The sky was a dark ocean, and the moon floated like a lonely silver boat across it, bathing the entire Heaven Defying Academy in a delicate, ethereal glow. The mountains surrounding the academy stood like ancient guardians, their tips shrouded in drifting clouds that danced gently in the cold breeze.
Tonight, everything was still… almost too still.
And yet—within that silence—a story was unfolding.
In the deepest chamber of the Starlight Pagoda, a girl sat cross-legged before a glowing pool. Her long violet hair spilled over her shoulders like silk, and her eyes shimmered with the faint light of a blooming star. She was Mei Ling, the new prodigy of the academy. Only sixteen… but her soul carried a burden far older.
She had touched a fragment of the Dao Ancestor's will three nights ago, and ever since then… she could feel it inside her. A whisper. A presence. Gentle, patient, yet infinitely powerful.
A phantom hand guiding her cultivation… and reshaping her fate.
"Why me?" she had asked the stars.
And they had answered in silence.
But now, as her cultivation broke through the Mid Heaven Tier and surged toward the High Tier, she felt it again—that hum. That pull.
The water in the sacred pool rippled. Not from the wind.
From him.
From Dev Yadav, the Dao Ancestor himself.
Or… what remained of him.
"Your heart trembles," the voice whispered, not from the air but from within her veins, like a song only her soul could hear. "But you do not run."
Mei Ling's lashes fluttered, and her lips curled into a soft, defiant smile. "I wasn't born to run. I was born to rise."
The pool's glow brightened, and for a moment, a silhouette appeared behind her in the reflection—tall, robed in ancient gray, with silver hair flowing like mist.
He didn't speak. He only watched.
And Mei Ling… she didn't need words. She felt the message.
Rise, even when the world breaks you.
She stood up, the water around her feet rising in tiny spirals. The Dao within her bloomed like a lotus—beautiful, sharp, and eternal.
But far from the pagoda, in the dark corners of the Academy, something stirred.
On the eastern cliffside, a masked figure crouched above the dormitory roofs. His aura was thin, almost ghostly, as if he existed halfway between dimensions. His name was Yin Chen, one of the academy's outer disciples—or so he appeared. In truth, he was a spy from the Dim Moon Pavilion, an organization that had once been crushed by the Dao Ancestor ten thousand years ago.
They were supposed to be extinct.
But extinction meant nothing in the cultivation world. Some things just… hid.
Yin Chen narrowed his eyes as he stared at Mei Ling's silhouette from afar. "So… she's the one the old monster left his mark on?"
He chuckled under his breath. "Let's see how long that blessing lasts."
But before he could turn away, a shadow landed silently beside him.
He froze.
"You shouldn't be here," came a warm, melodic voice—strangely calm for someone who had just discovered a spy.
Yin Chen reached for his dagger, but it was too late.
A hand touched his wrist, and his body went limp—his spiritual core frozen in an instant. The girl who now stood before him wore a simple black robe, her face half-hidden behind a silk veil. But her eyes…
Golden. Like twin suns.
"I-I didn't mean—" he stammered, choking on his words.
"You did," she replied sweetly, before dragging him into the shadows.
Her name was Lan Yue, the first true disciple of the Dao Ancestor. She walked in silence. She killed in silence.
But tonight, she spared.
She pressed a finger to his forehead, and a rune flared to life. "Let the ancestor judge you," she whispered, and then, with a flick of her sleeve, vanished into the night like a falling star.
Elsewhere in the academy, a storm was quietly gathering.
Headmaster Yuchi stood at the peak of the Windward Cliff, his white beard billowing like a banner. He had been the Dao Ancestor's closest friend once… and yet, even he hadn't been allowed to know the full plan. But now, pieces were moving.
The formation stones had begun to glow. The hidden realm was activating.
And students were changing.
Too fast.
"Dev…" Yuchi muttered to the wind. "What are you preparing for?"
His question was answered by a voice that did not belong in this world.
"A war. One this realm isn't ready for."
The clouds above parted, and a beam of light struck the cliff. In its heart stood the phantom of Dev Yadav, robed in celestial white, his eyes like infinite galaxies.
Yuchi knelt without hesitation. "You live…"
"No," Dev said softly. "I exist… in threads and echoes."
"But you speak."
"I do. Because the time has come."
Yuchi raised his eyes, his heart pounding. "For what?"
Dev's voice was quiet, but its weight crushed the sky.
"For the next realm to bleed into ours."
Back at the Starlight Pagoda, Mei Ling opened her eyes.
And in that moment, the pool beneath her exploded into radiant stardust, shooting through the roof like a beacon. The entire academy felt the pulse. A hundred disciples fainted. A thousand froze.
Her aura now matched a Grand Elder's.
She had broken through again.
And far away, in a realm stitched between time and chaos, Dev Yadav smiled.
"She's ready."
But what she was ready for… not even she could guess.