The night after the tribulation bled slowly into dawn.
Outside the cultivation chamber, the Feilun Sect was restless. Elders had not slept; disciples whispered nervously as though afraid the sky itself might crack again. The heavens had screamed during Tian Shen's breakthrough—lightning so violent the mountain's protective wards had nearly splintered. Such things did not go unnoticed.
The sect grounds felt tense, every pine needle and stone carrying the residue of a storm that had not been born of weather, but of one man.
Tian Shen.
Within his chamber, the silence weighed heavy. Tian Shen sat unmoving, though inside him the Utopian Core thrummed with an untamed rhythm, as though mocking the stillness. His breath was calm but shallow, every inhale dragging against the storm lingering in his veins.
He opened his eyes.
