The winds howled between the peaks of a solitary mountain range, sculpting the sharp cliffs of the Night Chain in the northwest of the Tianlu continent. It was a place forgotten by all, inaccessible to ordinary mortals, and even cultivators felt their souls shiver there. The sky, a mix of ink and blood, stretched its dark draperies above a world governed by the unforgiving laws of strength.
On the highest ridge of a solitary peak, a young man sat, motionless as a statue. Draped in a black robe with obsidian reflections, his long hair floated in the wind like a torrent of shadows. His features were fine, noble, but his gaze… that black, intense, unfathomable gaze seemed to be able to swallow the soul of anyone who lost themselves in it.
Lian Yu, seventeen years old.
His presence cut through the eternal silence of the mountain. The air vibrated around him, as if he was warping the very fabric of the world. It was the third time he had survived the Trial of Nothingness, a secret technique he had not learned, but… felt. Each time, he emerged different. Colder. Emptier.
A voice resonated in his mind — ancient, hoarse, familiar, and terrifying.
"The third seal is broken… The Shadow within you awakens, Lian Yu. Are you ready to embrace the Void?"
He didn't need to answer. His soul had already chosen.
The Tianlu continent was a vast territory, divided into eight major provinces, each ruled by a dominant clan or a spiritual order. Cultivators, sects, demonic beasts, floating cities… all coexisted in an unstable balance. On Tianlu, there was no mercy. Those who did not cultivate perished, and those who did ended up devouring each other.
Two paths dominated cultivation:
The Virtuous Path – guided by celestial decrees, justice, and light. It followed the harmonization of the soul with natural laws and divine principles.
The Obscure Path – despised by the temples, but older than the stars. It drew from chaos, tainted karma, pain, and the Void.
The cultivators of the world climbed the levels as one ascends a bloody mountain. On Tianlu, the first levels of cultivation were as follows:
Obscure Path:
Awakening of the Void
Marks of the Shadow
Dissident Heart
March of Annihilation
Devoured Reflection
Call of Silence
Virtuous Path:
Spiritual Radiance
Celestial Soul
Purification
Harmonious Path
Celestial Will
Divine Manifestation
Lian Yu was currently at the very beginning of the Marks of the Shadow, the second stage of the Obscure Path, though his aura suggested something much deeper.
He did not remember his parents. Not his birth. Not the first time he had bled. What he knew was that he had been found eight years ago, lying in a black jade coffin, at the bottom of a bottomless chasm, by a blind hermit named Master Ye Hei.
The man had raised him, but never loved him. He had prepared him.
"Mortal seek the light. You, you must learn to walk without the shadow of light."
Lian Yu had grown up without laughter, without brothers, without hope. Yet, he had a fierce will to live. Not to survive — to understand. Why had he been locked in that coffin? Why did his presence attract nightmare beasts like fire attracts butterflies? Why, even in his dreams, did he hear the voice of the Void?
Far below, in the lower lands of Tianlu, the great sects stirred. Rumors spoke of a "dark plague" born in the north. In the Sacred Sphere of Mingxu, the most powerful virtuous sect, a young genius already shone in the eyes of the elders.
Meng Zhen, also seventeen years old. Pale blond, golden eyes, bearer of an immaculate aura. A child prodigy, he had reached the third level of the Virtuous Path — Purification, at a record age.
The world wanted him to save Tianlu. He wanted it too.
But he did not know that his path, since the dawn of the heavens, had been intertwined with Lian Yu's by karmic threads woven before their birth.
On the dark mountain, Lian Yu opened his eyes again. Red runes burned in his pupils. Around him, the shadows stretched, whispering. He extended his hand.
A black dagger appeared — curved, unstable, devouring the light. It was the Blade of Silence, the first manifestation of his cultivation.
"The next step is the City of Ashes…" he whispered.
A black mist wrapped around him. In a breath, he disappeared from the mountain. The Obscure Path, still weak in this world, was about to receive a new bearer. And fate, hidden in the threads of reality, began to tremble.