Chapter 15 – The Unwritten Path

Xu Tianyin stood at the threshold of something nameless. The revelation from the ancient tablet had settled deep in his core, intertwining with his very being. The void did not resist. It simply was.

Bai Yeming watched him carefully. She had said little since their discovery, but her silence was not one of uncertainty. It was the kind that allowed thoughts to settle, to become actions.

"If the heavens reject me, if the world does not recognize my existence," Tianyin finally spoke, his voice steady, "then I will cultivate a path that has never existed."

Yeming's lips curled slightly—not quite a smile, but something close. "Then let's begin."

The first step was not technique. It was not power.

It was understanding.

Tianyin sat cross-legged, the world around him silent except for the faint rustling of wind through the trees. He did not draw qi. He did not circulate energy.

Instead, he let go.

The absence responded.

Where others reached outward for strength, he embraced the void.

It was a paradox. Cultivation had always been about absorbing the world's energy, shaping it, refining it. But he had been denied that path. His body rejected qi, refused to mold it into something usable.

So instead of taking in, he let everything fall away.

And in that emptiness, something stirred.

It was not qi. It was not the force others wielded.

It was his own existence, burning against the fabric of the world.

A flicker of understanding took root.

Yeming remained still, sensing the shift. "What do you feel?"

Tianyin opened his eyes, their depths darker than before. "I am not drawing in energy," he said slowly. "I am carving away what binds me."

The revelation was quiet, but undeniable.

He was not cultivating power. He was unraveling his limitations.

The path was dangerous—untested, unknown.

But it was his.

And nothing, not even the will of the heavens, would take it from him.