In the depths of the Celestial Void, where even light feared to tread, an old man sat upon a throne of shattered stars. His name was Shen Wu, the Immortal Architect, and he was dying.
Around him, the remnants of his final fortress crumbled. Walls that had withstood the assault of Nascent Soul cultivators for three hundred years now collapsed like sand. Formation arrays that had killed dozens of his enemies flickered and died, their power exhausted.
Blood—golden, the blood of an immortal—dripped from wounds that would not heal. His enemies had been thorough. Poison from the Thousand Poison Valley. Soul-shattering techniques from the Crimson Blade Sect. Karmic curses from the Buddhist monasteries. They had all wanted him dead, and they had finally succeeded.
But Shen Wu smiled through the pain.
"Fools," he whispered to the void. "You think killing me ends the legacy?"
With trembling hands, he reached into his spatial ring and withdrew a crystalline orb that pulsed with otherworldly light. The Myriad Fortress System, his greatest creation, his life's work, the tool that had allowed a talentless outer disciple to ascend to the heights of immortality.
Most cultivators pursued the Dao through comprehension, through enlightenment, through communion with the heavens. Shen Wu had taken a different path. He had built his power brick by brick, summoning armies and constructing fortresses, turning warfare and strategy into cultivation itself.
The orthodox sects had called him heretic. The demonic cultivators had called him rival. The heavens themselves had tried to strike him down during his tribulation.
But he had survived them all. Until now.
"The system needs a host," Shen Wu murmured, infusing the orb with the last of his power. "Someone unexpected. Someone they'll never see coming."
He cast his spiritual sense across the mortal world below, searching through millions of souls. The system was too powerful for just anyone—it required someone with the right temperament, the right... emptiness.
There. In a backwater town called Clearwater, a young man swept the floor of a bookshop, his life already half-over despite being only twenty-three. No talent for cultivation. No grand ambitions. No connections or backing.
Perfect.
"Lin Feng," Shen Wu whispered the name he pulled from the young man's mind. "Let's see if you can do better than this old fool."
With his last breath, Shen Wu activated the transfer formation. The crystalline orb dissolved into motes of light and shot downward, crossing the boundary between the immortal realm and the mortal world in an instant.
The Immortal Architect's body turned to ash, scattering on winds that existed between dimensions. His fortress, the last of a thousand he had built, collapsed completely.
But his legacy lived on.