The lower formation chamber was quieter than usual that morning. Mist curled along the stone floor like living smoke, and the faint smell of damp earth hung heavy in the air. Xiao Li moved slowly, deliberately, as if every step might disturb something ancient and unseen.
He had begun to sense the rhythm of the chamber—the subtle pulse beneath the cracked stones, the silence that pressed against his senses, and the faint void-like hum that had greeted him the first day. No one else could feel it. The disciples above could chant, swing swords, and circulate Qi freely. Here, beneath them all, the world obeyed a different set of rules.
Xiao Li knelt before the platform and placed his hands on the broken inscriptions. The black stone seemed to breathe under his touch, faintly quivering as if recognizing him.
You are not a disciple. You are not a servant. You are… a variable.
The thought was not his own—it came from somewhere deep within the void of the chamber, resonating with his blood, his bones, even his pulse. He could not name it, but he understood instinctively: the world had a rhythm, and he was beginning to bend it.
Suddenly, a ripple passed through the air. Not like wind. Not like Qi. Something darker, denser, like absence itself folding inward. Xiao Li's hands tingled, the hair on his neck rising involuntarily.
"You feel it again," a voice whispered.
He turned. The young female servant from before stood at the chamber's entrance, lantern held high. Her expression was calm, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of awe—and fear.
"Yes," Xiao Li said simply.
She stepped closer, her lantern trembling. "It's… responding to you. Not like a formation should. Not like any Spirit Root could. I don't understand it."
"I don't either," Xiao Li admitted.
Her gaze fell on the inscriptions beneath his hands. "Whatever it is… it shouldn't exist here. And yet… it's alive. Or something like life."
Xiao Li let his fingers linger on the black stone. He felt a cold awareness spreading through him—his body aligning to the void beneath, his mind brushing against a reality that should not be.
"I need to go deeper," he said. "I need to see what it truly is."
The girl's lips parted, but no words came. She nodded slowly, her expression unreadable.
Xiao Li rose, brushing the dust from his sleeves. The platform beneath him seemed to pulse, acknowledging his intent. Somewhere in the sky, the light shifted imperceptibly, clouds parting slightly as if the heavens themselves had noticed the anomaly in this forgotten chamber.
As he moved toward the innermost circle of the formation, he felt it—the first true whisper of the void within himself, answering the call of the inscriptions beneath the stone.
And far above, in the silent records of Heaven, a line flickered.
A name had begun to exist where it should not.
End of Chapter 4