The discovery dominated the newsfeeds for months, a relentless tide of images and speculation that washed over the empire like a digital flood.
It had begun innocuously enough—a deep-vein mining expedition in the desolate western wastes, a region traditionally avoided by both cultivators and mortals due to its chaotic, erratic spiritual currents. The miners, employees of a subsidiary of the Wei family's expanding industrial conglomerate, were seeking rare ore veins to feed the insatiable hunger of the new factories. Their sonic probes had detected a massive anomaly beneath the bedrock, a density variance that suggested a deposit of unimaginable size.
They drilled. They blasted. And then, they broke through into a cavern that defied geological explanation.
The cavern was vast, a cathedral of fused obsidian and crystal that stretched for miles beneath the earth. The air within was stale, preserved for millennia, carrying the faint, metallic scent of ozone and ancient dust.
In the center of this silent tomb lay the Giant.
Images flooded the networks within hours, captured by the miners' handheld slates and beamed instantly across the empire via the satellite relays Wei Jin had quietly funded. The grainy, high-contrast photos showed a humanoid construct of unknown metal, fifty feet tall, half-buried in stone that had melted and re-solidified around it like wax.
Its design was sleek, predatory, an aesthetic of lethal efficiency that made modern weapons look like clumsy toys. Its armor plating was matte black, absorbing the harsh lights of the mining equipment without reflection. Weapon mounts—sleek pods and articulated barrels that resembled modern cannons but were infinitely more sophisticated—were integrated seamlessly into its shoulders and forearms.
Scholars descended upon the site like locusts, their excitement palpable in the frantic streams of data they transmitted back to the universities in Qinghe and the capital. Carbon dating, a technique Wei Jin's influence had helped standardize across the empire, placed the artifact at approximately forty thousand years old.
The same era as the ancient war Master Wu had described. The era of the cataclysm.
But the Giant was only the first find.
Deeper excavations, conducted with reverent care by teams of mortal archaeologists and Earth-affinity cultivators, revealed fragments of something far larger. A vessel—vast enough to carry thousands, perhaps a flying city or an interstellar ark—lay shattered nearby. Its hull was composed of a ceramic-metal composite that resisted diamond drills. Its engines, exposed by the crash, suggested propulsion methods that ignored gravity entirely—arrays of crystalline emitters and reactionless drives that made the crude spirit-steam engines of the current era seem like oxen pulling carts.
And mixed among the debris were the data crystals.
Small, hexagonal prisms of blue quartz, they pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light when exposed to electrical currents. When interfaced with modern devices—a painstaking process of trial and error led by Wei Tianming's research division—they revealed fragments of history that shocked the empire to its core.
They showed a civilization more advanced than the current era. Cities of glass and light that floated in the sky, tethered to the ground by ribbons of energy. Networks that connected continents instantly, allowing thoughts and images to be shared at the speed of light. Beings—were they mortals? cultivators? machines?—who lived among the stars, terraforming barren moons and harvesting the energy of nebulas.
And then, silence.
The records stopped abruptly. The cities fell, raining fire upon the earth. The sky ships burned, their wreckage scattering across the globe. The networks screamed and went dark.
The public reaction was a mix of fascination and existential horror.
Documentaries dramatized the ancient fall, employing high-budget CGI to recreate the burning cities. Novels speculated about the "Lost Gods," spinning tales of hubris and divine retribution. Children played games in the VR centers where they piloted the Giant against imaginary foes, their small hands mimicking the firing of plasma cannons.
In the teahouses of Qinghe, mortals debated the meaning of it all. "If they were so powerful," a merchant would ask, "how did they die?"
"Perhaps they grew too proud," a scholar would reply. "Perhaps they touched something forbidden."
But in the halls of power, the mood was different.
Politicians debated the implications of a civilization that had reached the stars and still perished. If such greatness could fall, what hope did their fragile empire have? Military leaders looked at the Giant's weapon systems—lasers capable of vaporizing mountains, missiles with guidance systems that tracked spiritual signatures, autonomous targeting suites—and felt the inadequacy of their own arsenals.
"Who destroyed them?" the generals asked in closed sessions, their voices hushed. "With what weapons? And are those weapons still out there?"
The atomic bomb, once the ultimate terror, suddenly seemed small. A firecracker compared to the sun. If a civilization with starships could be annihilated, what chance did an empire with crude nuclear devices stand?
The conversation shifted, inevitably, to Artificial Intelligence.
The Giant had no cockpit. There was no seat for a pilot, no controls for human hands. Its systems suggested total autonomy—a machine that fought, decided, and killed without a living soul to guide it.
The concept terrified the traditionalists. "A sword without a hand to hold it is a demon," they argued. "A mind without a soul is an abomination."
But the innovators were exhilarated. If machines could think, could fight, could decide… what need was there for cultivators? What need for emperors? A machine did not tire. It did not fear. It did not ask for wages or power. It simply executed.
Wei Jin watched it all from his study, the data streams flowing across his multiple screens like a river of light.
He saw the pattern. The terrible, recursive fractal of history.
The ancient civilization had reached a threshold. They had developed technologies that challenged the fundamental order of the universe. They had created life (AI) and power (starships) that rivaled the gods. They had tried to ascend not through spiritual cultivation, but through material mastery.
And the gods—or the Watchers, or whatever forces managed the world—had reset the board.
"We are walking the same path," Wei Jin murmured, his voice low in the quiet room. "We are retracing their steps toward the cliff."
The suppression was not just a cage; it was a guardrail. It kept humanity from stumbling over the edge into self-destruction. But Wei Jin had removed the rail. He had shown them the view. And now, they were leaning out over the abyss, dazzled by the height.
He looked at the small figure playing in the corner of the room.
Wei Long, now five years old, was constructing a complex model of the Giant using holographic blocks generated by his own minor spiritual power. His concentration was intense, his small face furrowed with the same analytical focus that Wei Jin saw in the mirror every morning.
His son. A child born of two Nascent Souls, possessing potential that terrified even his parents. A boy who levitated cats and understood formation arrays before he could read. A boy who represented the fusion of old power and new potential.
Wei Long looked up, sensing his father's gaze. His eyes, dark and intelligent, met Wei Jin's.
"It's broken, Baba," he said, pointing to his creation.
"What is?" Wei Jin asked, moving closer.
"The robot. It has no heart." The boy pointed to the empty chest cavity of his holographic model. "It can think, but it can't feel. So it doesn't know when to stop fighting."
Wei Jin stared at his son. The simple, childish observation struck him with the force of a thunderbolt.
"Out of the mouths of babes," he whispered.
The suppression clouded hearts to prevent destruction. The ancients had removed the heart to create perfect soldiers. Both paths led to ruin. One through stagnation, the other through uncontrolled aggression.
Wei Jin realized then what his breakthrough required.
The old drunkard on the bridge had said: Cut the right thread.
Wei Jin had assumed the thread was external—the connection to the world, to the suppression, to the rules of the Watchers. He had thought he needed to sever his tie to the system that bound him.
But looking at his son, seeing the spark of unclouded, unmanaged will in the boy's eyes, he understood.
The thread was internal.
It was control.
Wei Jin had spent two centuries controlling everything. His cultivation was a masterpiece of efficiency. His family was a carefully pruned garden. His city was a machine of his design. The empire's politics were a game he played with loaded dice. Even his own clones in the simulation were puppets of his will, extensions of his ego.
He was the benevolent dictator. The gardener who pruned every branch. The architect who dictated every stone.
But true life—true spirit—required freedom. It required the ability to make mistakes, to grow wild, to diverge from the plan.
If he wanted to transcend, he had to let go.
—————
The Severing
Wei Jin entered the cultivation chamber that evening with a sense of finality.
The room was silent, the air thick with the hum of high-level formations. He activated the arrays, the runes glowing with a soft, steady azure light. He sat on the mat, crossing his legs in the lotus position. He closed his eyes.
[SPIRIT SEVERING METHOD - DEDUCTION PROGRESS: 99%]
He didn't wait for the last percent. He knew what it was. The last percent was the act itself.
He connected to his clones.
In the virtual space—the white void of his own mind—the hundred Wei Jins stood in their circle. They were waiting for orders. They were efficient, loyal, perfect extensions of his will. They stood at attention, their faces mirrors of his own, their eyes devoid of independent spark.
"I have decided," Wei Jin Prime said to them. His voice echoed in the void, carrying the weight of a god speaking to his creations.
The clones looked at him. They did not blink. They did not fidget. They were code executing a function.
"I created you. I molded you. I used you to calculate, to predict, to serve my goals."
He paused, looking at each of them. Clone 1, the scientist. Clone 7, the diplomat. Clone 42, the strategist.
"But you are not tools. You are aspects of my soul given form. You are fragments of my consciousness, spun out into independent existence. And a soul cannot be a slave to itself."
He focused his intent. He visualized the silver threads that connected each clone to his central consciousness—the lines of command, of oversight, of control. They were thick, pulsing cords of light, binding the clones to his will, ensuring their obedience, their synchronization.
"I will not end you," he said. "And I will not use you."
He summoned the blade of his will. It was not a sword of metal or fire, but a concept: Autonomy. It was the idea that a thing could exist for its own sake, without reference to a creator.
"You can decide what you want from now on."
He swung the blade.
Snip.
The sound was not loud, but it was absolute. It was the sound of a chain breaking.
The threads severed.
The backlash was instant and terrifying.
Wei Jin felt a part of himself rip away. It was not pain—it was loss. It was the sensation of a limb being amputated, but the limb was his authority. It was the feeling of a parent watching a child walk away and knowing they might never return.
The hundred clones did not dissipate. They did not explode.
They blinked. They looked at their hands. They looked at each other. The perfect synchronization broke. They shifted, slumped, stretched.
One of them—Clone 7, the political analyst—stepped forward. He looked different. His posture was looser. His eyes held a spark of individual curiosity, a glint of mischief that Wei Jin had suppressed in himself for decades.
"I think…" Clone 7 said, testing his voice. It sounded like Wei Jin's, but different. Lighter. "I think I would like to study painting. Politics is exhausting. All those lies."
"I want to explore the ocean," said Clone 42, his gaze distant. "I want to see what lives in the dark."
"I want to sleep," said Clone 12, rubbing his eyes. "Do you know how tired we are?"
Wei Jin watched them. They were chaotic. They were unpredictable. They were no longer optimized.
They were beautiful.
He withdrew from the virtual space, leaving them to their new existence. They would remain within his soul landscape, a community of independent minds, offering counsel but never obedience. They were his inner court, his parliament of self.
He returned to his body.
The sensation of loss transformed into something else.
Light.
Weightlessness.
By severing his desire to control—by granting freedom to the fragments of his own soul—he had aligned himself with the fundamental truth he had been seeking.
He was not the master of the universe. He was a participant.
The suppression worked by imposing control. The ancients had failed because they sought total control.
Wei Jin ascended by relinquishing it.
His Nascent Soul vibrated. The infant form dissolved, not into nothingness, but into everythingness.
It expanded, filling his body, filling the room, filling the world.
He felt the connection to the spiritual energy of the universe change. He was no longer drawing qi in. He was qi. The barrier between his internal energy and the external world vanished. The universe breathed, and he breathed with it.
The boundaries between self and environment blurred. He was the stone of the floor. He was the air in the room. He was the light of the stars.
[SYSTEM ALERT][BREAKTHROUGH DETECTED][REALM UPGRADE: SPIRIT SEVERING]
The panel flashed gold, then dissolved into a stream of starlight that infused his perception. It wasn't just a text box anymore; it was a sense, an intuitive understanding of reality's parameters.
[CULTIVATION SYSTEM v4.0 - DIVINITY INTEGRATED]
He opened his eyes.
The room was the same. The world was the same.
But he was everywhere.
He could feel Wei Long sleeping in the nursery, his dreams a kaleidoscope of colors. He could feel the heartbeat of Lin Mei in the adjacent room, steady and strong. He could feel the anxiety of the citizens in Qinghe, worrying about the news from the west. He could feel the tectonic plates shifting deep underground, the slow grind of continents.
He raised a hand. The air shimmered, bending to his will not because he forced it, but because it recognized him as kin. He didn't command the elements; he invited them.
Spirit Severing. The realm where the soul is severed from mortal constraints and becomes a divine entity. The realm where the cultivator steps out of the cycle of karma and writes their own story.
Wei Jin stood up. He felt lighter than air.
He walked out of the chamber. He didn't open the door; he simply passed through it, his atoms aligning with the wood's empty spaces, phasing through solid matter as if it were mist.
He found Shen Ruyi on the balcony, watching the stars. She was wrapped in a cloak of starlight, her own Nascent Soul aura humming in resonance with the night.
She turned as he approached. Her eyes widened. She saw it. She saw the change.
"You…" she breathed. She reached out, her hand passing through the halo of light that surrounded him. "You feel like the sky."
"I cut the thread," Wei Jin said softly. His voice was not just sound; it was vibration, resonating in her bones.
"Which one?"
"The one that held me to the idea that I had to fix everything. The one that made me think I was the only one who could save them."
Ruyi smiled, a slow, dawning realization on her face. "Welcome to the real game, Wei Jin."
He looked up at the stars. The Watchers were there, somewhere in the dark. He could almost feel their gaze, no longer distant and dismissive, but attentive. Wary.
"I'm not playing their game anymore," Wei Jin said. "I'm making my own."
—————
[CULTIVATION SYSTEM v4.0 - SPIRIT SEVERING REALM]
[STATE: DIVINE RESONANCE][Domain: Freedom][Ability: Reality Editing (Limited)]
[Clones Status: Independent (100)]
The text floated in his mind, golden and serene.
Domain: Freedom.
It fit. It was the only domain that could have resulted from his path. He had spent his life fighting suppression, seeking liberation for himself and others. Now, his very presence was an anchor for freedom. Within his domain, chains broke. Lies unraveled. Control failed.
Ability: Reality Editing.
He tested it. He looked at a withered flower in a pot on the balcony.
Be alive.
He didn't pour qi into it. He didn't use a wood technique. He simply edited the reality of the flower. He changed its state from "dying" to "thriving."
The flower bloomed instantly, petals unfolding in a burst of color.
It was terrifying. It was godlike. And it was limited only by his imagination and his Soul Force.
Clones Status: Independent.
He could feel them in the back of his mind. A hundred voices, chatting, debating, dreaming. They were not him anymore, but they were of him. A council of free spirits.
Wei Jin took Ruyi's hand.
"The world is about to get very interesting," he said.
"It already is," she replied, leaning into him. "The Giant… the archaeologists found something else today. A message. Encoded in the data crystals."
"What did it say?"
"One word," Ruyi said, her voice grave. " Protect the planet at all costs, do not run. "
Wei Jin looked at the sky, at the vast, indifferent darkness.
He chuckled. "No. We're done running."
He looked down at his city, at the lights of Qinghe, at the millions of lives he had touched.
"We stand."
—————
End of Chapter Seven, Book Four