The winds howled across the peaks of Mount Yuxian, sending bitter gusts of snow spiraling down the jade steps of the Li Clan's inner sanctum. Bells rang softly in the distance, chimes of celebration — but they were not for him.
In the far corner of the ceremonial ground, a boy knelt in silence.
His name was Li Tianchen.
Twelve winters old. Thin. Pale. His clothes were simple and worn — unlike the silk-robed children of the clan elders, who stood proudly near the Grand Hall. Each of them had just awakened their Spirit Roots, glowing symbols of destiny that determined their cultivation path.
Fire. Wind. Earth. Ice.
Each child had one. Except for him.
"Nothing," the elder had muttered, voice cold and final. "Li Tianchen has no Spirit Root. He is… Heavenless."
The word echoed through the courtyard like thunder.
Heavenless.
A fate worse than death in a world ruled by cultivation. Without a Spirit Root, one could not gather Qi, could not train, could not fight. A cripple. A waste. A burden.
And in the Li Clan — where strength was law — there was no place for burdens.
"Out of respect for your mother's sacrifice during the war, we will not kill you," said Li Rong, the clan head. His beard fluttered in the wind, but his eyes held no warmth. "But you are to be exiled. Leave by sunset. You are no longer one of us."
Tianchen didn't speak.
He didn't cry.
He simply bowed his head, his hands trembling as they clenched the frozen earth.
---
The snow fell harder as he walked down the mountain, a bundle of meager supplies slung over his shoulder. Every step cut into his bare feet. Every breath felt like swallowing needles.
Why was I born like this?
Why did the Heavens abandon me?
He collapsed beside a frozen stream at the mountain's base. Night had fallen, and the world was silent, save for the crackling of ice and the distant call of beasts.
As the cold crept into his bones, he felt his strength fading. Stars blurred above him.
So this… was the end?
But then, he heard it.
A voice.
Soft. Ancient. Echoing not in his ears, but in his mind.
> "Do you hate the Heavens, child?"
Tianchen's eyes fluttered open. In front of him, where the stream had frozen solid, a faint glow pulsed beneath the ice. A pattern. A sigil. A lotus of black flame.
He didn't answer. He couldn't speak.
But inside his chest, something awakened. A hunger. A fire he'd never known.
The voice returned.
> "Then walk the path they fear."
"Take the Heavenless Codex."
The ice shattered.
From the depths of the frozen stream rose a scroll — ancient, cracked, wrapped in thorns of dark energy. It hovered before him, pulsing with a rhythm that matched his heartbeat.
Tianchen reached out, his hand trembling. The moment his fingers touched the scroll, pain ripped through his body like lightning. His veins turned black, his bones burned, and his eyes rolled back.
He screamed.
But he did not let go.
---
When he woke, the snow had stopped.
The scroll was gone, but its words burned inside his soul.
He knew them now.
> First Verse of the Heavenless Codex:
"The Heavens favor the strong, but fear the defiant."
"Break your limits. Absorb your pain. Use hatred to fuel rebirth."
Tianchen looked down at his hand. The veins that had turned black… now pulsed with a faint glow. Not Qi. Not Spirit. Something else.
Something forbidden.
He was still weak. But no longer powerless.
He stood.
Alone. Banished. Cursed.
And yet… for the first time, he felt alive.
---
Far above, in the Li Clan's Grand Hall, an elder's jade mirror cracked without reason.
In the northern snowlands, deep beneath an ancient glacier, a girl's eyes opened within a crystal tomb — her first words in a thousand years a whisper:
> "He's awakened…"
---