The sky did not simply burn—it bled.
From the horizon eastward, a rip tore open the heavens like parchment set aflame. Colors once alien to the mortal eye seeped through: blue not of the sky, but of raw thought; red that hummed with memory; and a gold so silent it screamed. The ancient texts of the Grand Observatory had once warned of such signs—of a Heaven Fracture, a wound left when the mortal realm tugged too violently on the threads of the Beyond.
Tian Lei was the first to speak.
"What is that?"
Li Zhen did not answer at first. His gaze lingered on the rip, on the tears of the world beyond it. The air no longer moved with wind, but with uncertainty—as if reality itself hesitated. Around them, the flora trembled; birds flew in broken spirals; the soil itself seemed to sigh.
"It is a consequence," he finally said. "Of freedom."
Ruo Lin stepped forward, arms crossed to shield herself from the strange light. "We broke something, didn't we?"
Li Zhen nodded. "Or perhaps we unlocked it."
It did not take long for the world to react.
In the days that followed, cultivators across the Five Great Sects—Heavenly Ink Pavilion, Verdant Echo Valley, Star-Soul Monastery, Thousand Bone Court, and the Iron Tempest Hall—found their techniques failing. Qi pathways dissolved mid-activation. Pill furnaces exploded without warning. Spirit beasts fled into oceans or simply vanished into mist.
Villages near sect territories were evacuated as a precaution. Farmers discovered crops that grew upside down or turned to crystal overnight. Mountains shed their peaks in silent avalanches of forgotten stone. It was as if the very laws of cultivation had renegotiated their contracts with the world.
The great Leylines of Yuantian—the invisible rivers of Qi flowing beneath the earth—began to flicker. Entire formations that had governed weather or seasons became inert. The sky dimmed even at noon. And the great Bell of Hengtai, silent for three centuries, rang thirteen times in one night.
Panic bred faster than reason.
From the southern peaks came the Sealed Order, a council of high elders sworn to protect the Balance Doctrine. They accused Li Zhen of tearing the Veil of Balance and declared a bounty on his existence. Statues of his former life—once revered—were shattered. His name was added to the List of Eternal Strife, the black ledger carried by the Executioners of Heaven.
But it wasn't just Li Zhen they feared.
The rip in the sky had brought something else: voices. Not demons. Not gods. Something in between.
They called themselves The Broken. And they claimed to be the reflections of all cultivators who had ever hesitated at the edge of their own potential. They knew forbidden arts. They wielded mirror-versions of sect techniques, corrupted by clarity.
Their arrival was not dramatic, but intimate. They appeared in mirrors, in dreamscapes, in the pauses between breaths. Some cultivators woke to find versions of themselves sitting at the end of their beds, asking questions they had buried deep: "Why did you stop?" "What were you afraid of?"
The sects tried to mount coordinated defenses. But every battle against The Broken cost more than it gained—because each confrontation forced a cultivator to confront a version of their truth. Some went mad. Others became husks, their spirits broken not in combat, but in understanding.
Li Zhen, Ruo Lin, and Tian Lei journeyed east toward the epicenter of the rip. They crossed the Crimson Marsh, where every puddle reflected a different version of oneself—sometimes older, sometimes crueler, sometimes dead. Travelers had gone mad here, trying to find the reflection that matched their soul.
They passed through Whisper Hollow, where no voice echoed the same twice. Li Zhen's voice returned to him in the tone of an old master, while Ruo Lin's laughter came back like a child's sob. The very land seemed to peel at identity.
Then they climbed the Luminous Spine, the ancient ridge that bordered the Outer Realms. Along the way, they saw traces of failed expeditions—camps frozen mid-meal, scrolls written in reverse, boots without feet.
Each night grew stranger. Stars refused to stay still. Rivers flowed upward. Trees whispered names they had never heard. Qi itself became slippery, evasive—as though sensing its own end.
And each night, Li Zhen dreamed of the same thing:
A child holding a broken sword, standing beneath a black sun.
"Am I still me?" he asked the vision once.
The child had smiled. "You were never just one thing."
At the borders of the Eastern Wastes—a stretch of cursed land abandoned since the Void Bloom War—they met a man with no name. He wore rags, carried no weapon, and walked barefoot across jagged obsidian.
But when he spoke, the land stilled to listen.
"The sky breaks because it was meant to," the man said. "The Broken are not invaders. They are returns."
Ruo Lin narrowed her eyes. "Returns from where?"
"From your doubts. From your dreams. From the pieces of yourselves you left behind to become strong."
Li Zhen asked, "Why now?"
"Because you opened the door. With the Fractured Path, with your defiance of the Heaven Mandate."
This man—later known to some as the Beggar Oracle—offered no guidance, only riddles. But it was he who named the phenomenon for what it truly was: The Rebalancing. A collision of timelines, of forsaken choices, converging in rebellion against the false linearity of fate.
The Oracle claimed that in every major breakthrough a cultivator had made, a branch of reality was left behind—a version where they failed, or chose differently. These fragments, long dormant, had now found their way home.
They pressed on.
Around them, the world frayed. Mountains cracked like glass. Cultivation scrolls turned blank. Music had no rhythm. Time skipped. Cause and effect no longer trusted each other.
Villages they passed were empty, their inhabitants gone not from war, but from doubt. A whole town had simply forgotten its name, its history, its purpose. Even the buildings looked unsure of themselves, leaning at strange angles, doors refusing to face forward.
When they reached the edge of the Skywound—what the locals now called the tear—Tian Lei fell to his knees. "I can't feel anything," he said. "Not even fear."
They stood before a field of mirrored terrain, where each step threatened to pull them into a reflection not their own. The Skywound pulsed, not like a heart, but like an eye—blinking slowly, seeing too much.
Li Zhen stared into the heart of the light.
Inside, he saw himself. But not quite.
A version of him, seated upon a throne made of roots and bone, smiled.
"Welcome back," it said. "You've finally caught up to yourself."