The path was not carved by feet.
It stretched ahead of Shen Wuqing like a scar across the earth — narrow, root-laced, and choked in a mist that carried no moisture, only memory. He walked not toward something, but through something. And the world continued to look away, even as it watched.
The trees here were older than dynasties. Their bark carried etchings not of language, but of presence — vague shapes pressed into wood by things that lived when stars were young. Wuqing's footsteps did not echo. They vanished.
He did not know the name of this forest. Nor did it matter.
Names were masks.
And masks, like gods, cracked under silence.
After an hour — or perhaps a day — time meant little now, he found a man sitting beneath a tree.
Not dead. But close.
He was dressed in travel robes, colorless from dust. His hair was white, not from age, but from forgetting. His eyes were open, but unfocused. He sat as one who had not moved in years, yet bore no sign of rot.
Shen Wuqing halted.
The man did not react.
Only after Wuqing stepped closer did he raise his head.
"You… carry silence." His voice was dry, as though spoken through paper.
Wuqing did not respond.
"I remember a name once." The old man's gaze trembled. "It was not yours. But it was… similar."
Shen Wuqing lowered his eyes. "What was it?"
The man's lips moved, but no sound came. He tried again. His jaw worked, but the air around him rejected words. He winced as if something inside cracked.
Then — a whisper: "Heaven… Devourer."
The mist pulsed.
Wuqing's body did not react, but something behind his gaze darkened. The old man saw it — and recoiled slightly.
"I read it in a scripture," the man continued. "Long ago. A forbidden volume buried beneath shrines that bled from their own prayers. It said there was once a path not of cultivation… but of erasure."
"Soundless Scripture," Wuqing said. "Volume Two. Page ninety-three."
The old man's eyes widened.
"You… remember it?"
"No." Wuqing's voice was like snow on stone. "It remembers me."
The man shivered. "Then it's true. The prophecy. The one who would walk unremembered. The one who could not be worshipped, only feared. A name without altar. A name without offering."
Wuqing stepped past him.
The old man reached out. "Wait. If you are him… why do I still remember you now?"
Wuqing paused.
"You won't."
And the moment he spoke, the old man blinked — and furrowed his brow.
He looked at his own hand, extended in the air, as though confused why it was raised.
Then he lowered it.
Looked around.
And saw nothing.
He did not see Shen Wuqing.
Because Wuqing was already gone.
The path behind him closed.
No footprints.
No scent.
No memory.
---
He walked into a place where the air was thinner.
Not colder. Not higher. Just… absent.
The trees gave way to black grass, waving without wind. Stones jutted from the soil like broken teeth, each carved in spirals that led inward. He followed them.
Then he stopped.
A structure appeared ahead.
Half-temple, half-ruin — a spire of black stone with open ribs of broken pillars. Moss covered its base, yet the interior glowed faintly. Not from flame. From echoes.
He entered.
Inside, there was no altar.
Only a single, sunken basin, filled not with water, but fragments of mirrors.
They did not reflect him.
They shimmered with images of others — monks, warriors, children, all speaking a name with devotion. But their mouths moved without sound.
He stared.
Then he knelt.
Not in reverence. In understanding.
This was not a temple.
It was a graveyard.
Not of bodies.
Of prayers.
A place where names once worshiped had been buried, abandoned by faith, consumed by time.
He reached into the basin.
The shards were warm. One clung to his fingers, showing a young woman kneeling before a statue — her lips whispering.
He couldn't hear her words.
But he knew the name she spoke.
It wasn't his.
It never would be.
The shard cracked.
And from the shadows, a voice emerged.
"You are not welcome here."
Wuqing stood.
"You have no worship. No following. No altar. Why do you intrude upon the forgotten?"
He turned to face the source.
A man — or the outline of one — cloaked in robes of ink. His face flickered, like candlelight. Around him, the air bent.
"I am what comes after forgetting," Wuqing said.
The figure hissed.
"You seek to steal what was once offered to the divine."
"No." Wuqing stepped forward. "I devour what was never truly believed."
The figure lunged.
But it moved through air.
And found nothing.
Wuqing appeared behind it.
His palm pressed to its back.
A soundless pulse expanded.
The figure spasmed — and shattered.
Not into pieces.
Into disbelief.
As if he had never been real.
Wuqing turned back to the basin.
One of the shards had changed.
It now reflected him.
But only his eyes.
Gray.
Empty.
Hungry.
He stepped back.
And the shard cracked in half.
From above, dust fell.
The temple sighed.
The basin drained.
And the names once worshiped faded.
Not by force.
But by witnessing him.
He exited the temple.
The world blinked.
---
Further along the path, he came upon a stone stair descending into a hollow hill.
Torches lit themselves as he approached.
Each flickered in reverse — fire sucking inward instead of out.
He followed.
At the bottom: a door.
No carvings.
No seal.
Only a question.
It hung in the air, not spoken, but felt.
"Do you wish to be known?"
He did not answer.
The door opened anyway.
Inside: a circle of masks.
Floating.
Each bore a name etched into its surface.
Famous cultivators.
Feared demons.
Holy ascendants.
Names that moved armies. Names that split realms.
Each mask turned to him.
And cracked.
Because he wore no mask.
And his name did not belong among theirs.
He walked to the center.
A plinth rose.
Blank.
Waiting.
He stood before it.
And placed his palm upon the stone.
Not to engrave.
But to erase.
The plinth dissolved.
The masks fell.
He walked out.
Behind him, the chamber caved inward.
Not collapsed.
Erased.
As though it had never existed.
The mountain above shuddered — and then settled.
Outside, the sky flickered.
Another thread of his seals broke.
He felt it.
Not strength.
Not clarity.
But loss.
Some part of him — human, fragile — slipped further away.
Good.
He did not want it.
---
Night arrived without transition.
The forest reassembled itself around him.
But it was not the same.
The trees were thinner.
The stars above more distant.
The air too still.
And behind him, no path remained.
He sat again.
Not to cultivate.
Not to rest.
Just to breathe in silence.
A breeze stirred — faint, uncertain.
He opened his eyes.
And saw the sky blink once more.
Not in light.
In absence.
It knew his name.
And that was enough.
For now.