Chapter 13 – Traces of the Unseen

The night stretched endlessly, the echoes of retreating footsteps fading into silence. Xu Tianyin stood unmoving, his mind still caught in the strange shift that had just occurred. The void had responded to him—not as an external force but as something intrinsic, something woven into his very being.

It was not cultivation in the way others understood it.

It was something else.

A cold wind swept through the trees, rustling the leaves like whispers of unseen watchers. Tianyin's grip on his staff tightened. He should move. He should leave before they returned. But his body felt disconnected, as if the moment of that strange displacement had unsettled something deep within him.

Then, a voice cut through the silence.

"You felt it, didn't you?"

Tianyin spun around, his stance guarded.

A lone figure stood at the edge of the clearing, half-shrouded in the darkness of the trees. Their presence was quiet, almost unnoticeable—until they chose to speak.

Bai Yeming.

Her gaze was unreadable, but there was something in her eyes—an awareness, a knowing.

Tianyin exhaled, shoulders tense. "You saw?"

Yeming stepped forward. "I didn't need to see. I felt it."

Her voice was calm, but beneath it lay something else—an edge of caution, perhaps even concern.

Tianyin swallowed. He didn't know how to explain what had happened. "It… moved on its own. I didn't even think about it."

"That's what makes it dangerous."

Yeming's response was immediate, without hesitation. She came closer, stopping just within arm's reach.

"Power like this—one that does not abide by normal cultivation—will always demand a price." Her eyes searched his, unyielding. "What do you think it will take from you?"

Tianyin didn't have an answer.

The void had saved him. It had responded when he was on the brink of death. But now, standing in its aftermath, he could feel the lingering weight of something watching, something waiting.

It had not given him power.

It had acknowledged him.

And that might have been worse.

Yeming exhaled softly, gaze shifting toward the darkened sky. "Come. There's something you need to see."

Tianyin hesitated but followed.

The trees stretched around them like silent sentinels as they moved deeper into the forest. The air grew colder, the scent of damp earth thickening. It wasn't long before they reached a clearing—one that was unnaturally quiet.

At the center, something lay half-buried in the ground.

A stone tablet.

Tianyin frowned. "What is this?"

Yeming knelt beside it, brushing away the dirt. "An echo."

The markings carved into the surface were old, worn by time, yet there was something unsettling about them. The symbols shifted under the moonlight, as if refusing to be seen in their entirety.

Tianyin's breath hitched.

He recognized them.

They were the same symbols that had flickered in the edges of his vision when the void had moved through him.

This… this is connected to me.

Yeming looked up, watching him carefully. "You see it, don't you?"

Tianyin nodded slowly.

A strange unease settled over him. This wasn't just an ancient remnant. It was a sign.

A warning.

And he had no choice but to follow where it led.