Weeks had passed since Chen Yun began his grueling regimen of rebuilding flesh and spirit. Every dawn and dusk were carved with painstaking effort—exercises that would have broken a normal man now forged him anew. Yet, despite his unwavering determination, the shattered Qi pathways remained an unyielding barrier, blocking the free flow of energy like jagged shards beneath a fragile surface.
One evening, as the crimson sun bled into the horizon, Chen Yun sat cross-legged beneath the ancient pine outside his hut. His eyes were closed, his breath slow and steady, weaving the Celestial Void Swift Technique deep within his mind.
This time, something changed.
The chaotic storm of Qi inside him — wild and unbridled for so long — began to settle. Though the pathways were still fractured, a new sensation stirred: a subtle shift in perception, as if the very fabric of space around him thinned and softened.
His awareness expanded.
He could sense the faint tremors in the air, the delicate dance of dust motes suspended in the twilight breeze. The sound of his own heartbeat echoed like thunder in a vast, silent cavern. Time slowed — stretched — not halted, but bent just enough that each moment bloomed like a fragile flower.
Chen Yun's eyes snapped open, glowing with a fierce, otherworldly light.
Void Perception — the elusive state that bridged body and space, mind and universe. The first true step beyond mortal limitation.
He stretched out his hand, fingers trembling, and the space before him shimmered like liquid glass. Tiny ripples spread from his fingertips, bending light and shadow with effortless grace. The Celestial Void Swift Technique was awakening not just in his muscles, but in his very connection to the world.
Yet, beneath the surface, his Qi pathways still throbbed with pain — blocked, twisted, incomplete. The energy could not flow freely, and the price of this imbalance was constant fatigue and strain.
Chen Yun gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.
"This is only the beginning."
The breakthrough had granted him a power few could dream of at his stage, but it was incomplete — a half-formed blade in his grasp. The body was stronger, faster, more attuned to the void than ever before. His movements could now ripple space itself, granting bursts of speed that seemed to flicker between moments.
Chen Yun stood at the edge of the dense forest, his crimson eyes narrowed in silent focus. Before him, an ancient pine towered—its thick trunk scarred by time, roots gripping the earth like iron claws.
He raised a single finger, steady and unwavering.
The world seemed to slow around him. Time bent—stretching thin like a silk thread pulled taut.
With a subtle shift in his breath, Chen Yun summoned the Celestial Void Swift Technique, weaving his Qi into a blade without form, shape, or weight — a sword of pure space and speed.
It was not a sword you could see or touch, but a force that sliced reality itself.
His fingertip glowed faintly with a shimmering silver light — barely visible, like starlight on rippling water.
Then, faster than thought, he thrust it forward.
The air didn't split — it folded.
A ripple tore through the stillness — silent, yet sharp enough to make reality itself tremble. The Formless Sword of the Celestial Void Swift Technique surged forth, slicing not with physical force but by severing space itself.
The massive pine tree before him froze. Then, with eerie grace, its trunk split diagonally — cut clean through without resistance. The upper half tilted and collapsed in a crash of leaves and splintering wood, scattering birds and branches across the fading dusk.
Chen Yun slowly retracted his finger, the shimmering glow dispersing into the air like mist.
His chest heaved.
His Qi, fractured and fragile, screamed in protest — pulsing erratically like a drum beaten by a madman.
He had done it. But the cost was immense.
"That was... only the beginning of the Celestial Void Swift Technique," he murmured, voice calm but hoarse.
Even one use had left his veins raw, his meridians aching as if torn. This vessel was still too weak — too damaged — to fully bear the weight of his past might.
He stood in silence, the broken tree before him a testament to both triumph and restraint.
With careful steps, Chen Yun paced toward the cliff's edge. Wind rushed by, whipping his robes and carrying the scent of pine and distant rain.
He paused beside another tree and laid his hand gently on its bark.
His eyes dimmed, not with fatigue — but with memory.
A flash of a younger self, clad in black, laughing under moonlight as he demonstrated the first successful execution of the technique to a dying master.Another image — blood on his hands, a shattered temple, a promise to never bow.A third — a lover once lost, touching the same finger he'd used to carve apart the world.
His eyes closed.
He did not regret being reborn — only that the world had moved on, and he would have to catch up alone.
"I'll rise again," he whispered to the wind."Faster than before. Freer than the sky. Until even the Heavens must part before me."