Chapter 4 — When the Stars Refuse to Shine
Elan Virethorn descended like a silver spear.
The village gates parted not from fear, but awe. His robes gleamed with star-stitched embroidery, his blade hummed with ancestral resonance, and his gaze held the weight of a family name polished for generations. Behind him followed two academy envoys and the Virethorn guards, their boots too clean for the muddy ground they walked on.
"Where is he?" Elan asked coldly.
The villagers pointed. They didn't need to say the name. Everyone already knew.
Lucien had returned to the village the previous night, carrying nothing but dirt and silence. He hadn't spoken a word to anyone. He hadn't needed to. Something about him had changed — not visibly, but atmospherically. Children cried when he passed. Dogs howled. The wind itself paused, as if unsure whether to touch him.
He was sitting now at the edge of the old well where he used to be mocked, legs crossed, eyes closed. A stray tendril of shadow flickered behind his neck, visible only to those attuned to the spiritual world.
Elan strode forward, hand on his blade. "Lucien."
Lucien opened his eyes. "Ah. The heir to mediocrity."
Elan flinched, but kept his composure. "You think you've gained power? That stealing techniques from the dead makes you strong? That cultivating… whatever this filth is… makes you worthy?"
Lucien stood slowly. "I don't seek worth. Only weight. Your approval weighs nothing."
The air between them crackled — not with spiritual energy, but with old, familiar hatred.
"You think you're clever," Elan sneered. "But you're still nothing. Still that muttering rat who couldn't even light a spirit flame during childhood rites."
Lucien tilted his head, as if observing a dying animal. "And yet here you are. Speaking to a rat with fear beneath your bones."
Elan's pride snapped.
He unsheathed his sword — the Stellar Mirror, a famed heirloom passed through generations. It shimmered with constellations bound into steel, radiant with Celestial Qi. "Then let the stars judge you."
He struck.
A wave of golden light tore through the air, fracturing stone and earth as it surged toward Lucien.
But Lucien didn't move.
Not physically.
Instead, his Hollow Root twisted deep within. He pulled a thread — a memory of a monk who died shielding orphans from a beast, his final prayer swallowed by smoke.
Lucien whispered his name.
A translucent barrier formed just in time — not elegant, not pure — but real. Forged of desperation, regret, and fading virtue.
Elan's blade struck the barrier.
It cracked—but did not break.
Lucien stepped through the smoke, tendrils dancing faintly behind him. "You shine brightly, cousin. But even stars burn out."
He struck not with a weapon, but with essence — pulling a thread of a forgotten rogue cultivator who once mastered a disruptive Qi technique that unraveled an opponent's flow.
His palm met Elan's chest. Not with strength—but unmaking.
Elan staggered back, blood dribbling from his mouth.
"You—" he hissed.
Lucien's eyes held no malice. Only understanding. "You thought this was power. It's not. It's memory. Yours is shallow. Mine is endless."
But Elan refused to lose. Not to him. Not to this thing.
He spun, sword raised. "People of Grayrest! Look at what he's become!"
The crowd had gathered.
"I tried to reason with him," Elan shouted. "But look at him! Look at those tendrils! That is no cultivation of man or Heaven! That is a curse! He walks with spirits! He steals from the dead! He walks paths that should never be tread!"
Gasps. Whispers.
Fear.
"Elan's right," a merchant muttered.
"He came back different. Wrong," another said.
"His eyes… they glow in the dark..."
"He's not Lucien anymore."
Someone shouted, "Burn him!"
Lucien chuckled.
Then laughed.
A low, hollow sound that wasn't madness—but clarity wearing a mask of scorn.
He stepped forward. No fear. No rage. Just certainty.
Then he spoke.
"You speak of purity and fate as if it were a banquet open to all.
But I've seen how the plates are passed.
I've seen how the meat is carved for the loud, and the crumbs handed to the quiet.
You worship fate because it lets you sleep at night—
thinking that the weak were meant to suffer,
and the powerful were born with permission."
The torches didn't flicker from wind—but from shame.
"You say I've stolen dreams?
And yet you sleep soundly on the bones of those your fathers buried.
You speak of evil like it's something foreign,
but I've heard how you talk when no one listens.
Your goodness is just cowardice with perfume."
A murmur passed. Some turned away.
"Fate is not a law. It is a leash.
And the hand that holds it tightens every time someone dares to look up.
You wear chains like they're medals.
You call submission 'order,'
and spit on those who hunger for more."
He stepped into the crowd, barefoot in the dirt, and they parted like shadows at dawn.
"I do not want to be a hero.
I do not want to be your legend, your savior, your golden dog.
I want to know.
I want to unravel the weavings of the heavens,
not to reach their summit—but to question their purpose.
I will walk paths buried in dust.
I will wear the regrets of the forgotten as armor.
And when I am done,
even the stars will wonder if they were ever more than decoration."
People trembled.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
"I was never your mistake.
I am your mirror.
You look at me and see what you've buried in yourselves."
Then came the smile — not kind, not cruel, but inevitable.
"And you will spend the rest of your lives trying to forget me."
And with that, he turned.
And vanished.
He ran.
Through the dark paths between mountains, where spirit beasts howled and the trees whispered in old tongues. His Hollow Root pulsed beneath his ribs like a second heart. The world opened before him — vast, cruel, ancient, waiting.
He had received the letter from the sect — the one Elan thought he'd never see. It promised safety, training, belonging.
Lucien laughed again.
No cage — no matter how golden — would ever hold him.
He burned the letter.
He would walk alone.
He would wander the world, thread by thread, soul by soul, memory by memory.
And he would build something not seen in a thousand years.
Not a kingdom.
Not a legacy.
But a question.
A question so sharp, it could cut Heaven open.