"When Heaven forgets the name of man,And stars no longer sing of fate,The void shall breathe once more.Memory will awaken,And the dreamer shall return —Not as wrath,But as remembrance."
The Valley Beneath Eternal Mist
At the edge of the mortal world lay a valley shrouded in silver fog — a land where the heavens slept and the air itself hummed with quiet qi. The locals called it Mist Valley, a sanctuary forgotten by war and untouched by time. Every dawn, pale light bled across jade ridges, and clouds drifted low, folding the world into silence.
Here, the Mist Valley Sect trained in peace — a modest school known not for grand wars or immortal ambitions, but for its philosophy of balance. To cultivate not to conquer, but to understand.
Among its disciples was a boy named Shen Wei — seventeen years of age, slender, quiet, and unremarkable at first glance. Yet when the morning wind passed him by, the mist around him moved. It swirled as if drawn to his heartbeat, answering an invisible rhythm.
He never noticed.
When the masters called for meditation, Shen Wei sat still, but his soul wandered to places unknown — fragments of crimson skies, a sword that bled light, a woman's voice whispering his name through eternity.
"Li Shen…"
He would awaken with cold sweat, trembling, unable to recall why that name made his heart ache.
The Dream of the Burning Sky
That night, the valley slept beneath a full moon, but Shen Wei's dreams did not.
He found himself standing upon an endless battlefield — the heavens torn open, mountains floating like islands adrift in chaos. Golden rivers ran backward into a storm of stars.
At the heart of it stood a man whose face was his own, cloaked in shadow and light.Behind him burned an obsidian sword, its blade etched with constellations.
"Who are you?" Shen Wei asked.
The figure turned — eyes glowing like dying suns.
"You are the dream I left behind," it said."And I am the sin you cannot remember."
The sky cracked. The sword fell. Flames consumed everything.
Shen Wei woke with a gasp, his palms bleeding — thin, fresh cuts forming a sigil shaped like a spiral of stars.
Outside, the mist trembled.
III. The Bamboo Grove Trial
Morning came, and the disciples gathered within the Emerald Grove, a vast training ground lined with bamboo that whispered when touched by wind.
It was the day of the Inner Disciple Selection, when outer disciples would prove their worth before the elders.
Shen Wei stood among them — silent, heart racing. He had failed twice before. Not from lack of skill, but from hesitation, as if something within him restrained his full strength.
Elder Mu Qing, a man of serene gaze and long silver hair, watched from the dais. None in the sect knew that long ago, he had fought beside Li Shen before the fall of the heavens. When his eyes met Shen Wei's, a flicker of recognition passed — so faint it vanished before thought could take hold.
"Next," the elder announced.
Shen Wei stepped forward. His opponent — Ren Qiao, a fiery-tempered youth who'd long despised Shen Wei's silence — smirked.
"Don't faint this time, dreamer," Ren sneered, drawing his ironwood sword.
The bamboo stilled.
The duel began.
Ren attacked first, his sword slicing through mist, his qi roaring like a flame. Shen Wei barely dodged — instinct guiding him where training had not. He felt the world slow; the rustle of bamboo, the fall of dew, even Ren's breath seemed suspended.
He turned his wrist, and his sword traced a line through the air — a movement he had never learned, yet it flowed as if carved into his bones.
The technique was graceful, curved, almost like dancing through light.
When their blades met, a silent pulse erupted — a wave of energy so sharp it cleaved through bamboo in all directions.
The grove fell silent.
Ren's sword split in two. His body froze, eyes wide.
Shen Wei's weapon stopped an inch from his throat.
A single droplet of mist slid down the blade and vanished.
Gasps echoed among the watching disciples. Elder Mu Qing stood abruptly, his eyes narrowing.
That movement — that form — it was unmistakable.
The Void Steps.
A forbidden martial art erased from the mortal record centuries ago.
How could a mere valley boy wield it?
Whispers in the Mist
When the duel ended, Shen Wei withdrew to the valley's waterfall, as he always did when the noise of the sect became too heavy.
He stared at his hands.
The energy he had released still lingered — soft, cold, infinite. It frightened him.Each time he closed his eyes, he saw that same sigil glowing faintly beneath his skin.
"Why does it feel… familiar?" he whispered.
The mist responded, swirling like a living thing. Within it, a voice — faint, female, and sorrowful.
"Because it is what you were… and what you will be."
He turned sharply, but no one was there.
Only the distant sound of a flute — soft, melancholic — carried by the wind from deeper within the forest.
He followed.
There, beside a grove of orchid trees, stood a young woman dressed in white and lilac robes, her hair bound by a moon-shaped pin. She played a bamboo flute carved with celestial runes.
When she saw him, her eyes widened — as if she had seen a ghost.
"Who… are you?" she asked softly.
"Shen Wei," he said. "Disciple of Mist Valley."
Her hand trembled. She whispered the name again, tasting it as if it awakened something long buried.
"Shen… Wei…"
Then, without another word, she turned and vanished into the mist — leaving only the echo of her music behind.
The Elder's Suspicion
Later that night, Elder Mu Qing stood in meditation before the Ancestral Tablets of the sect.
The wind rustled, carrying faint traces of void qi — energy so ancient and rare that only one man in history had ever commanded it.
He knelt before a cracked tablet bearing no name.
"Li Shen," he murmured. "Has fate truly woven you again into this world?"
As he meditated, visions flickered — of Li Shen standing before the heavens, declaring rebellion against divine tyranny, and of the woman who fell beside him, her name lost to time.
Mu Qing opened his eyes, gaze cold as moonlight.
"If the void returns, then Heaven will stir. We must be ready."
The Mark Awakens
Days passed, but the dream would not fade.Every night, Shen Wei saw the same battlefield, the same burning sword.And each dawn, the mark upon his palm glowed brighter.
During meditation, his qi began to twist — no longer calm and circular, but spiraling, infinite, devouring.
On the fifth night, pain struck like lightning.
He collapsed, gasping, as visions assaulted him — fragments of another life: a white-haired warrior breaking the heavens, a woman smiling through blood, the cry of a name lost in thunder.
A voice echoed within him — deep, resonant, divine.
"The Void remembers.The heavens tremble.You cannot flee what you were."
The mark burst with light.
Outside, every candle in the sect extinguished at once.
Mist rose high into the air, forming a vast sigil across the sky — the Symbol of the Forgotten Star.
The disciples panicked. The elders rushed out.
And there, at the center of the training ground, stood Shen Wei — floating, unconscious, surrounded by an aura of black and silver light that defied the laws of qi.
Elder Mu Qing's heart sank.
"So it begins again…"
VII. The Whisper of Heaven
Far above the mortal realm, within the Celestial Court, a ripple spread across the divine rivers.
A spirit attendant bowed before a throne of starlight.
"Your Majesty… the Void has stirred."
From the throne, an ancient voice responded, cold as the edge of eternity.
"Then the curse of Li Shen still lives.Send word to the Nine Sects.The Rebirth must not complete."
Thunder rolled across the heavens.
VIII. The Hidden Soul
Shen Wei awoke three days later in the infirmary. His body ached, his qi depleted, but his mind burned with one question.
Who was he, really?
At his bedside, Elder Mu Qing sat in silence. When Shen Wei stirred, the old man spoke softly.
"Do you know what happened?"
"No… I only remember pain. And a voice."
"What did it say?"
"That I cannot flee what I was."
Mu Qing's gaze deepened. He hesitated, then said:
"The heavens move again, Shen Wei. Remember this — the stronger your memory becomes, the more they will seek your end."
"My… memory?"
"Yes. And when it returns fully, so will the war."
Closing Verse — The Mist Recedes
That night, alone by the waterfall, Shen Wei looked into the moonlit water.
His reflection shimmered — sometimes his own face, sometimes another's, older, fiercer, crowned in flame.
"Li Shen…" he whispered, unsure if it was a name or a memory.
The mist parted, revealing stars — the same stars that had once burned above the Shattered Heavens.
Somewhere in the valley, the flute played again — soft, haunting, and sorrowful.
And as its final note faded, Shen Wei felt something stir within his soul:a fragment of light, warm and infinite.
The first memory of who he truly was.
"The void sleeps not in death,but in silence.And silence… is only the breath before awakening."
— End of Chapter 1: Mist Valley, Hidden Soul