Rain hadn't touched the Forgotten Peaks in centuries.
At least, not until tonight.
It wasn't the gentle kind of rain either. This was the kind that fell like punishment — heavy, angry, and determined to drown everything it touched. The kind that turned ancient dust into thick mud and made the whole world feel like it was slipping apart.
Lightning cracked overhead, flashing across the ruins like a warning. Thunder rolled through the sky, deep and slow, like something waking up.
And something was.
He opened his eyes.
One at a time.
The left one came first, glowing faintly like the last ember in a dying fire. The right one followed, but it didn't glow. It didn't need to. It was dark in a way that felt wrong — not just black, but absorbing black. The kind of dark that made you think of things you couldn't name and probably shouldn't.
His body didn't want to move. His limbs felt like they'd been left out in the cold for a thousand years. His skin ached like it remembered being burned. Even breathing felt like a chore — like his lungs had forgotten how to work.
But he was alive.
Or at least, something close to it.
The chains around him were broken, scattered like old scraps of forgotten iron. They used to shine — once, long ago — with the glow of divine judgment. Now they looked like they'd been chewed up and spat out by time itself.
He tried to speak.
It didn't go well.
A dry, broken sound came out — not a word, not a breath, not even a proper groan. Something in between. Like a dying animal trying to scream.
He didn't remember much.
He didn't remember anything, really.
But he remembered this:
He wasn't supposed to be here.
Not alive. Not awake. Not at all.
He'd been sealed away in the Abyssal Crucible, locked behind chains of Heaven-Sundering Qi. His soul had been fused with something older than the stars — the Primordial Shadow, the first chaos.
The heavens had erased him.
His disciples had scattered.
His sect had been wiped from history.
And yet here he was.
Breathing.
Alive.
And not the least bit happy about it.
She wasn't supposed to be here either.
Ling Mei crouched in the mud, muttering curses under her breath as she picked her way through the ruins. Her robes were soaked through, clinging to her like a second skin. The blue fabric, once clean and sharp back at the Azure Sky Sect, was now a mess of dirt and rainwater.
She wasn't anyone special.
Outer disciple.
Low rank.
Weak Qi.
No talent to speak of.
But she was stubborn.
Always had been.
Her master called it a flaw.
Her friends called it a death wish.
She called it a curse.
That stubbornness had dragged her out here, into a place most people avoided like plague. The Forgotten Peaks were supposed to be cursed. Or haunted. Or maybe just plain dead.
But she wasn't buying it.
Cursed places were usually hiding something good.
And she was good at finding things.
Her lantern flickered in the storm, casting weak blue light over the ruins. She wasn't strong, but she had just enough Qi to keep it burning.
That's when she saw him.
At first, she thought it was a statue — some forgotten monument left behind by a sect that no longer existed.
He was half-buried in the rubble, pale as snow, hair white even though his face didn't look all that old. His body was still, too still, like it had forgotten how to move.
Then his chest rose.
Just a little.
But enough.
"Oh, come on," she muttered, staring down at him like he'd personally insulted her.
Nobody should be alive out here. Not in this place. Not in this storm. Not in this world.
And yet he was.
She knelt beside him, careful not to step on any of the broken chains. They looked like they used to be important — golden once, maybe even divine. Now they were just junk.
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed the metal.
The world stuttered.
Rain paused midair.
Thunder stopped mid-roll.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Then his eyes opened.
Yan Mo didn't see her at first.
He felt her — the warmth of her hand, the quiet hum of her Qi — but his vision was blurry. Like looking through a cracked window.
She was young.
Maybe twenty.
Plain face.
Wet hair.
No aura of power.
No sign of danger.
And yet something about her felt… familiar.
A memory stirred — not clear, not whole, just a sliver of something long buried.
A girl's voice, soft and steady.
"Even if the world forgets you… I won't."
Was that her?
He didn't know.
But the echo of that promise made something inside him hurt.
A voice slithered through his thoughts — not quite his, not quite human.
'She remembers.'
'You shouldn't be here.'
'You don't know what you've awakened.'
He pushed the voice away.
Hard.
And with a groan that sounded like rusted hinges, he sat up.
Ling Mei took a sharp breath.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
Neither of them spoke.
Rain started falling again, slower this time, like the sky was watching.
He tried to say something. His throat was dry, his tongue heavy.
What came out was barely a whisper.
"Yan…"
That was all.
But it was enough.
Somewhere, in the distant past, a name had been erased from the stars.
Chen Wuyan, the Heaven-Sundering Sage, had once stood at the peak of cultivation, defying the laws of heaven and man alike.
He had been betrayed by those closest to him. Sealed away in the Abyssal Crucible, chained in Heaven-Sundering Qi, and fused with the Primordial Shadow Entity, the source of all chaos.
His sect was gone.
His name was struck from records.
Even the heavens denied his existence.
But now, after tens of thousands of years, he had returned.
Not as Chen Wuyan.
Not yet.