Forty-Two Years of Silence
Forty-two years passed.
He did not mark the days.
Did not carve lines into stone.
Did not count the years deliberately.
One day, he simply realized —
the world had become чужим.
Alien.
---
A World That Moved On
The village at the foot of the mountains was gone.
In its place stood terraces and unfamiliar houses,
built without taste, but with calculation.
People spoke differently.
Clothing had changed.
Even spiritual energy flowed differently — denser, more aggressive.
He passed through the market without stopping.
No one paid him any attention.
That suited him.
---
Himself
He stopped by a stream.
In the reflection of the water — the face of a young man.
Slightly sharper features.
A calm gaze, almost indifferent.
Not a single wrinkle.
Vessel Formation had stopped time —
but it had not erased its traces within.
He knew:
if he met someone from his childhood,
they would not recognize him.
---
Rumors
In the evening, he sat in a roadside tavern.
Drank warm water.
Listened.
— They say a band of cultivators disappeared in the north, — someone said.
— No bodies. No traces of battle.
— One person? — another scoffed.
— Fairy tales.
He did not lift his head.
Such rumors appeared once every few years.
And vanished just as quickly.
---
The Price of Power
The Vessel was stable — but fragile.
Every time he:
pushed a technique to its limit
or kept the Eyes of the Epoch open for too long
a dull, muffled pain arose inside.
Sometimes he could not see properly for days.
Sometimes spiritual energy flowed with delay.
He did not complain.
The price was acceptable.
---
He did not feel it immediately.
Not as danger.
Not as a threat.
But as a familiar distortion.
Somewhere ahead,
someone was using a technique that left a trace in the Dust of the Epoch.
Sect-based.
Old.
He stopped.
Forty-two years —
and the trace still existed.
---
He turned off the road.
Did not speed up.
Did not tense.
Simply changed direction.
Sometimes the past does not need to be sought.
It finds you itself.
---
The First Trace of Blood
He found them by nightfall.
Not a camp —
a temporary stop.
Too neat to be accidental.
Three of them.
One maintained a formation.
The second searched the bodies by the road.
The third stood aside, watching.
A sect.
He recognized it not by clothing —
but by the trace in the Dust of the Epoch.
Crude. Self-assured.
The kind of trace left by those accustomed
to a world that does not resist them.
---
Observation
He did not approach immediately.
The Eyes of the Epoch opened for just a moment.
That was enough.
Levels:
— two at the Qi Condensation stage
— one at Vessel Formation, unstable
Novices.
But sect members.
---
Choice
He could have left.
They were not the ones giving orders.
Not the ones deciding fates.
But the trace —
it was the same.
He stepped forward.
---
Collision
The first died without understanding why.
He simply fell.
No wound.
No cry.
The Dust of the Epoch inside him scattered —
the vessel could not withstand the pressure.
The second screamed and managed to raise a defense.
It did not help.
The strike was precise.
Short.
As if he knew exactly where to hit.
---
The Last One
The third retreated.
— Who are you?! — he gasped, backing toward the forest.
— Say your name!
He did not answer.
Took a step.
And the world around them grew heavier for an instant.
The sect member collapsed to his knees.
— W-wait… we were just following or—
The words cut off.
---
Silence
He stood among the bodies.
Breathing steady.
Heart calm.
No satisfaction.
No rage.
Only understanding.
---
Price
The pain came later.
Dull.
Slow.
The Vessel answered with a crack.
The Eyes of the Epoch extinguished on their own.
He sat down on a stone and closed his eyes.
Used too much.
Too early.
---
He did not take trophies.
Did not burn the bodies.
Only erased the trace —
carefully, down to the last thread.
If the sect began to search —
they would find nothing.
Except emptiness.
---
The Cost of the Path
He woke at dawn.
The sky was gray, as if faded.
Spiritual energy around him — murky, reluctant to respond.
He tried to breathe deeper —
pain answered immediately.
---
Backlash
The Vessel was intact.
But inside —
thin cracks, like a spider's web.
Not destruction.
A warning.
He understood it instantly.
If he continued to fight like this —
the next battle might be his last.
---
The Silence of the Eyes
He tried to open the Eyes of the Epoch.
Nothing.
Darkness.
As if they had never existed.
He did not panic.
Such abilities do not disappear.
They fall silent
when the owner crosses a boundary.
---
Shelter
He went into the mountains.
Chose a crevice where spiritual energy was poor, but stable.
No beasts.
No people.
Perfect.
He stayed there for three months.
---
Reflection
He did not cultivate actively.
Only:
guided the flow
aligned his breathing
allowed the Vessel to heal itself
In the silence, thoughts returned.
Not about the sect.
Not about revenge.
About his parents.
He understood:
if he died now —
their deaths would become meaningless.
---
Understanding the Path
Power is not a leap.
Not a flash.
It is a long line that cannot be torn.
He changed his breathing technique.
Slowed circulation.
Abandoned one method — forever.
The pain faded.
Only the memory remained.
---
Loneliness
Sometimes he heard voices in the wind
and caught himself
answering them in thought.
He did not seek people.
Too early.
---
End of the Chapter
By the end of the third month,
the Eyes of the Epoch opened again.
Weakly.
Briefly.
But enough to see:
far to the south,
something large was moving.
Not a human.
Not a beast.
And not a sect.
---
A Stone That Should Not Exist
He walked toward the place for three days.
Not because it was far —
but because space resisted.
Each step seemed to shift the world half a breath aside.
A road seen in the morning curved by evening.
Cliffs changed shape.
Even the wind blew differently.
This was not confusion.
It was rejection.
---
The Place
The ruin did not look majestic.
There were no:
gates
columns
seals
Just a stone.
Huge. Dark. Embedded in the mountainside,
like a fragment of the world forgotten during creation.
No moss grew on it.
No cracks of time.
Even dust avoided it.
He understood immediately.
This stone
was older than epochs.
---
Eyes of the Epoch
He opened them — carefully.
The world trembled.
The mountain vanished.
In its place he saw:
torn threads of fate
frozen streams of time
and a void that was not emptiness
The stone was not an object.
It was a boundary.
---
Warning
He stepped closer —
and something inside the Vessel responded with pain.
Not damage.
Not threat.
A warning.
As if someone said without words:
> If you enter — there will be no return.
He stopped.
For the first time in a long while,
he hesitated.
---
Choice
He remembered his parents.
Not their faces —
he barely remembered those.
But warmth.
Quiet evenings.
The feeling of home.
If he left now —
he would become just another cultivator.
If he entered —
he would stop being part of the path.
---
Entry
He touched the stone.
The surface was warm.
Not like stone.
Like a body.
And the world parted.
No light.
No sound.
No pain.
Just a step —
and he was inside.
---
Within
Not a hall.
Not a corridor.
An empty space where:
direction was not felt
time was not sensed
spiritual energy did not flow
He inhaled.
The air was real.
That frightened him the most.
---
Symbols slowly emerged before him.
Not hieroglyphs.
Not script.
Traces of will, carved into reality itself.
He had not read them yet.
But he already knew:
> what is written here
will change his path forever.
---
An Inscription Left by a Defector
The space had no center.
Yet he knew where to go.
Each step resonated within him —
not in the body,
not in the Vessel,
but deeper.
---
The Wall
It appeared without transition.
Did not grow from darkness.
Did not open.
It simply existed.
Smooth.
Gray.
Covered in cracks that were not traces of time.
He understood:
they were left by attempts to understand.
---
Vision of the Epochs
He opened the Eyes of the Epoch.
And the world stopped pretending.
The wall was no longer stone.
It was a layer of reality
into which someone had carved their will.
The symbols did not glow.
Did not move.
They pressed down.
---
The First Line
The inscription did not greet.
It stated:
> "All paths begin the same.
But not all reach the end.
Because the end is not a reward."
He slowly exhaled.
---
Levels
The words did not form lines.
They manifested in his mind,
as if he were remembering, not reading.
---
1. Body Tempering
The limit of flesh.
The limit of the mortal.
> "One who has not tempered the body
has no right to dream."
---
2. Qi Condensation
The first act of disobedience to the world.
> "Qi does not belong to humans.
Humans steal it."
---
3. Vessel Formation
The beginning of deceiving time.
> "A vessel is a cage,
disguised as a gift."
He shuddered.
---
4. Vessel Purification
The place where most break.
> "The world does not tolerate
those who are too pure."
---
5. Soul Union
The birth of true longevity.
> "From this step,
death begins to remember your name."
---
6. Will Incarnation
What sects call the peak.
> "An Ancestor is not a peak.
It is a guard at a dead end."
---
7. Fate Severance
The path of loners.
> "One who severs fate
no longer belongs to the heavens."
Something inside the Vessel responded.
---
8. Domain Formation
A world within a world.
> "By creating a domain,
you cease to be a guest of reality."
---
9. Beyond the Heavens
The final symbols did not form words at once.
They were silent.
Then understanding came.
> "Beyond the heavens,
there is no path."
> "There is only a choice."
---
The Final Line
At the very bottom,
as if added later:
> "I did not take this step.
And the world survived."
He stared at it for a long time.
---
Understanding
The sects lied.
Not out of malice.
Out of fear.
The world was built
so that no one would reach the end.
And the cracks in his Vessel…
Were not a mistake.
They were a warning.
---
When he closed the Eyes of the Epoch,
the wall became stone again.
But the words
remained.
He left the ruin
a different person.
Though outwardly,
nothing had changed.
---
When the World Turns
He took his first step outside —
and stumbled.
Not over stone.
Not over a threshold.
But over a void that had not existed a second earlier.
---
Glitch
The sky above the mountains trembled.
Not thunder.
Not a flash.
As if someone briefly
pulled at the fabric of the world, testing its strength.
He froze.
The Vessel answered with a dull resonance —
not pain,
but the sensation of being noticed.
---
The Ruin Vanishes
He turned around.
The stone was gone.
The mountain looked ordinary.
The slope — whole.
Even the Eyes of the Epoch, opened for a moment,
saw nothing.
The ruin
had left.
Or had been erased.
---
The World's Reaction
Spiritual energy around him grew denser.
Too dense.
It no longer flowed freely —
it pressed down, as if testing
whether he obeyed the common rhythm.
He changed his breathing.
The distorted form
he had understood instinctively inside the ruin.
The pressure weakened.
The world
did not understand him immediately.
---
Somewhere Far Away
In another place,
an old man opened his eyes.
He sat in a hall without windows,
surrounded by observation formations.
— Strange… — he murmured.
The heavenly threads
for a moment
disappeared.
Then returned.
---
A Sect's Sign
Even farther away,
on the territory of one of the northern sects,
a spiritual tablet cracked.
A name went dark.
— Another one? — an elder frowned.
— No… not quite.
This was not extinguishment.
It was erasure.
---
He
He walked without speeding up.
Now he knew:
each step
would leave a trace.
Not in the ground.
In the structure of the world.
He had not become stronger.
But he had become
inconvenient.
---
Realization
He remembered the final line of the inscription:
> "I did not take this step.
And the world survived."
He did.
---
On the horizon,
clouds began to gather.
Not rain clouds.
Spiritual ones.
The world
had begun to adapt