Chapter 13
The Broken Epoch Foundation did not sleep after heaven's envoy departed.
Mist churned restlessly between pillars, reacting to unseen pressure. Ancient formations hummed at low intensity, not defensive but alert, like a beast keeping one eye open. Cultivators moved quietly, reinforcing barriers, resetting seals, preparing for an attack that might not come today—but would come.
Shenping stood alone on a suspended stone platform above a void of drifting fog.
The world felt thinner than before.
Not fragile—exposed.
He raised his hand slowly. Space responded immediately, bending with unnatural obedience. Time did not resist him anymore. It recoiled.
He frowned.
This was not improvement. It was loss made efficient.
Behind him, footsteps approached.
Mo Yuan stopped a few paces away. "You erased the moment heaven intended to crush you."
"I didn't think," Shenping replied. "I just moved."
"That is worse," Mo Yuan said. "Instinct erasure accelerates decay."
Shenping lowered his hand. "Then teach me control."
Mo Yuan's gaze sharpened. "Control is an illusion. You will learn restraint."
He turned and gestured. "Follow."
They descended into the lower foundation, past halls rarely used and chambers sealed with marks of warning. The air grew denser, heavy with suppressed history. Shenping felt pressure against his temples as if walking through layered memories not his own.
They stopped before a circular chamber etched with countless rings.
Inside, seven figures were already present.
Some Shenping recognized. Others radiated unfamiliar danger.
One was the scar-handed young man. Another was the old woman who had spoken to Sang Sang. A third was a tall, broad-shouldered man with one arm missing, his remaining aura sharp enough to cut.
Mo Yuan stepped into the circle.
"These are the Epoch Bound," he said. "Each of them has survived partial erasure."
Shenping's eyes narrowed. "Survived?"
The one-armed man laughed quietly. "Barely."
Mo Yuan faced Shenping. "You will not fight them. You will endure them."
The scar-handed man stepped forward first.
He did not draw a weapon.
He vanished.
Shenping's instincts screamed. He twisted space around himself—but too late. Pain exploded across his back as a blow landed from behind, not physical, but temporal. A piece of momentum vanished. Shenping stumbled forward as if gravity had briefly forgotten him.
"Do not defend," Mo Yuan said sharply. "Observe."
The scar-handed man struck again. And again.
Each blow removed something intangible—reaction speed, spatial intuition, fragments of learned movement. Shenping gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay upright.
He began to see it.
The man was not faster.
He was subtracting Shenping's options.
The old woman stepped in next.
She touched Shenping's forehead lightly.
The world shifted.
Suddenly Shenping stood in a village he did not recognize. People laughed. A child ran past him. Warmth filled his chest.
Then the scene shattered.
Shenping staggered, breath ragged.
"False memory," the woman said softly. "Time can give as cruelly as it takes."
The one-armed man followed.
He raised his remaining fist and slammed it into the air.
The chamber roared.
Shenping was crushed to the floor as pressure collapsed downward, pinning him under layers of erased resistance. His bones screamed. Blood filled his mouth.
"Enough," Mo Yuan said.
The pressure vanished.
Shenping lay still, chest heaving.
Mo Yuan crouched beside him. "You erase outward. They erase inward. Learn the difference."
Shenping pushed himself up slowly. His limbs trembled—but his eyes were clear.
"I understand," he said.
Mo Yuan studied him. "Do you?"
"Yes," Shenping replied. "I've been cutting time. They're cutting meaning."
Mo Yuan smiled faintly. "Good. That realization may save you years."
A sharp pulse rippled through the foundation.
This one was wrong.
Not heaven.
Not machines.
The old woman stiffened. "Bloodline disturbance."
Sang Sang's scream echoed through the halls.
Shenping moved before Mo Yuan spoke.
He arrived at the outer courtyard in a blink.
Sang Sang stood at the center of a fractured formation, silver light spilling violently from her eyes. Around her lay three dead cultivators, their bodies twisted unnaturally, faces frozen in terror.
In front of her stood a man wearing plain robes.
Too plain.
His face was unremarkable. His aura was shallow. Time did not recoil from him.
That terrified Shenping.
"You're late," the man said calmly.
Shenping did not answer. Space trembled around him, ready to collapse.
The man raised a hand slightly. "If you erase me, she dies."
Shenping froze.
Sang Sang gasped, clutching her chest as thin lines of silver tightened around her heart, tethered to the man's fingers.
"You see," the man continued, "machines learned long ago that force fails. Heaven learned that control fails. We learned something else."
"Who are you," Shenping said slowly.
The man smiled. "A gardener."
Mo Yuan arrived beside Shenping, eyes blazing. "Blood Cult."
"Such an ugly name," the man replied. "We prefer Curators."
Shenping felt fury rise—but he did not let it guide him.
"You want her alive," Shenping said. "That means she's still useful."
"Yes," the man agreed. "Which is why I won't kill her."
He tilted his head. "But I will prune."
The silver threads tightened.
Sang Sang screamed as blood trickled from her nose and eyes. Her body arched unnaturally as something ancient inside her was forced awake.
Shenping stepped forward.
Time resisted.
Not because it couldn't move—but because it was being held.
The gardener chuckled. "You erase moments. I erase branches."
Shenping closed his eyes.
He stopped trying to move forward.
Instead, he reached back.
Not into memory—but into absence.
He found the hollow left by the first severance. The place where attachment had been removed.
And he let go completely.
When Shenping opened his eyes, the world went silent.
He did not erase the man.
He erased the connection.
The silver threads vanished.
The gardener's smile froze.
For the first time, time recoiled from him.
"What did you do," the man whispered.
Shenping stepped forward calmly. "I removed the reason."
The gardener tried to move.
He couldn't.
His future had been cut loose from his present.
Shenping raised his hand and erased him cleanly.
No sound.
No residue.
Just absence.
Sang Sang collapsed.
Shenping caught her.
Mo Yuan exhaled slowly, eyes dark. "You just declared war on the Blood Cult."
Shenping held Sang Sang tightly, feeling her weak breath against his chest.
"They came for her," he said. "That means the hunt has changed."
Mo Yuan looked toward the sky beyond the foundation. "Machines. Heaven. Blood Cult."
Shenping's gaze hardened.
"Then they can all take turns," he said.
Far away, in a future layered with steel and prophecy, three separate powers updated their calculations.
For the first time—
All of them marked Shenping as unavoidable.