Chapter 14 – The One Who Trembles
A narrow river wound through a fog-choked ravine.
The water was neither clear nor cloudy—it simply stood, utterly silent, as if caught in thought.
Shen Mu walked alongside it.
His steps stirred no dust.
His silhouette slipped between trees like a shadow that didn't belong to this world.
He wasn't heading anywhere.
He was simply walking—as though the road itself opened beneath his feet.
Fifty meters ahead, a young woman dressed in white stood frozen.
In one hand, she gripped a light sword. In the other, a fragment of shattered jade.
Her forehead dripped with sweat. Her brows were tightly furrowed.
She had just escaped a bloody ambush in the Red Mountains.
Her sect had been attacked by a group of rogue cultivators—the "Scaled Hounds."
Her master was dead. Her martial brother... turned to ash.
She had fled.
Bai Lian—frozen prodigy of the Immortal Frost Sect—was trembling.Not from fear.
But from something deeper. Something unknown.
A presence.
Not her pursuers.
No... something else.
A weight in the air. Silent, vast, and unknowable.
It felt as if the entire world had stopped breathing.
Her eyes settled on a figure moving between the trees.
A man.
Young, with silver hair. Dressed simply.
Walking beside the river, as though dreaming with his eyes open.
Her heart tightened.
She took a step back.
— "What… is that?"
He had no aura.
No Qi fluctuation.
No sound.
And yet… he resonated.
Not like a divine beast.
Not like an arrogant cultivator.
But like the silence between two apocalypses.
He approached without noticing her.And as he passed within arm's reach, Bai Lian's legs weakened.
Their eyes met. For just one second.And her entire body froze.
— "Those eyes…" she thought.
— "That's not a man. That's… a void."
He looked at her.
Not like a man looks at a woman.
But like the sky observes a defiant insect in a storm.
No pity.
No arrogance.
No desire.
Just… nothing.
And yet… her heart pounded.
Her face flushed.
Her thoughts unraveled.
When he disappeared into the mist…Bai Lian collapsed to her knees.
She gasped.
Her sword trembled.
And in her hand… the jade fragment had restored itself.
Somehow. Without reason.
— "Who… are you?"
But she knew.
She wouldn't get the answer today.Only later—When the world whispered his name...And even the heavens lowered their gaze.