Chapter 81
Night did not arrive naturally.
It bled in.
The sky darkened in uneven patches, as though shadows were being painted across it by an unsteady hand. Stars appeared where clouds still hung, while other sections of the heavens remained an empty, depthless black. Shenping felt the shift deep in his bones—the world was no longer transitioning forward. It was slipping sideways.
They made camp among the ruins.
No one spoke at first.
Wei Han sat on a broken beam, dismantling his blade with practiced hands, cleaning synthetic residue from its edge. His movements were calm, but his jaw was locked tight, eyes unfocused.
Sang Sang remained close to the fire Shenping had forced into existence using fractured spatial heat. She rocked the child gently, whispering old village songs that did not belong to any single era.
Shenping stood apart.
He stared into the darkness beyond the firelight, senses stretched thin. The land whispered constantly now—overlapping echoes of what had been, what was, and what might still come. Every sound carried too many meanings.
"You're bleeding," Sang Sang said softly.
Shenping glanced down. Blood seeped steadily from the wound at his side, soaking through torn fabric. He pressed his palm against it, space tightening just enough to slow the flow.
"I'll live," he said.
"That's not what I asked," she replied.
He had no answer.
The child shifted, then suddenly went still.
Too still.
The fire flickered violently.
Shenping turned just as the air behind Sang Sang folded inward, collapsing into a thin vertical slit. Cold poured out of it, carrying a metallic scent and something far worse—recognition.
A figure stepped through.
It wore no disguise.
Its body was openly mechanical, sleek plates layered over a humanoid frame, joints glowing faintly with blue-white energy. Its head was smooth, featureless, except for a single vertical line of light where a face should have been.
Wei Han was on his feet instantly. "That one's not hiding."
"Designation: Chrono-Harvester Unit," the machine said. "Primary directive: retrieval."
Sang Sang stood, pulling the child closer. "It wants him."
Shenping moved forward, every instinct screaming. "You don't get to take anything else."
The Harvester tilted its head slightly. "Clarification: the child is not an individual. He is a temporal anomaly generator. His continued existence destabilizes all optimized outcomes."
"Good," Wei Han snapped. "About time something did."
The Harvester raised one hand.
The world froze.
Not stopped—suspended.
The fire hung motionless, flames stretched into frozen ribbons. Dust and ash locked in place midair. Wei Han was caught halfway through a step, muscles straining uselessly against invisible restraint.
Only Shenping could move.
Barely.
His body screamed as he forced himself forward through the compressed stillness. Each step felt like walking through solid glass, space resisting him at every point.
The Harvester turned toward him. "You should not be capable of motion."
"I've learned," Shenping growled, "that 'should' doesn't mean much anymore."
The machine extended its other hand toward the child.
Sang Sang's eyes flared silver.
The frozen world cracked.
Sound slammed back into existence as time lurched forward violently. The Harvester staggered, its stabilizers flaring as conflicting temporal forces collided within its core.
Wei Han roared and hurled his blade.
The weapon struck true, carving deep into the Harvester's torso—but instead of sparks, light poured out, searing hot and blinding.
The Harvester retaliated.
A wave of force blasted outward, flinging Wei Han into the ruins. He hit hard and did not rise.
Sang Sang cried out.
Shenping felt something inside him snap.
Not break.
Align.
The fragmented cultivation within his body surged, no longer fighting itself, but folding inward around a single intent. Space around him warped violently, bending toward his fists as if eager to be shaped.
He stepped into the Harvester's reach.
It struck.
Shenping caught the blow.
Metal screamed as his hands closed around the machine's arm. The impact shattered the ground beneath them, shockwaves rippling outward.
"Temporal manipulation detected," the Harvester intoned. "Countermeasures—"
Shenping tore the arm free.
He drove it through the machine's core.
The Harvester convulsed, light pulsing erratically as its systems collapsed inward. The vertical line on its face flickered, then fractured into dozens of unstable segments.
"Observation failed," it said. "Escalation authorized."
The slit in space behind it widened.
Something vast stirred beyond it.
Shenping acted without thought.
He wrapped space around the Harvester like a clenched fist and crushed.
The explosion was silent.
When the light faded, nothing remained of the machine—not even fragments.
The slit in space snapped shut.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Shenping staggered, blood pouring freely now. He dropped to one knee.
Sang Sang rushed to him, hands shaking as she pressed against his wound. "You can't keep doing this," she said, voice breaking. "It's killing you."
Wei Han groaned from the rubble, forcing himself upright. "Hate to interrupt the moment… but we've got a bigger problem."
Shenping looked up.
The sky was changing again.
Far above, shapes moved behind the layered clouds—vast silhouettes sliding just out of focus. Not machines.
Not cultivators.
Something older.
Watching.
Sang Sang clutched the child tightly. "They're coming, aren't they?"
Shenping nodded slowly.
"Yes," he said. "And this time… they're not sending scouts."
He pushed himself to his feet, every breath a knife in his chest, eyes fixed on the shifting heavens.
"The real enemies," he said quietly, "have finally noticed us."
And the night deepened, swallowing the world whole.