The rain came gently that evening, whispering across the roof tiles of the Azure Cloud Sect like the hush of old secrets.
Grey clouds hung low in the sky, veiling the moon in silk shadows.
It was a storm without fury—soft, cold, steady—yet its silence seemed to amplify the weight in the air.
In the outer disciples' courtyard, most had long since sought refuge indoors
Candles flickered inside meditation halls and dorms, their warm glows barely visible through the wooden lattice windows.
The rain, though light, chilled the skin, and none saw purpose in standing out in it.
None, except one.
Lian Ren stood motionless at the center of the courtyard, eyes closed, rain soaking through his dark training robes.
His long black hair clung to his neck and back, heavy with water, yet he did not shiver. He did not move.
The storm within him was far colder.
He could still feel it—that divine pressure. The echo of Wrath. It hadn't been a full awakening, not yet, but something inside him had stirred, and he had nearly lost himself to it.
His fists had trembled with a violence not his own, and for a fleeting moment, he had sensed the world bend around him like iron in a forge.
He hadn't lost control—but neither had he won.
A breeze passed, not of the storm but of something older, deeper.
Then—
A voice. Soft. Measured.
Unafraid.
"Your soul burns like a star doused in shadow. It is loud… and lonely."
His eyes snapped open.
He turned.
At the edge of the courtyard stood a girl.
Barefoot. Drenched. Still.
She wore flowing white priestess robes that clung slightly to her form in the rain, yet she bore herself with a strange serenity, as though untouched by cold.
A long blindfold of silken cloth wrapped carefully across her eyes, hiding them completely.
From her belt hung a silver censer, smoke still curling upward in faint wisps, dancing even in the damp air.
Her presence did not ripple with qi, nor did she possess the aura of a cultivator. Yet Lian Ren felt as though a bell had rung in the depths of his soul.
She was still, and yet the world seemed to turn around her.
"…Who are you?" he asked.
The girl tilted her head, and despite the blindfold, it felt as if she saw him fully.
"Someone who sees without eyes. Listens without ears.
My name is Yun Mei."
The way she spoke it—calm, unhurried, heavy with strange gravity—unnerved him more than any sword pointed at his chest.
Lian Ren narrowed his eyes. He scanned her for hidden signs of cultivation, for the subtle breath patterns of internal qi, but there was… nothing.
Either she was truly without power—or she had transcended what he could sense.
But then—
Why did she feel familiar?
"You see… my soul?" he asked slowly.
Yun Mei nodded.
"I see its threads. I see the fire within it. The regret buried beneath it.
And yours… is not of this world."
A gust of wind swept through the courtyard, sending droplets flying sideways. Her words struck harder than they should have, bypassing logic and embedding directly into his core.
His past.
The broken dreams.
The divine fragments.
The system.
"How do you know about me?" he asked, voice low.
"Because the stars speak, and the Heavens whisper," she replied.
"You are not alone, Lian Ren. Others like you are awakening too."
She took a slow step forward. Despite the rain, her bare feet made no sound.
"But they're not resisting.
Wrath. Pride. Desire.
The divine fragments are not silent forever."
He clenched his jaw. She knew.
Somehow, she knew about the voices. The weight. The celestial echoes lodged inside him like splinters of a forgotten war.
He stepped forward, slowly, carefully.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
Yun Mei offered a faint smile. It was sad, not mocking.
"Because the Heavens whispered. They told me to find you…
before they do."
His breath caught.
"Who?" he asked, though a name already lingered on the edge of memory.
Yun Mei reached into her sleeve and drew out a small, sealed scroll. The wax bore no crest—only a strange symbol shaped like a closed eye, drawn in silver.
"The Order," she whispered.
The name hit like lightning through his mind.
The Order of Severance.
He had seen it once—briefly—during a divine warning issued by the system itself.
Yun Mei extended the scroll.
"Take this. It's a map. To others like you.
Some may become allies.
Others… you will have to stop."
He hesitated for only a moment before accepting it. The parchment was warm—unnaturally so—and tingled faintly in his hand.
She stepped back again, rain dripping from her fingers.
"You have a choice, Lian Ren," she said softly.
"To walk alone into godhood… or to bind fate with those who still remember mercy."
Then, without another word, she turned and vanished into the mist and rain—like smoke returning to the wind.
The courtyard fell eerily silent after Yun Mei vanished—so silent that even the sound of falling rain felt distant, as if muffled behind a veil.
A faint trace of incense lingered in the damp air, curling with a whisper of sanctity. It was an otherworldly scent—one Lian Ren could not place, but which reminded him of starlight and ancient prayer scrolls burnt beneath altars.
He stared at the scroll in his hand.
The warmth of it wasn't from the paper itself—it was something deeper.
A subtle pulse. Like a heartbeat. Faint, yet real. He turned it over once, examining the wax seal with the closed silver eye.
It felt like it was… watching.
Stillness held him for a breath longer, then he moved.
He stepped beneath the eaves of a nearby pavilion, shaking the rain from his robes.
With a practiced hand, he broke the seal and unfurled the scroll.
His breath hitched.
It was not a simple map.
Ink scrawled across ancient parchment formed a tapestry of strange patterns—
contours of mountains and rivers, yes, but overlaid with something else: karmic resonance lines.
Points of distorted spiritual pressure, where the flow of fate had twisted unnaturally.
Some locations pulsed with glowing red rings drawn in a looping, calligraphic style.
— Confirmed: Fragment Detected.
— Danger: Elevated.
Others bore only a single chilling word, circled in gray:
— Sleeping.
And then… three names.
Three Heaven-Touched like himself.
Li Jian — Fragment: Pride
Mu Xiaoyu — Fragment: Desire
Gao Fen — Fragment: Silence
The names stirred echoes within him. None he recognized—but each sparked a visceral feeling. Like a blade brushing old scars.
One name, however, struck deeper.
Li Jian.
As his eyes fell upon it, a sudden heat burned in his veins. The rain felt colder.
A fragment of memory stirred—fleeting, violent. A battlefield. Screams of mortals far below.
A spear of golden flame shattering the skies. And a figure atop a mountain—cloaked in light, his gaze filled with contempt.
"You were always beneath me."
The voice echoed like thunder across time. Lian Ren gasped, fingers clutching the edge of the scroll tightly.
Who was he to me… in the life before this one?
He closed his eyes and steadied his breath. The system, silent until now, stirred with a chime in the back of his mind.
[New Mission Unlocked]
— "Thread the Karmic Net"
Objective: Encounter 3 Heaven-Touched. Choose: Guide or End them.
Reward: Karma +100 | Skill Fragment (Unknown)
A chill ran down his spine.
Guide or end them.
No middle path. No escape. He could not remain neutral forever.
Even the rain, now, seemed to press down on him with heavier hands.
He rolled the scroll slowly, reverently, like one folding the edges of a sacred relic.
The choice had been placed in his hands—but the moment Yun Mei arrived, perhaps it had already been made.
Later that night...
A crescent moon peeked through the thinning clouds, casting ghost-pale light across the hill overlooking Azure Cloud Sect.
The rain had lightened to a drizzle, whispering like memories against the leaves of a crescent-shaped tree rooted high above the valley.
Beneath the tree, Yun Mei knelt in silence.
The incense from her censer still burned, though the wind fought it. Her robes were no longer soaked—somehow they had dried, as if time moved differently where she stood
Her blindfold remained, but her face was turned upward—toward the stars, though she could not see them.
A presence stirred behind her.
The sound was almost imperceptible—a shift in the grass, the faint rustle of a cloak.
An old man stood there now, his hood drawn, silver-lined robes brushing the earth.
His aura was veiled, but the weight of his presence bent the space around him. He carried no weapon. He needed none.
"You met him?" he asked quietly.
Yun Mei nodded.
"He burns with guilt and grace," she replied, voice soft. "He's not ready… but he might choose to be."
The old man exhaled.
His gaze, though hidden, turned toward the glowing lights of the sect below. Dozens of disciples trained, fought, prayed—unaware of the gathering storm.
"He walks a sharp thread," the old man murmured.
"If he strays too far into divinity… the boy may forget mercy entirely."
Yun Mei lowered her head. A single tear slipped beneath her blindfold, trailing down her cheek in silver.
"And if he falls…" she whispered.
The wind stopped.
The clouds thinned.
Even the insects held their breath.
"…then the heavens truly will shatter."
The tree behind them shifted. For a moment, its crescent-shaped boughs glowed faintly—not with light, but with memory.
A celestial mark shimmered briefly upon the trunk—an ancient rune older than dynasties.
The wind blew again. The old man was gone.
But Yun Mei remained, praying in silence as the storm moved eastward—toward the first of the resonance points.
Toward a city soon to burn.