The first thing Xian Ye felt was emptiness.
Not pain. Not fear. Not confusion.
Just a hollow, aching void where something should have been.
He lay on cold, cracked stone, his fingers twitching as he grasped at the ground beneath him. The scent of damp earth and old blood filled his nostrils. Somewhere in the distance, the faint murmur of disciples cut through the silence like whispers of the wind.
"Another failure…"
"He won't last long. The sect has no use for those who can't cultivate."
Xian Ye's eyelids flickered open, revealing a sky of storm-gray clouds stretched endlessly above. The heavens themselves seemed lifeless, as if they had forgotten how to shine. His mind was blank—no name, no memories, no sense of self. Just an instinctive certainty that something had been ripped away from him.
He tried to sit up, but his body refused to move.
Then the pain came. A slow, creeping agony spread through his limbs like embers beneath his skin, flickering and dying just before they could ignite into true flame.
His dantian, the core of every cultivator's strength, was… empty. Hollow.
Panic crawled into his chest, but it was dull—like a forgotten feeling from a past life. He had nothing, yet it felt as if he had once held everything.
Memories. He needed to remember.
Who was he? How did he get here? Why was there a gaping void in his soul?
Then—a whisper.
"You are not ready to remember."
A voice not his own, echoing from the depths of his mind. Ethereal. Ancient. Terrifyingly calm.
Xian Ye's breath hitched. The voice was neither cruel nor kind—it was simply there, watching. Waiting.
A sharp laugh snapped him back to reality.
A group of disciples stood a few feet away, their sect robes embroidered with golden sigils, humming with faint cultivation energy. They looked down at him the way one might regard a dying insect.
"I told you," one of them sneered. "He's a waste of resources. Why does the sect even keep trash like him around?"
Another disciple smirked. "Probably for the entertainment. Look at him. Can't even stand."
A pair of boots stopped inches from his face. A third voice, deeper and more composed.
"You're awake," the voice mused. "I thought you'd be dead by now."
Xian Ye forced himself to look up.
A young man with piercing silver eyes, his expression unreadable. Unlike the others, he wasn't mocking. His gaze was one of calculated curiosity, as if measuring Xian Ye's worth.
"You don't remember, do you?" the silver-eyed man asked.
Something inside Xian Ye stirred. A feeling of déjà vu, as if he had seen those silver eyes before—in another lifetime.
But before he could respond, another wave of pain shot through his body. His vision blurred. The storm-gray sky darkened, and the whispers in his mind grew louder.
"Not yet."
"You are not ready."
And then, for the second time, Xian Ye fell into darkness.
Just before consciousness slipped away, a whisper softer than a breath, yet heavy as fate itself echoed through his mind:
"Wake up soon… or you will never wake up at all."