The Eternal Empire:Ren’s Glance, Their Ruin
She chuckled softly at Ren's bluntness.
"Good night, then, Ren."
He offered a faint smile. "Good night."
By morning, she was gone. Ren rose without alarm, stepped from the quiet room, and resumed his training. He had completed the scroll entrusted to him by his master—now he applied final refinements, subtle improvements meant to honour her as much as himself.
On his way to a nearby restaurant, Ren noticed a boy in the street. The resemblance was uncanny—too close to his proper form to be a coincidence.
Cultivators encircled the boy like wolves drawn to blood—dishonourable, predatory, their auras sharp with unsanctioned hunger. The child stood frozen, pressure coiling around him like invisible chains forged from intent.
His mother stood firm at his side—trembling, yes, but defiant. Her eyes held the weight of someone nearly torn apart not by violence, but by the slow erosion of dignity. Each breath was a quiet refusal. Each silence, a blade not yet drawn.
But the silence did not last.
She moved.
She drew steel with the clarity of maternal rage, her grip steady, her heart already past the point of fear. They might have underestimated her—but they would not do so twice.
Ren struck without hesitation. His blades found their marks. Cold, precise. The attackers fell where they stood—wretched men no one would mourn.
Ren turned toward the woman. His gaze softened. Beneath her panic and confusion was something more profound: a tether pulled taut across time. She had borne a child—his child, not in this plane, not in this moment, but in a future that lived beyond linear time.
She and the boy came from another cultivation world entirely—distant, but not unreachable. And somehow, fate had drawn them here.
"Why does he look at me like that…?" the woman whispered, her voice trembling.
Her eyes searched Ren's, and the flood broke. Recognition surged—ferocious and raw.
"Ardyn," she gasped.
Her knees gave way. She sobbed, calling the name that had once meant everything.
The boy, only six, saw her collapse and rushed forward, hugging her leg.
"Mummy, please don't cry. Daddy doesn't like it when you cry… Even if he's not with us right now, he'll come back. He promised. And Daddy never breaks his promise."
His voice trembled; tears welled. "I miss Daddy too."
Ren stepped forward and extended his hand. She reached out as if it might vanish again. Her grip was fierce, laced with aching devotion.
They walked in silence. She held Ren's hand tightly, as though her life depended on it. The boy walked beside her, still holding her hand. He glanced up at Ren, confused—stranger and familiarity tangled together.
Something in Ren stirred the boy's thoughts—an unexplained warmth, a sense of belonging he couldn't name yet. But he knew he'd understand it soon.
And then—
Mianmian fluttered onto Ren's shoulder, as effortlessly as sunlight filters through mist.
The boy's face lit up. He smiled at her with unfiltered joy.
Mianmian tilted her head at him, eyes full of silent mischief. In her presence, the boy's tangled thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind.
Ren entered the room calmly, where his master stood alongside Lady Yueh, Liáng Xu and Fei Yan. Before any of them could ask why he arrived with a woman and child, he spoke first—steady, unapologetic.
"This is my wife. And my son."
The woman gripped his arm gently, her breath trembling in her chest. She looked at the gathered cultivators and then back to Ren, eyes shining with long-held certainty.
I knew it, she thought. I recognised those eyes the moment I saw them. No matter the realm, no matter the name—those eyes are his.
The boy, still silent, glanced once more at Ren. At first, there was confusion, followed by curiosity. And finally—recognition.
He reached out with his budding spiritual sense, trying to feel Ren's aura. What he found was unmistakable: the exact rhythm, warmth, and presence he knew from his father.
It clicked. A little slower than it had for his mother, but with just as much certainty.
He is my father.
Fairy Jin said nothing. Nor did Lady Yueh. By now, they knew better.
Travelling with Ren had peeled back strange truths. He still laughed like a fool, made choices that defied every cultivation norm—but that fool carried the weight of another world behind his gaze. And that was enough. Questions could wait. Or perhaps… they'd never be answered.
Liáng Xu and Fei Yan exchanged glances. Their eyes landed on the woman—and then the child.
Another striking beauty. Another mysterious child. At Ren's side, no less. Was it luck? Destiny? Or that same unplaceable pull they'd felt since first meeting him?
"He's not just blessed," Liáng murmured. "He's... rewritten."
Fei Yan nodded slowly. "Or rewriting us."
They would have to kill him. Sooner or later.
None dared speak it aloud, but the feeling pulsed beneath every breath: Ren was something else.
Not divine. Not mortal. Not distinguishable in any known taxonomy of existence. He moved like a fool, laughed like a wanderer, but the power radiating from him—raw, unfiltered, mythic—was deeper than gods. Older than sects. Wilder than fate.
And it terrified them.
Each step closer to Ren made their fortunes feel thinner. Cultivators once beloved by heaven began to feel brittle. Luckless. Cursed.
They feared he was draining them and stealing the very prosperity that once cradled their rise.
But what they didn't realise—what Ren never bothered to explain—was that nothing had left them.
Their luck remained intact. Their path forward is untouched.
Ren didn't steal fortune. He obscured it.
He became its centre, its gravitational focal point. Around him, cause and effect bent and warped, making brilliance feel like failure. Even as they drew admirers and cultivated faster than their peers, they felt small beside him.
Not because they had lost anything—
But because Ren had arrived.
They waited.
It wasn't a matter of if, but when.
Once the method revealed itself—some ancient technique, some divine loophole—they would strike.
Not for justice. Not for vengeance. But for validation.
In their eyes, Ren was no enigmatic wanderer, no myth cloaked in foolish laughter. He was a thief. A villain. A usurper of affection.
Fairy Jin had admired him for too long. Their master had grown quiet in Ren's presence, as if deferring without knowing why. The women who once glanced their way now looked past them—toward him.
It burned.
It bloomed.
And it justified everything.
They convinced themselves it was for the good of the sect. That Ren's influence twisted the hearts of those too wise to be deceived. That his arrival fractured bonds that once felt inevitable.
But what they could not see—what Ren never offered them—was his origin. His weight. His sorrow.
The women did not admire him out of desire.
They recognised him.
And in that recognition, these cultivators mistook their fading reflection as theft.
They claimed to despise Ren. Called him cursed. Villainous. Dangerous.
But the truth was far more intimate.
What they hated… was themselves. Reflected. Unmasked. Embodied in Ren, not because he committed their sins—but because he revealed them.
Greed.
Lust.
The hunger for power was so consuming that it didn't flinch at betrayal.
Behind closed doors, they seduced their closest allies' lovers. Claimed it was love, or destiny, or sect prerogative. Netori turned tradition. NTR gilded as divine favour.
And heaven, it seemed, let it happen.
Luck flowed. Cultivation soared. The stars did not rebuke them.
It must be fate, they whispered.
We are chosen.
But they misunderstood the nature of heaven.
Heaven does not reward virtue. It echoes myth. And Ren—Ren was myth incarnate.
He didn't take what was theirs. He didn't seduce, betray, or steal. He simply existed—as a gravitational truth.
And in his presence, their false grandeur withered. Not because he punished them…
But because his silence was louder than their boasting.
Ren wasn't their villain.
He was their mirror.
And mirrors, in cultivation, are the first step toward madness.
What made the situation worse was not the punishment—there was none. It was the reflection.
They had become disgusting—scummy pigs.
Once, they were kind. Honourable. Chosen for the purity of their hearts, not the strength of their fists. But over the centuries, kindness grew inconvenient. Honour became brittle. They warped. Bent. Became strangers housed in familiar names.
Lady Yueh, their magnificent master, watched with eyes half-closed—not from ignorance, but from hope. She turned a blind eye to their descent, waiting for repentance that never came. She still believed they might reclaim the light that once shimmered at their cores.
Fairy Jin did not share that faith.
She vanished.
No words.
No departure rites.
Just silence—and distance that stretched across centuries.
They hadn't seen her in hundreds of years.
Then Ren arrived.
He did not beg. He did not boast. He simply was. And Fairy Jin, ever untethered from sect politics, stepped from seclusion and named him her first disciple.
Her only disciple.
They were stunned. She had never chosen them. When they joined the sect, it was Lady Yueh who marked their names into the annals—not Fairy Jin.
They had believed this was a blessing. They had no idea what they had missed.
Fairy Jin was Lady Yueh's senior sister. By tradition, by merit, by silent expectation, she was meant to become sect leader. But she stepped aside. Quietly. Without opposition. Without explanation.
Why?
No one knew. Not Lady Yueh. Not the elders. Indeed, not the disciples who now watched Ren stand where they had never been allowed.
And so the truth calcified:
Fairy Jin had waited.
She had not abandoned the sect—she had abandoned them.
She gave away her throne.
She endured centuries of silence.
She chose Ren.
Because some people are born to restore a legacy.
Others are meant only to ruin it.
The more they thought about it—about her silence, about Ren's selection, about the path they never walked—the more their spirit began to rot.
Not at once. Slowly. Imperceptibly.
Their aura, once radiant with the residue of early promise, began to twist.
It folded in on itself. Recoiled.
No longer the aura of rising cultivators, but of those cursed with self-recognition and no remedy.
They began to crack.
Not from battle. Not from divine punishment.
From overthinking.
Every breath became a reckoning.
Every silence, an accusation.
And soon the twisting became unstable—formless.
Eventually, it would fracture completely.
And when it did, it would birth something unforgivable.
A fate that no redemption arc could cleanse.
A regret so profound it would echo beyond the sect's walls, scarring the very cultivation path beneath their feet.
Even if they lived, they would no longer be.
Ren looked in their direction.
He gave nothing away. No gesture. No smile. No reprimand.
But in his eyes—those deep and unnervingly clear eyes—there was something meant for them. Something no one else noticed, and perhaps no one else could.
They had twisted their thoughts into knots so complex they couldn't breathe without choking on regret. They had convinced themselves that Fairy Jin had not simply left them, but abandoned them. That they were hopeless. Cursed. Cast beyond salvation.
They were wrong.
Ren saw it.
The delusion.
The self-condemnation.
The plea is buried beneath bitterness.
Fairy Jin hadn't turned her back on them. Not entirely.
Even now, from somewhere unreachable, she waited. Her silence wasn't exile—it was patience worn thin. She hadn't chosen them, but she hadn't condemned them either.
Ren knew.
He saw the spiral.
And in that gaze—not gentle, not cruel, just true—was the message:
Stop overthinking. Or you will shape your damnation.
Whether they would hear it… was another matter.