infinite Library."
The world changed. The bedroom vanished. The assassins found themselves standing in a literal library that stretched for infinity. Every book on the shelves was a record of a life.
One of the assassins tried to strike, but as his blade reached Gaurav, it turned into a harmless feather. Another tried to vanish into the shadows, but there were no shadows here—only the bright, sterile light of absolute knowledge.
"In my domain," Gaurav said, his voice echoing from every direction, "logic is the only law. You say the Void has no structure? Let's take a look at your code."
Gaurav reached out and "pulled" at the air. A string of dark, glitchy symbols appeared in front of Shadow One.
[Source Code: Assassin 'Shadow One']
Core Logic: Serve the Emperor.
Structural Flaw: Soul is tied to a 'Life-Binding Contract' in the Imperial Vault.
Current Status: 90% corrupted by Void-energy.
"You're not even human anymore," Gaurav said, his eyes filled with a rare flash of anger. "You're just a set of instructions written by a paranoid king. Let's see what happens when I hit 'Undo'."
Gaurav's finger tapped the string of symbols.
"Logic Reversal: Humanity Restored."
Shadow One screamed—a sound of pure agony. His void-body began to solidify. The darkness receded, revealing a middle-aged man with graying hair and eyes full of tears. The "Soul-Eating" blade turned into a rusted piece of farm equipment.
One by one, the other nine assassins were "reverted." They fell to the floor, coughing and gasping for air they hadn't breathed in decades. They weren't monsters anymore; they were just tired, broken men who remembered their names for the first time in a century.
"My... my name is Kael," the leader whispered, looking at his shaking, fleshy hands. "I... I was a farmer before they took me."
"Nice to meet you, Kael," Gaurav said, the library fading away as they returned to his moonlit balcony. "Now, go to the kitchen. Elara is probably awake. Tell her the new 'security team' has arrived and they need some soup. And don't worry about the Emperor. He doesn't have the password to this island."
The Emperor's Fury
The next morning, the Emperor sat in his throne room, waiting for the heads of the "Trash Teacher" and his students. Instead, a small, golden bird flew into the hall and landed on his lap.
The bird exploded into a holographic projection of Gaurav.
"Hey, Big Guy," the projection said, picking its nose. "I liked your assassins. They were a bit dusty, but I've cleaned them up and given them jobs as gardeners. If you want them back, you'll have to pay their severance packages. Also, stop sending people to my house. It's rude. If you want to talk, come to the Sky City and bring some high-quality tea. None of that cheap stuff you serve at court."
The Emperor stood up, his aura shaking the entire palace. "Gaurav... You dare to treat the Son of Heaven like a common merchant?!"
"He didn't just treat you like a merchant, Father," a voice said from the shadows.
A young man in silver armor stepped forward—the First Prince, Lu Han. He was the true genius of the empire, a man who had reached the God-Realm at age twenty-five.
"He treated you like an annoying merchant," Lu Han smirked. "Allow me to handle this. I want to see this 'Archive' for myself. If he truly has the Path Stone, it belongs to the Crown."
The Lesson of the Void
Back on the Sky City, Gaurav was standing in the center of the training grounds. Suraj, Elara, and even a weary Yan Ling were gathered around him.
"Today's lesson," Gaurav said, looking at the horizon where the sun was rising. "Is about The All Path. Most people think the All Path means being good at everything. They're wrong."
He looked at his students, his Eye of Destiny seeing the bright futures they were carving for themselves.
"The All Path means realizing that everything—the wind, the stars, the emperor's anger, and the dirt under your fingernails—is made of the same logic. If you understand the logic, you own the world. And if you own the world..."
Gaurav looked up as the silver streak of the First Prince's carriage appeared in the distance.
"...you never have to follow anyone else's rules again."
"Suraj, get the tea ready. Elara, sharpen your ice. Yan Ling, stop scrubbing the stables for a second and watch. The Imperial Prince is coming to visit, and I think he needs a very, very long lesson in humility."