The moment was not defined by sound.
It was not even defined by action.
It was defined by volume.
The stillness of the world had already been shattered. Shen Wuqing stood in its heart, waiting for the next scream—knowing that it would come. From the corners of the earth. From the mouths of the countless who would soon realize the price of existence.
He was not yet a god.
But the sound of his name had begun to echo through the heavens. The echo was faint, fading before it even reached its destination. And still, it fought to be heard.
---
The city of Zhuihe had collapsed.
It had not crumbled through sheer violence, nor through the sudden sweep of an army.
It had fallen to the inevitable weight of awareness.
The hearts of the people did not stop from exhaustion. No, they stopped from remembering. They were no longer oblivious to what had happened, no longer shielded from the presence of Shen Wuqing. The very fact that they knew he had taken from them, had devoured them—without mercy, without hesitation—was the reason for their collapse.
They could not fight back.
They could only realize, in their final moments, that they had never had the strength to begin with.
---
A thousand voices rose, but there was no chorus. There was no harmony, no song of collective rage or sorrow.
Just screams.
Screams from those who had given their blood to him.
Screams from those who had begged for his mercy.
Screams from those who had once hoped to stop him—and found themselves devoured without ever knowing why.
The screams were not loud.
They were quiet.
Faint.
Strangled.
Because the world was too tired to listen.
But they filled the air nonetheless.
---
Shen Wuqing did not flinch.
He had learned long ago that screams meant nothing. They were only the last gasp of desperation, the last shred of life clinging to a body that had already accepted its demise.
The thousand voices were nothing more than sound.
And he had learned how to devour sound.
---
The elders who had once ruled Zhuihe, the priests, the mystics who had all believed themselves immune to his hunger—they now stood in the center of their city, watching their people disappear into the wind.
They had known this day would come.
They had not been blind to the growing void that surrounded him, that followed his every step. But they had believed themselves safe. Believed that power, titles, and rituals could keep them apart from the inevitable.
Until now.
Now they felt it, the hunger.
And in it, they realized they had no more hope than the children they had sacrificed.
"You have made your choice," Elder Jiemu said, his voice hollow, drained of the arrogance that once accompanied it. "Now we all must pay the price."
Wuqing did not respond.
He never did.
He had no need to speak, for every word spoken in this world had already been consumed.
But Jiemu's words were not for him.
They were for themselves.
They were the last attempt to rationalize their demise.
But in the face of existence, rationality meant nothing.
It was the silence that mattered.
The silence between breaths.
The silence before the first scream.
And when the scream came, it would be a single sound, the sound of a reality that finally acknowledged its end.
---
At the altar, the ritual had already begun. But this was not a traditional offering. The elders did not summon spirits, nor did they call upon celestial forces. Instead, they summoned the last of their own power—their last hope—to be devoured.
The Heart-Blood Formation—the ultimate forbidden technique—was their final defense.
It was supposed to be a barrier.
It was supposed to contain.
A thousand sacrifices, linked together by the threads of their blood, gathered into a single pulsing rhythm. It was an offering, yes, but it was more. It was a last plea, a last gasp of power that they hoped would stop the one who had come to swallow them whole.
Shen Wuqing stood before them, still as stone, his black eyes reflecting nothing but the world around him.
And the formation ignited.
Not with fire.
Not with light.
But with emptiness.
The blood pooled together in thin streams, weaving across the ground, glowing faintly with a cold, ethereal light. It formed a shield—a membrane—designed to hold back his hunger.
But as it flared into existence, it met nothing but air.
The formation had no target.
It could not touch him.
He was already inside it.
Already part of it.
And with a single breath, he inhaled it all.
---
One thousand screams followed his every movement, every breath.
But Wuqing did not hear them.
He inhaled them.
Not as a conqueror.
Not as a god.
But as truth.
He devoured the meaning behind them.
The weight of their terror.
The disbelief of their final moments.
The betrayal they had never known.
The thousand screams merged into a single idea.
And that idea was unbearable.
But it was not something he couldn't endure.
It was something he had to endure.
The city was gone.
The sect was gone.
But the screams would never end.
They would echo through the ages, through the cracks in the walls of existence itself.
And Shen Wuqing, standing in the center of the altar, had learned something new:
That hunger did not merely consume.
It remained.
It waited.
The screams were not simply a reminder of what had been lost.
They were a map.
A blueprint of what had yet to come.
---
In the distance, the sky trembled.
Not with storm.
Not with fire.
But with the knowledge that something had broken.
And no one—no god, no force, no star—could stop it from continuing.
Shen Wuqing turned.
Without a word.
Without a gesture.
But the sky, in its deep, aching silence, followed his every movement.
It was not a storm.
It was not a curse.
It was simply the air bending in response to his presence.
And in that moment, it knew.
The screams had only just begun.
And they would never stop.
---
Back in the city, the last of the elders fell to their knees. They had given everything. Blood. Souls. Lives.
But it had been nothing.
They had not been devoured.
They had been erased.
And their screams were not enough to shake the earth.
For in the end, there was only one sound that mattered:
The sound of silence swallowing all.
And in that silence, Shen Wuqing stood.
---
The screams reached their peak, but it was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
Shen Wuqing had learned the fourth step.
Not by power.
Not by death.
But by the weight of meaning.
And he would carry that weight.
---
And as the city fell into a perfect, quiet stillness, the thousand screams that had once filled the air finally faded.
Not into silence.
But into the void.
For he was not done.
He was only beginning.