The year was 2157, and mankind believed it had climbed to the very peak of civilization. Across the vast surface of the world- ten times greater than the Earth of old myth- floating metropolises hovered above endless oceans, cities of steel and crystal reached toward the heavens, and artificial suns illuminated the eternal night. The continents were divided by politics, ruled by governments that wielded quantun intelligence, armies of machines, and corporations whose reach extended beyond borders. Humanity thought itself eternal, masters of all matter and all law.
They were wrong.
In the night when everything changed, the world did not thunder, nor did storms roll across the seas. Instead, it was silence hat descended. The kind of silence tha devours sound itself, heavy and unnatural. nimals froze, machines stuttered, ever he winds retreated as if fleeing something greater. And then, without warning, the sky fractured.
What mortals could not perceive was the truth: in a higher dimension, a war had erupted. Two titans clashed, not gods, nor demons, but cultivators who had long since transcended mortality-Overlords, each bearing within their soul a world of the own. Their collision was apocalyptic. Blows hat could collapse planets struck agains barriers forged of law itself, and the battlefield could not contain their power the fabric of reality cracked. And throug hose cracks, rivers of Spiritual Energy bled into the mortal world below.
From the ground, it appeared like rivers of starlight. Threads of silver-blue ligh ascaded from the heavens, drifting acros oceans, sinking into mountains, seeping into forests and deserts. Cities glowed beneath skies painted in radiant rivers. For the first time in countless ages, mortals saw what the Taoists had whispered of in secret: the hidden breath of Heaven an Earth.
Chaos followed. Children reached out to touch the threads, laughing in awe. Som dults collapsed, trembling with ecstasy or terror. Scientists screamed into networks demanding instruments to measure the Inmeasurable. Governments declared emergency councils. Religions fell into frenzy, temples overflowing with worshippers claiming the gods had returned.
Yet far from the noise of neon towers and machine-choked streets, in valleys forgotten and mountains long abandone, old men in faded robes fell to their knees. Tears streamed down their faces as the whispered the words once more:
"The Qi of Heaven and Earth... it has returned. "
They had been mocked for centuries, exiled and hunted, but they had never abandonet their practice. Now, as threads of light filled the world, the old ways burned anew.
In the sprawling city of Neo-Shanghai where a thousand towers clawed at the sky, a young man sat alone upon a crumbling balcony. His name was Liang Chen. Twenty-one years old, his parents were engineers, his future planned in simple steps: study, work, survive. Nothing in his life had ever hinted at destiny.
But that night, the sky whispered otherwise.
The rivers of light shimmered across the horizon, bending as if drawn toward him. His heartbeat quickened, thundering in his chest, until he thought his veins might burst. His breath caught, vision blurring ind in the darkness behind his eyes something vast appeared:
A door of starlight, immense and endless, its surface etched with countless runes that twisted like living constellations.
He could not move, could not speak. Then a voice came.
"Walk the path I could not. Step where I hav e fallen short. Endure, and eternity shall answer you."
It was heavy, ancient, filled with sorrow... yet strangely familiar. Liang Chen's heart trembled. It was not the voice of a stranger, but he could not name it. It sounded like something deep within himself, echoing from a place he did not understand.
The threads of light in the air bent sharply, rushing toward his body. They sank into his skin like molten fire, filling his veins until he thought he might burn alive. His body convulsed, his breath roared, and for an instant he saw stars spilling through his very bones. Then darkness.
When he awoke, hours later, the rivers light still glowed across the city, and the door of starlight still lingered in his mind. The voice remained, faint but unforgettable.
He could not escape it.
The days that followed drowned the world in chaos. Across continents, people awakened strange powers. Men shattered steel with bare fists, women healed wounds with a touch, children froze rivers or set them aflame. Armies scrambled, but heir weapons faltered before these Awakened. Scientists filled the nets with theories, but none could explain.
It was the old Taoists who revealed the truth. Their scrolls, once ridiculed, spoke of cultivation, of realms through which mortals could ascend, climbing step by step toward immortality. They spoke of Qi Gathering, Foundation Establishment, Core formation, Nascent Soul, and finally Soul Formation, the peak that the world could sustain.
And yet, hidden in whispers, the Taoists warned: the world itself would not tolerate those who reached beyond. The heavens would reject them, hurling them inta another dimension. To the masses, myth. To the Taoists, truth.
On the seventh night, Liang Chen stood once more upon his balcony. The city glittered in neon and starlight, but his gaze was fixed inward, upon the door that pulsed within his soul. His fists clenched, his breath steady.
"If the world itself has awakened," he whispered, "then so will I. If the heaven: have opened a path, then I will walk it. I will find the one who called to me... and I will surpass him."
The door creaked open.
And Liang Chen stepped into the unknown.