Years turned to decades. Decades withered into centuries. The seasons on Yanzhou no longer held names—only the bitter rhythm of survival.
Once, the world thrived in balance. Qi surged through the veins of warriors like dragons in flight. Mana shaped the skies into wonder. Prana healed wounds both seen and unseen. Nether whispered from the shadows, feared but respected. Four systems. Four paths. One world delicately bound by the threads of power.
Then came the Silence.
A disease not of flesh, but of spirit. One by one, bloodlines crumbled—energy stripped clean from bone and soul. Those cursed by the Hereditary Silence forgot who they were. Their names, their power, their purpose—gone.
Fear turned to judgment. Judgment turned to exile.
The Duality, draped in the banners of order, cast the Xuji—the afflicted—onto Yanzhou, an island said to lie outside time. There, memories were erased. Energy faded. Peace was forced upon them like chains in velvet.
No one remembered how they got there. No one questioned why.
Until he did.
A boy born with nothing. No Qi. No Mana. No birthright. Only nightmares, and a thirst that no memory could quench. On a day unlike the others—when the skies wept black and the moon wept gold—the scroll fell.
Bound in symbols the world had forgotten, it pulsed with truths too ancient to speak.
He opened it. He saw everything.
His ancestors screaming. The gates of Heaven closing. The betrayal of the Shenzes. The Duality watching from afar.
And with the scroll came a gift. A curse. A weapon.
The ability to copy any skill from any energy system. A power not meant for any single soul.
His name was Li Wei Tianchen.
And the silence within him… began to scream.