The world around Li Zhen had begun to unravel.
At first, it was subtle—trees that cast no shadows, a mountain in the distance that moved when he blinked, voices in the wind that whispered fragments of forgotten names. But as he walked, these strangenesses grew louder, more insistent. The land seemed to fold in on itself like a memory reconsidered. Time lost meaning. Hours passed, or perhaps only minutes, or days. He couldn't tell.
Eventually, the forest opened into a clearing so still it felt preserved in amber. The grass here was silver. The air buzzed, not with insects, but with something… older. Vibrations of memory. Beneath his feet, faint lines glowed—pale blue and gold, twisting in patterns like threads woven into the soil.
And above him: the sky held no sun. No moon. Only a single glowing thread that stretched across the firmament from one unknown horizon to the next.
He had never seen anything like it.
It pulsed gently. Alive.
The sword on his back hummed for the first time in days, as if recognizing something sacred—or dangerous.
"This place…" Li Zhen whispered, reaching out toward the glowing thread in the sky. "Where am I?"
The sword answered, its voice quiet and reverent. "You have wandered into the Loom."
"The Loom?"
"Yes. A fold in the weave of the world. A place where fates gather. Lives intersect. Stories begin or end. Few are permitted here. Fewer still are called."
"Was I called?" he asked.
There was no answer.
He took another step. The world shifted. The grass didn't rustle beneath his feet—it shivered. The lines on the ground rearranged themselves. The thread above brightened, pulsing with every breath he took. He felt like he was being measured.
"I shouldn't be here," he muttered, instinct pulling him back. But he couldn't move. Some unseen gravity held him in place.
"No one should," the sword replied. "That is why it matters."
He tried to understand what he was seeing. Across the field, strange structures emerged—stone pillars etched with symbols he didn't recognize. At their base were offerings: broken blades, burned scrolls, bones wrapped in prayer ribbons. Wind moved without source, carrying the scent of salt, smoke, and something like old paper.
And as he stared at the largest pillar, a vision struck him like lightning.
He saw a battlefield—one he didn't recognize, but somehow knew. Fires devouring the earth. A city crumbling under its own weight. Screams in a language he had once spoken. And standing in the center of the chaos, a figure with his face… but eyes that weren't his. Cold, inhuman, divine.
The vision vanished.
He staggered.
"What was that?" he gasped.
"A reminder," the sword said. "Of what was. Or what could have been."
"Is this another trick? Another illusion?"
"No. Not illusion. Not memory. Possibility."
He moved forward again, drawn by something he couldn't name. The sword vibrated harder now, like a heart beating against his spine. The silver thread in the sky trembled. It began to descend, slowly, like a strand of silk falling through water.
And then he saw it: a loom.
Not made of wood or metal, but of starlight, thought, and sound.
It sat in the center of the field, surrounded by rings of glass-like stones that reflected faces he didn't recognize—some smiling, some weeping, all familiar. The loom's spindles turned slowly, weaving threads of light that passed through the sky and down into the world. Some threads were golden. Others were black. A few sparkled and then faded as if forgotten mid-stitch.
And sitting before the loom was a woman.
Or what had once been a woman.
Her body was wrapped in veils that rippled with memories. Her hands moved without rest, threading fates, adjusting lines, plucking strands like a musician tuning a divine instrument. Her face was hidden, but her presence was undeniable.
Li Zhen approached slowly.
"Are you the one who brought me back?" he asked.
She did not look up.
"Who are you?" he tried again.
Still no answer.
But then she spoke—not aloud, but into his mind.
"You were not meant to return."
Her voice echoed across his bones.
"Then why did I?"
"Because someone pulled you from the pattern. Cut you free from death. Reattached your thread where none should remain."
"Who?" he asked. "Why?"
The woman's fingers paused. She lifted a single thread—bright silver, twisted and frayed—and held it up to him.
"This is your life," she said.
He stared at it. It pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"It was severed. Final. But then… it was rewoven. Clumsily. Against the design."
"I didn't ask for this," he whispered.
"No one does."
"What happens now?"
"That depends," she said, setting the thread gently back into the loom. "On whether you walk the path you've been given… or tear it apart."
Suddenly, images flooded his vision.
Cities burning. A temple swallowed by the earth. A child screaming in a storm. Himself—older, colder, wearing armor etched with the names of the dead. Then another vision—softer—of him kneeling in a garden, hands shaking, offering a broken sword to a blind girl.
So many lives.
So many hims.
"You were not one man," the voice said. "You were a convergence. A singularity. Every life you lived… every version of you that could exist… exists. Somewhere."
He fell to his knees.
"I don't want this," he said, tears burning his eyes. "I just want to know who I was."
"Then ask a better question."
"What?"
"Ask who you are now."
The sword pulsed again.
"Then answer me this," Li Zhen said, gripping its hilt. "Why me? Why was I brought back?"
The answer came like thunder:
"Because you are not a man anymore. You are a disruption. A thread out of place. And every stitch you take forward… alters the pattern."
The field shook.
Far in the distance, he saw other threads unraveling.
Storms forming over cities he hadn't reached yet. People he hadn't met speaking his name like a prophecy. Sect wars igniting like dry tinder. Reality bending in response to his presence.
He wasn't just alive.
He was breaking the world by existing.
"Then… what do I do?" he asked.
The woman stood.
The sky above cracked open. A hand emerged—vast, radiant, faceless—offering him a single glowing thread.
"Take it," she said. "And choose."
He hesitated.
"If I take it… I become part of the pattern again?"
"Yes."
"Bound?"
"Yes."
"And if I refuse?"
"You will remain unbound. Free. But hunted."
He reached.
Stopped.
Breathed.
And for the first time since his resurrection, he understood the truth:
He hadn't been chosen to return.
He had been extracted.
And now… the world wanted to know what he was going to do with that defiance.
His hand closed around the thread.
The sky screamed.
The sword sang.
The loom burned.
And the cosmic thread of Li Zhen—swordsman, ghost, fracture in fate—tightened.
And moved.