The moment Xian Ye's fingers touched the shadow, his world fractured.
A surge of memories, emotions, and forgotten echoes poured into him like a tidal wave. His mind burned, his vision blurred, and his body felt as if it were being ripped apart.
But beneath the pain, there was something deeper.
A voice.
A name.
Not Xian Ye.
Something older.
Something forbidden.
And then—just as suddenly as it had come—the pain vanished.
Xian Ye collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, his fingers digging into the cold nothingness beneath him. His heartbeat pounded like a war drum.
The shadow stood before him, silent and waiting.
"Did you see?"
Xian Ye raised his head, his vision still spinning. His hands trembled as he spoke the name that had surfaced in his mind.
"…Tian Zhen."
The moment the words left his lips, the void reacted.
The air shuddered. The shadows trembled. The weight of the world shifted, as if something ancient had stirred at the mere utterance of that name.
Tian Zhen.
The name felt right, but it also felt… wrong.
Familiar, yet distant. A name that once belonged to him, yet carried a weight that his current self could not fully understand.
"Who is Tian Zhen?" Xian Ye whispered, his voice raw.
The shadow tilted its head, its form shifting like liquid darkness.
"You already know the answer."
Xian Ye's fingers curled into fists.
No. He didn't.
All he had were fragments—glimpses of battles, of power beyond mortal understanding, of a throne in the cosmic void.
If Tian Zhen was his name, then why had it been erased?
And more importantly—who had erased it?
The shadow figure remained silent, watching him. Then, it slowly began to fade.
"You are not ready to remember everything."
"Not yet."
Xian Ye forced himself to his feet, his breath uneven.
"Then tell me—what am I supposed to do?"
The shadow's form dissolved completely, leaving only a whisper in the wind.
"Find the others."
"Find the lost fragments of yourself."
"And when the time comes… reclaim what was taken."
And then—
The void collapsed.
Return to Reality
Xian Ye's eyes snapped open.
He was back in his training quarters, seated on the cold stone floor. The flickering candlelight cast long shadows across the room, the world exactly as he had left it.
Except—it wasn't.
Something had changed.
He could feel it.
A deeper awareness. A shift in his very existence.
And most of all—the name.
Tian Zhen.
The name carried a power of its own, even unspoken. He could sense it lingering in the air, as if the universe itself had acknowledged its return.
Xian Ye pressed a hand to his chest.
The sigil was still there, hidden beneath his skin. But now, it pulsed differently—stronger.
As if it had been waiting for him to remember.
His jaw tightened.
The silver-eyed disciple.
The hidden gate.
The whispers in the wind.
None of this was coincidence.
If his true name had been erased from existence, it meant someone—or something—had wanted him forgotten.
And if they wanted him gone that badly…
It meant he had once been dangerous.
A slow smirk formed on Xian Ye's lips.
"Then I suppose it's time to find out why."