"When the heavens forget their own creation, even the smallest spark can ignite rebellion."
— Dominion Precept, Year 302 After Resonance
The city of Dalen, outer ring of Lohvar — the tenth and dying province of the Dominion of Vaen — never truly slept.
Pipes hissed beneath the cobblestones, their joints leaking ribbons of pale Qi-mist that drifted through the alleys like tired ghosts. Beyond the industrial haze, the grand spires of Vaen's inner provinces shimmered faintly in the distance — untouchable, radiant, and cruel.
Inside a shack wedged between two abandoned Qi-reactors, Xang Xi stirred awake.
The ceiling hung low, swollen with damp from years of condensation. Every droplet that fell from it echoed through the hollow space, another reminder that even the walls around him were decaying.
Every pipe, spire, and engine in Lohvar thrummed with Qi — yet he possessed none.
The lamp on his table flickered weakly, its core struggling to draw breath from the thin, depleted air.
Even the lamps were dying.
They said a properly tuned Qi-core could burn for a decade without recharge — fueling engines, lighting noble manors, driving the Dominion's war machines.
Xang understood how the technology worked; he just couldn't use it. Every invention in Vaen drew its life from the same current that passed him over, as though he didn't exist.
Not low, not faint — none.
The physicians had called it impossible: the only instance in recorded history of a human born without measurable resonance.
The world had whispered other names — Nullborn, Void-touched, Celestial mistake.
He had always felt it — the way air shimmered around others, the way light bent when cultivators passed.
But for him, the world remained still. He watched it all through an invisible window — able to see, never to touch.
A world built on Qi, and a boy condemned to be an observer.
He sat up slowly, chest tight. Even breathing left him dizzy. His body was a prison of weakness — muscles trembling under their own weight, lungs rasping after a few steps, heart fluttering like a frightened bird.
The world measured worth in Qi, and by that measure, Xang Xi was nothing.
Still, he rose.
The space beside his bed was bare — a single folded blanket, a dent in the floorboards where a second bed once sat.
His gaze lingered there.
Ling. The reason he kept breathing. The reason he could not give in.
Her absence was a wound that never closed.
Rain hissed through the alley outside, metallic and thin.
Xang tightened his threadbare cloak and checked the small satchel on the table — inside, a sealed vial glowed faintly blue.
Payment for today's treatment. Ling's next dose.
He stared at it for a long moment before tucking it carefully against his chest and stepping into the rain.
The streets reeked of rust and oil, Qi-smog rising in ghostly waves.
Even the rain glowed faintly from the leaking lamps above, each droplet humming with the dying rhythm of overtaxed Qi lines.
The poor shuffled between alleys, their eyes hollow from starvation and cultivation collapse.
The low-borns and Qi-locked were barely tolerated — and yet, even they stood above him.
Xang knelt to help a man sprawled across the gutter, his robes tattered and stained with soot. The man's Qi-mark flickered faintly on his throat — a fallen cultivator, resonance spent.
"Careful," Xang murmured, steadying him to his feet.
The man recoiled. "Don't touch me, Nullborn!"
Around them, several bystanders turned — some sneering, others crossing the street entirely.
Xang bowed slightly instead of responding.
If kindness couldn't bridge their world, defiance certainly wouldn't.
He continued on foot until the tram station came into view — a rusted arch of metal where light pulsed weakly through glass panels. The sign above flickered:
> COMMUNAL LINE
Inside, passengers stood in weary silence, pressing their palms to the Qi-Donation Node, a circular device that siphoned trace energy to power the tram.
When it was Xang's turn, he only shook his head.
"I can't. I'm Nullborn."
The operator, a stocky man with a bored sneer, lowered his hand. "Nullborn? Never thought I'd meet one in person. Since you can't contribute to society," he said, tapping the fare box, "at least you can donate credits to someone who can."
Xang fished a few tarnished coins from his cloak and placed them into the man's palm.
The operator counted them as if handling filth. "Barely enough," he muttered, pocketing them. "Try not to drain the air while you're at it."
A woman nearby scoffed. "They should ban his kind from riding. Bad luck to share a car with a Nullborn."
A child — perhaps four — tugged at her sleeve, curiosity bright in her eyes.
"Why, mama?"
The mother pulled her close. "Because if you get too near, you might end up Nullborn too."
The words cut sharper than any blade, yet Xang's expression didn't falter.
He simply took an empty seat by the window and exhaled.
His reflection wavered on the glass — faint and pale.
Sorry, he thought, though he had done nothing wrong.
That was what unsettled them most — his refusal to hate.
Outside, rain traced the veins of the city, flowing toward the inner rings where Qi still burned bright.
Lohvar's heart beat slower each year, its lifeblood thinning — but Xang still walked against the current.
The tram groaned to a halt before dawn.
Calling the building ahead a hospital was generous; its walls sagged inward, paint peeled like dead skin, and the faint hum of dying Qi-lines pulsed through every corridor.
But to the forgotten and afflicted of Lohvar, this was the only sanctuary left — because of one man.
Dr. C stood beneath the awning, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, unlit.
He never smoked it; he simply held it, a ritual more than a habit.
Tall, skeletal, his white coat was stained with ink and fatigue.
Dark hair streaked with grey hung untidily down his shoulders. His eyes, though sunken, still burned with a kind of fevered brilliance.
Rumor said he had bargained with a Celestial for forbidden knowledge — that his true name, Cerce, had been struck from record because it sounded too much like Curse.
To the world, he was Dr. C.
To Xang, he was salvation.
"Morning," Xang said softly, breath fogging in the chill.
Dr. C flicked his lighter open and shut, the faint engraving of the Qi Physicians' sigil catching the light.
"You're early," he rasped. "That means either you've eaten, or you haven't."
"If I told you, you'd make me eat again."
"Correct." He pocketed the lighter with a dry smile. "She's stable. No storms last night."
Xang exhaled — tension easing, if only a fraction.
That single word — stable — meant the world still had color.
A shriek broke through the rain.
A battered Qi-ambulance screeched into the courtyard, vents spitting blue fire.
Two attendants jumped down, hauling a containment cradle. Inside thrashed a figure — once human, now fractured with glowing veins of runaway Qi.
"Level Two breakthrough failure!" one attendant shouted. "He went volatile mid-ascension!"
The body convulsed, cracks of light spiderwebbing across its skin before the medics slammed restraint seals in place.
The stench of burnt ozone filled the air.
Dr. C's jaw tightened. "Sub-Ward Four. Double the sedatives — I don't want a resonance bleed through the walls."
"Yes, Doctor!"
When silence returned, only the rain dared to speak.
"Every month there's another," Dr. C muttered. "They chase the Third Gate thinking power will save them. It never does."
Xang's hand tightened around his satchel. "I can't blame them for wanting to climb."
"You can blame them for falling," Dr. C said quietly. "Now come. Before the next one arrives."
Ling's Room
The corridor hummed with dim Qi-light, walls pulsing like veins under translucent glass.
The air reeked of antiseptic and decay.
Inside the isolation ward, rows of containment cradles lined the walls — children and young adults trapped in translucent coffins, their bodies locked in artificial stillness by the doctor's serum.
Xang stopped at the third bed.
Ling lay within, frail and pale, silver tubes feeding into her temples and chest. The Qi-locks glowed faintly blue, binding her energy before it could tear her apart.
He pressed his palm against the barrier. "I'll find a way," he whispered. "I promise."
Dr. C lingered nearby, his tone dry but not unkind.
"Promises are made of air, Xang. Air doesn't stop collapse."
"Maybe not," Xang replied, meeting his gaze, "but it's the only thing I have left to spend."
Outside, dawn crept over the broken skyline.
The spires of Vaen's inner provinces burned like suns, casting their light upon the ashes of Lohvar.
And somewhere, in a realm beyond mortal sight, Tao, the Celestial Observer, stirred — watching through the veil as a boy with no Qi defied a world built upon it.
The Dominion of Vaen awakened — its towers blazing with power he could never touch,
while beneath them, Lohvar smoldered quietly, its embers waiting to be reforged.