Far beneath the very fabric of reality, below the visible planes of existence that stretched across the Celestial Planet, within a realm no one could perceive, a figure stirred.
The Celestial Sect stood proud and reborn above ground, its disciples unaware of the very being that resided beneath their feet. Countless continents, oceans, floating islands, and elemental regions flourished on this planet, all nested within the gravitational embrace of an unseen force. This being had neither interfered nor revealed its presence since the formation of this sect, merely watching, listening, remembering.
Today, however, the silence broke.
Inside the Infinite Celestial Space, where time twisted and reality bowed, the being sat upon a throne of lightless starlight. This throne, older than the known universe, stood amidst swirling constellations, forgotten galaxies, and drifting fragments of ancient relics lost in wars too old for even divine beings to remember.
He opened his eyes.
They were orbs of fractured creation itself. In their depths burned every law of the universe—gravity, time, space, energy, and life—folded into infinite spirals. His gaze pierced through the layers of the Celestial Planet, reaching into the very core of the Pearl Chip embedded in Lin Hai's dantian.
"So the child has awakened the Path," the being whispered. His voice did not echo—it created echoes.
He leaned back, allowing his thoughts to unspool. He remembered—everything.
---
Long ago, before the current Universal Era, before even the gods whispered their first breath, there was the White Universal Path. A highway of cosmic knowledge, interwoven with laws that connected all universes in a divine lattice. Through it, trade, knowledge, power, and civilizations flourished across uncountable dimensions. Beings of immense strength, known as the Eternals, upheld balance.
He was one of them.
A Guardian of Gates. A Wielder of Voidlight. A Prince of Nothingness.
Then came the Ancient Inter-Universal War.
No historian in the current timeline had any true record of it. The war was not just forgotten—it was erased. Trillions upon trillions of lives, from every corner of existence, perished. Entire universes folded into singularities. Causal chains were rewritten. Supreme beings clashed not with weapons but with conceptual truths—wills that bent time, thoughts that tore the fabric of reason.
He fought then. With his brethren.
Against what?
He remembered only fragments: a soundless hunger, a formless plague of nothing that did not seek to conquer, only to nullify. It had no face. No throne. Only will. A will to end.
They succeeded, barely. But at a cost.
The White Universal Path collapsed. Their universe—this universe—was quarantined, sealed off from the rest of existence like a wound stitched and forgotten. The last Gatekeepers either perished or entered eternal sleep.
He did not sleep.
Instead, he descended.
Here, deep in the Celestial Planet, he created a pocket dimension—a cradle from which to observe. He watched countless sects rise and fall. He saw the birth of the Celestial Sect, a spark that resembled the forgotten glory. He remained hidden, watching quietly.
Until now.
He turned his gaze toward the recent events.
The Pearl Chip.
Lin Hai.
The attack.
The Sect Elders.
He had observed everything through the secret Eye—his fragment left behind in the lower realm, cloaked even from divine senses. What intrigued him wasn't just the power of the Celestial Sect but the orchestration—the way the elders moved, the seamless control, the quiet resurgence of a slumbering power.
He knew what this meant.
The old bloodlines were waking up.
And that was both a hope... and a warning.
He turned to the ancient table in the center of his throne room, where floating holograms of universe fragments rotated endlessly. With a gesture, he summoned a translucent war scroll—burned, torn, ancient.
It displayed the final moments of the Inter-Universal War: the collapse, the sealing, the sacrifice of countless eternal beings to lock the universe from within.
"It won't hold forever," he murmured. "They will come again."
---
At the same moment, across the vast heavenly vaults, inside the Heavenly Abode of the Imperial Court, the mighty King of the Western Heavens stood in his library. Unlike mortal kings, his presence bent the air, and even the divine scrolls vibrated with reverence in his presence.
He held a tome older than the stars—a forbidden history only available to kings of divine rank.
"The Great Inter-Universal Severance," he whispered, tracing the words.
It spoke in fragmented terms. Of a war so vast that gods wept and universes screamed. It hinted that their own universe was not born alone but part of a grander web, now cut off. It spoke of beings—Guardians, Emissaries, and Voidwalkers—who sealed their own reality to protect it.
He narrowed his eyes.
He felt a stirring. Like a distant thunder over calm waters.
"A tide is coming," he said aloud.
---
Back in the Celestial Planet, the ancient being stood from his throne. His cloak shimmered with dead stars and newborn galaxies.
"I must prepare him," he said, referring to Lin Hai. "And the Sect."
He vanished into motes of light.
The Infinite Celestial Space hummed.
And somewhere, far beyond the known sky, something began to stir in response.