Chapter 4 - Heaven's Recoil
The dagger pierced flesh with a cruel whisper.
There was no hesitation in Shadow's hand. No mercy in the blade.
He plunged it deep beneath his ribs—*not once, but twice*—ripping through muscle, scraping against bone, until the pain became fire and the fire became agony.
Blood erupted in a rush, warm and heavy, spilling down his side, soaking the floor, bleeding into the ancient chalk lines he had carved hours before.
Ten low-grade spirit stones sat around him, silent witnesses. They glowed faintly—flickers of pale blue light pulsing like heartbeats. They were untouched, pure.
But they would soon burn.
> "If Heaven won't open the gate…"
> "…then I will tear it from the other side."
Shadow's voice trembled, barely audible over his ragged breathing.
He had studied. He had meditated. He had begged for answers in silence. And all he had ever received was **nothing**.
Silence from the heavens.
Mockery from the world.
Pity from those too afraid to speak it aloud.
But tonight… tonight he would force Heaven to look down.
Whether it reached for him in punishment or not—he would make it *see* him.
---
The wind shifted.
A low hum passed through the air.
The chalk lines began to glow.
The stones vibrated softly.
Then—
> *CRACK.*
A sound like the shattering of the sky.
A single thunderclap echoed across the sect—deeper than any storm, louder than any war drum.
The air turned heavy.
The wind stopped.
The moon vanished behind a swirl of black clouds coiling above Shadow's hut like a coiled serpent preparing to strike.
Inside, Shadow's eyes widened. His body trembled—not from fear, but from **recognition**.
> *It's coming.*
Another crack.
A silence.
Then—
> **BOOM.**
---
The heavens **roared**.
A thunderbolt unlike any nature had ever produced fell from the sky—not a streak, not a line of light, but a **pillar**.
A celestial spear of judgment.
It struck the hut directly.
> Not with precision.
> With annihilation.
The roof **disintegrated** in an instant.
Wood turned to ash.
Walls exploded outward.
Stone cracked.
The very earth beneath the foundation **split in two**, sending chunks of soil and stone flying into the night.
A wave of divine pressure blasted outward in all directions—flattening trees, ripping leaves from their branches, and silencing every bird, every cricket, every breath within a hundred meters.
---
And at the center…
Shadow screamed.
But the sound was lost.
The lightning had already struck him—piercing through his back, exploding from his chest.
> His body lifted off the ground.
> His limbs contorted, bent in ways they were never meant to bend.
> His blood **evaporated** mid-air.
> His bones **cracked**, then **shattered**.
> His organs **ruptured**, failing one by one.
And through it all—
The ten spirit stones ignited at once.
They didn't infuse him.
> They **attacked** him.
Raw, violent spiritual energy surged into his broken form like a raging flood through shattered gates.
His skin tore open as power raced along every nerve, burning, twisting, reforming. Every part of him that was weak, every inch that was human—was **being rewritten** by force.
He wasn't cultivating.
He wasn't absorbing.
> He was **stealing.**
And the heavens were not letting go without a fight.
---
His soul began to **tear**.
Shadow saw it—his spirit, his essence—being pulled away, unraveling into the void.
*"No… not yet…"*
*"I haven't lived yet…"*
*"I haven't made them pay…"*
---
Then silence.
Everything—gone.
---
He floated.
Weightless.
No pain.
No sound.
No thought.
A field of white stretched before him, endless and empty.
*"So this is death…"*
It was peaceful.
Warm.
And for a moment, he wanted to let go.
But then—
A sound.
> *Thump.*
> *Thump-thump.*
> **THUMP.**
Not a heartbeat.
A **summons.**
"GET UP."
The voice came not from outside—but **within.**
It wasn't Elder Yan.
It wasn't the heavens.
It was **himself.**
The part of him that refused to die.
"We don't kneel."
"We don't beg."
"We take."
---
Agony returned.
The white turned to fire.
Shadow screamed—not in fear, but in defiance—as his body began to rebuild itself through the torrent of pain.
His shattered bones cracked back into place.
Muscles regrew, then split again under pressure.
Veins formed where none had been.
And then—
He took a breath.
A real one.
Air filled his lungs, heavy and sharp.
*He was alive.*
---
His eyes snapped open.
Smoke drifted through the ruin.
The sky was still swirling, thunder echoing in the distance.
The hut—**gone.**
Nothing remained but ash, debris, and the faint glow of embers.
The floor beneath him was blackened, fractured, shaped into a crater of raw devastation.
He coughed. Blood. Ash. Pain.
But also—
**Energy.**
It moved in his limbs.
It flowed in his blood.
Not like a core.
Not like meridians.
Like **something new**.
He reached out, and the ground cracked beneath his fingers.
The stone beneath his palm quivered.
Power. Raw and untamed.
Not granted.
**Stolen.**
"I… I did it…"
He laughed. A broken, weak, painful sound.
But it was laughter.
He sat up, gasping for breath.
Every muscle ached.
Every joint burned.
But he could move.
"You tried to erase me…"
"You struck me down…"
"But I'm still here."
---
He looked around.
There was no roof above him.
Only the sky.
Only the stars.
And the heavens.
"You called me a sin."
"You tried to destroy me."
He stood, barely, his body trembling, one hand gripping his side, the other clenched into a fist.
"So now…"
"I'll become the sin you fear."
---
And so, from a crater of fire and smoke, in the wreckage of a home turned grave—
**A new path was born.**
Not one guided by sect scrolls or imperial law.
Not one carved by bloodline or birthright.
> A path of rebellion.
> A path of survival.
> A path to challenge the heavens themselves.