The interior of the Mirror Moon Sect temple was steeped in ancient silence. Dust floated in still air. Broken incense burners, shattered relics, and moss-covered scrolls littered the shadowy corridors. But none of it felt dead.
It felt like something was waiting.
Li Tianming stood before the great mural of Yi Cangxue, studying the carved eyes of the Unwritten Sovereign. There was no emotion in that face, no glory, no grief — only the stillness of someone who had seen everything and chosen silence.
Behind him, Ye Qingsi whispered, "We only ever awakened the First Rite. The rest of the teachings… are locked. Traps and riddles. Waiting for someone the temple accepts."
Tianming turned to her. "Why didn't it accept you?"
She smiled softly. "I'm a custodian. A shadow left behind. The temple doesn't open to memory… only to a future that refuses to follow its script."
As she spoke, the glyph on Tianming's palm glowed — and a part of the mural shifted.
Stone slid back. Dust swirled. A hidden staircase descended into the earth.
Tianming stepped toward it, but Ye Qingsi reached out. "Be careful. The tests below are not measured by strength. They judge your ability to rewrite yourself."
He nodded. "Then I won't walk in with answers."
He descended alone.
Below the Temple
The steps led into a subterranean hall of mirrors — hundreds of them, standing upright like monks in meditation. They reflected not his form, but versions of him.
One mirror showed him dressed in white, carrying the Heaven's Mandate as an Emperor.
Another showed him starving, a slave with broken hands.
A third showed him with golden wings, worshiped by millions.
A fourth — dead at sixteen, a footnote.
He walked past them.
None were real. None were chosen.
Then the Trial Mirror appeared.
Larger than the rest, it stood at the center of the chamber, blank as polished jade. As he stepped before it, the mirror shifted — revealing only one reflection.
Himself.
Not a version. Not an ideal. Just Li Tianming — tired, bloodstained, his gaze hollow yet burning.
Then words formed above the mirror in ancient glyphs:
"To master the Second Rite,
you must sever all paths that do not belong to you."
Suddenly, the hall trembled.
The reflections stepped out of their mirrors.
Each "Li Tianming" now stood as a real, living copy — twenty, maybe more. The emperor. The beggar. The god-king. The cripple. All of them gazed at him with different eyes.
The emperor stepped forward.
"Why walk a path that will kill you, when Heaven already offers worship?"
The beggar followed.
"Why fight destiny? Accept the chains and survive."
The god-king spread his wings.
"Bow now, and you will rise faster. Become a judge of fate, not its fool."
Tianming said nothing.
Then he drew in his breath, and the glyph on his palm ignited.
"You are not me. You are what Heaven wanted me to be."
He reached within his Fate Furnace — and pulled out a thread.
Not of cultivation.
But of conviction.
"I am not a product of probabilities. I am the sum of what I choose to abandon."
He crushed the thread — and the room exploded in light.
When the dust cleared, all the copies were gone.
Only the mirror remained.
And above it, the glyph changed:
"Second Rite unlocked:
Invert the Gaze — Refuse the Shape of Judgment."
Tianming's spiritual core twisted.
This was no ordinary breakthrough. The Second Rite allowed him to resist fate's evaluation, to become unreadable, unquantifiable. Even Heaven's Laws could not determine his worth, cultivation, or soul.
He had become a blind spot in the celestial script.
Back in the Temple
He emerged hours later, eyes colder.
Ye Qingsi bowed her head. "You've passed."
Tianming opened his hand — the glyph now more complex, with a second ring spiraling outward from the core rune.
"The Second Rite… it doesn't grant power."
"No," she replied. "It removes the world's ability to define your power."
Tianming looked to the sky, which seemed… distant, like a locked gate.
"Then Heaven will soon realize it's fighting something it can't measure."
Ye Qingsi smiled sadly. "They already have. Their next move will not be subtle."
Far Above — The Celestial Palace of Seers
The Heaven's Oracle looked into the divine pool and frowned.
"Something is wrong."
"What do you see?" a robed elder asked.
"Nothing. For the first time in ten thousand years, I see nothing."
"Then… we must prepare the Third Rite Suppression Protocol."
"And awaken… a Judge."