There was a time, long before the present age, when the sky was not something people merely looked at.
It was something they listened to.
In those ancient centuries, when the world was still young and the spiritual veins of the land ran bright and unbroken, the heavens were alive. The stars were believed to be aware — not conscious in the way mortals were, but attuned to the rhythm of fate itself. They did not speak in words, but in subtle pulses, tremors that brushed against the souls of those who were sensitive enough to feel them.
Great heroes claimed to hear them in moments of desperate need — a tug at the heart just before a blade struck, a sudden certainty about which path to take when death loomed on all sides. Priests swore the stars wept when cities burned, their light flickering like dying embers as if mourning the souls lost beneath them. Even farmers, bent over fields of soil and grain, would sometimes pause and look upward for no clear reason, struck by a sudden, aching feeling they could not name.
From those celestial whispers were born the Star-bound Relics.
They were not forged in ordinary forges, nor tempered by mortal hands alone. Each one was created when a cultivator — a warrior, a saint, a madman, or a dreamer — offered something precious to bind a fragment of heavenly power into steel. Some gave blood. Others surrendered memories. A few sacrificed love, or years of their own lifespan. One legend claimed a woman offered the soul of her unborn child to save her kingdom.
Swords, spears, bows, rings, and talismans were born this way, each one carrying not only unimaginable power, but a will of its own.
To wield a Star-bound relic was not to command it.
It was to be judged by it.
Some who tried were rejected — burned from the inside by power that refused to accept them. Others were devoured, their bodies crumbling into dust as the relics consumed what little spiritual strength they possessed. A precious few were chosen.
Those chosen became legends.
But legends always came with a cost.
Six hundred years ago, the last great war shattered the world.
Empires clashed like titans. Cultivation sects turned against one another, ancient alliances crumbling beneath greed and fear. Star-bound relics were torn from their resting places, answering desperate hearts and ambitious souls alike. The sky itself burned as celestial power clashed with celestial power.
Battles raged across mountains and seas, leaving scars that could still be seen in the land. Entire cities vanished beneath waves of silver fire. Rivers were forced from their beds. Ley lines — the invisible currents of spiritual energy that flowed beneath the earth — twisted and knotted, warped by forces too vast to be contained.
It was said that on the final day of the war, the stars themselves dimmed, as if afraid of what humanity had become.
When it finally ended, no one was truly victorious.
Kingdoms lay in ruins. Sects were wiped from history. Millions were dead, and millions more were broken. Even the Star-bound relics had been changed by the slaughter — some had grown unstable, others eerily silent.
The sky grew quiet.
And humanity, terrified by what it had nearly destroyed, made a decision that would shape the next six centuries.
The Star-bound relics were sealed away.
Not destroyed — for no one dared try — but hidden, bound, and buried beneath layers of ancient spells. Some were locked in sanctums deep within the earth. Others were sealed inside living temples, or guarded by orders sworn never to let them be wielded again.
The world entered what scholars would later call The Age of Quiet.
Magic did not vanish, but it was restrained. Cultivation continued, but its wild, mythic heights were no longer reached. Kingdoms were built not on miracles, but on laws, armies, and careful politics.
And at the center of it all rose a new power.
The Celestial Empire.
It did not conquer through brute force alone. It conquered through memory.
Every lineage, every treaty, every cultivation method, every relic — even the forbidden ones — was recorded, cataloged, and preserved. The empire believed that what was known could be controlled. And what was controlled could never again threaten to tear the world apart.
Centuries passed.
The scars of the great war faded into half-forgotten legends. Most people were born, lived, and died without ever seeing a Star-bound relic. The sky became just a sky again — distant, beautiful, and silent.
Life, for the most part, became ordinary.
The capital city of the empire, Lyrien, stood as proof of that fragile stability.
It was vast and layered, built upon foundations laid by generations long dead. The outer districts sprawled in a maze of narrow streets where merchants sold steaming food, bright silks, and glittering charms. The air was thick with spice and smoke and laughter. Children ran barefoot between carts and shouting vendors, chasing each other through puddles and dust.
The middle districts were calmer, lined with stone houses and small gardens. Cultivators lived there — men and women who trained their spiritual energy with quiet discipline rather than reckless ambition.
At the heart of the city rose the High Ring, a circle of pale marble towers and sacred halls that housed the empire's greatest institutions.
It was there that the empire kept its most dangerous secrets.
Among those towering structures stood a building that most people barely noticed at all.
The Archive Hall.
No banners hung from its walls. No heroic statues guarded its doors. It was built of smooth gray stone, modest and plain, as if trying not to draw attention to itself.
Inside, however, lay the true power of the empire.
Millions of scrolls were stored there — records of wars, bloodlines, cultivation paths, forbidden techniques, and relics that no longer walked the world. The empire believed that as long as something was written down, it was not truly lost.
And within that quiet fortress of memory worked a girl who had never once believed she would be remembered.
She arrived every morning just before the sun fully rose.
At that hour, Lyrien was caught between night and day. Lanterns still glowed faintly in narrow alleys. Shopkeepers lifted wooden shutters in silence. Temple bells chimed softly, echoing across tiled rooftops and stone bridges.
The girl moved through it all without drawing attention.
She was of average height, with dark hair tied simply behind her neck. Her robes were clean but plain, the kind worn by people who did not belong to any noble house or cultivation sect. Her face was gentle, her eyes thoughtful — but nothing about her demanded to be noticed.
If you passed her on the street, you would forget her moments later.
That was how she had learned to survive.
Inside the Archive Hall, she took her place at a small desk near the tall eastern windows. Pale sunlight filtered through the glass, casting thin golden lines across the wooden floor. Dust motes drifted lazily through the air like tiny, glowing stars.
She unpacked her satchel carefully — brushes, inkstone, blank scrolls — arranging them with practiced precision.
Then she began to write.
Her hand moved smoothly, copying faded characters from ancient texts into fresh, clean pages. She transcribed the words of heroes and tyrants alike — of people who had loved, fought, betrayed, and died long before she had been born.
Sometimes she paused, wondering what it must have been like to live so fiercely that the world was forced to remember you.
Then she would return to her work.
She had learned, long ago, not to expect too much from life.
The girl had been raised in a temple orphanage on the outskirts of the capital. It was kind, but practical. Children were tested for spiritual talent. Those with strong roots were taken by sects or noble houses. Those without were given simple work.
The girl had always been in the second group.
She had not cried when she was sent to the Archives.
She had felt relieved.
The Archives were safe.
Quiet.
Unambitious.
By late afternoon, her fingers were stained with ink and her eyes were tired. She rolled up the final scroll she had been copying and leaned back, stretching her aching shoulders.
That was when it happened.
A strange sensation brushed against her chest.
Not pain.
Not warmth.
A gentle pull.
Soft… almost sorrowful — like someone calling her from very far away.
She froze.
The feeling lingered for a heartbeat… then faded.
Her hand rose to her ribs, resting lightly over her heart.
"What a strange thing," she whispered.
She gathered her things and stood, intending to leave.
But her feet did not carry her toward the exit.
Instead, they led her down a narrow corridor she did not remember ever seeing before — deeper into the Archives, toward something ancient and waiting.
And though she did not yet know it…
The stars, long silent, had begun to stir.