In the beginning, there was silence. Then, there was the smell of ozone.
Deep within the Chaos Void Realm, where stars went to die and gravity crushed light into dust, a pair of eyes snapped open.
They were not human eyes. Not anymore. The left was a deep, earthen brown, holding the memory of a mortal life. The right was a swirling abyss of violent purple, glowing with the energy of a thousand collapsed suns.
Chen Wei exhaled.
CRACK.
The air inside the seclusion cave didn't just vibrate; it shattered. Spiderwebs of black fractures spread across reality itself, unable to contain the breath of an Immortal Emperor waking from a nap.
"Finally," he whispered. His voice sounded like grinding stones, heavy with disuse. "The Void Transcendence Realm."
He sat up on his stone bed. His joints popped. A satisfying, mortal sound. He rolled his neck, feeling a thousand years of stiffness dissolve. He extended his arms for a massive, lazy stretch.
BOOM.
The mountain range above his cave—a geological formation that had stood for eons—vaporized. It didn't crumble. It didn't slide. It was simply deleted from existence, turned into fine cosmic dust by the accidental release of his aura. Sunlight from the chaotic realm poured in, illuminating his tattered black robes and the silver-white hair that now cascaded down his back.
Chen Wei froze, one hand still mid-stretch. He blinked his mismatched eyes at the gaping hole in the sky where a mountain used to be.
"Oops."
He scratched his nose sheepishly. "I really need to control that. I forgot how fragile the lower realms are."
Three geometric crystals, sharp shards of solidified space, floated up from the rubble and began to orbit his head lazily. They hummed a low, mournful tune—the sound of the void submitting to its master.
Chen Wei ignored them. He was busy looking at his hand. The skin was pale, almost translucent, with faint purple veins pulsing beneath the surface.
"How long has it been?"
He flicked his wrist. The air rippled, and a translucent screen of purple light manifested. It wasn't a System—he had transcended such crutches centuries ago—but a manifestation of his own memory technique, the Chrono-Spatial Log.
[Cultivation Time: 1,028 Years]
Chen Wei nodded. "About what I expected. A millennium of isolation. Standard."
His eyes drifted to the second line.
[Earth Time Dilation: 10 Years]
He stopped. He rubbed his eyes. He looked again.
"Ten... years?"
The number hung in the air, mocking him. He had prepared himself for the worst. He had assumed that by the time he became strong enough to return, centuries would have passed on Earth. He thought everyone he knew would be dust. He thought he was returning to visit graves.
But ten years?
"Ten years," he murmured. The scent of sandalwood suddenly spiked in the air, overpowering the ozone. It was a smell he consciously manifested—the scent of his grandmother's house, the scent of the life he had left behind.
"If it's only been ten years... Liu Yue is only thirty-eight."
The realization hit him harder than any Tribulation Lightning. Liu Yue. His college girlfriend. The woman he had left without a word when the spatial rift swallowed him. He remembered her laugh. He remembered the way she scrunched her nose when she was angry.
He touched the weathered jade pendant hanging around his neck. It was warm.
"She probably hates me," Chen Wei said to the empty void. A smile, rusty and unused, tugged at the corner of his mouth. "She definitely hates me. But she's alive."
He stood up. The floating crystals spun faster, sensing his intent. His tattered black coat, frayed at the edges like smoke, billowed around him despite the lack of wind.
"I'm going back."
He didn't pack. He had nothing to pack. His Void Spatial Ring held enough ancient artifacts to buy a small continent, but he didn't have a single pair of clean underwear.
He raised his hand. His fingernails were slightly too long, shimmering with metallic luster. He made a slashing motion against the empty air.
SCREEECH.
Space screamed. A vertical tear opened in the fabric of the Chaos Void, revealing a swirling tunnel of purple and black energy. Through the turbulence, he could sense it. The specific, polluted, noisy, wonderful vibration of Earth.
"Shanghai," he whispered. "I hope you still have those scallion pancakes."
He stepped forward. The void swallowed him.
Earth. Shanghai. Altitude: 30,000 Feet.
The sky over Shanghai was a brilliant, smoggy blue. It was a peaceful Tuesday afternoon.
Until the sky tore open.
A jagged purple rift appeared among the clouds, spitting out a figure wrapped in black rags. Chen Wei stumbled out of the portal, expecting the solid pavement of a street alley.
Instead, his foot found only air. Freezing, thin air.
"Ah," Chen Wei said, hovering perfectly still as gravity tried and failed to pull him down. "Calculated the Z-axis wrong."
He looked down. Far below, the city was a grid of grey and glass. The Pearl Tower looked like a toy needle. He took a deep breath. The air tasted of jet fuel and exhaust.
It was the most beautiful thing he had ever smelled.
"I'm home," he said, spreading his arms. "I'm finally—"
RRROOOOOAAAARRRR.
The sound was deafening. A massive shadow fell over him. Chen Wei turned his head.
Less than fifty meters away, the nose of a China Eastern Boeing 747 was barreling straight toward him at nine hundred kilometers per hour.
Chen Wei's purple eye flared. His brown eye widened.
"WHAT," he shouted over the roar of the engines, "IS THAT FLYING METAL BIRD?!"