— Shadows Stirrings
Somewhere in deep space, far from charted systems, aboard a crimson cruiser shaped like a blade, a beacon pulsed.
Within its command chamber, the air was cold as death. Ten figures stood in a circle, cloaked in bone-white robes and veils made of spiritual ash. None spoke. None breathed — at least, not in the normal sense.
They were the Pale Hunters.
At the center, floating above an altar of writhing light, hovered a fragment of black stone engraved with ancient glyphs. It pulsed once. Then again.
Then… it flared.
The leader of the Pale Hunters raised her head. Her voice was smooth, slow, and lifeless.
> "He has opened the Second Vein. The Codex lives."
No one replied. They simply began to vanish, one by one — slipping into the void like ghosts into mist.
They did not use ships.
They didn't need to.
---
Back on Qingyun Station…
The starlight meditation chamber shimmered with celestial resonance. Tianxuan sat alone in a floating lotus position as orbiting rings of light pulsed around him.
He was sweating. A lot.
He'd just unlocked the Third Astral Vein, and now his entire body felt like it was trying to become a neutron star.
Pain radiated through his arms and legs. His heartbeat thudded in cosmic rhythm with distant pulses of starlight that didn't belong to this galaxy.
> "Come on…" he muttered, biting down. "One more breath…"
The Codex hummed inside his chest. This time, he didn't resist.
Suddenly — boom.
A burst of cosmic light exploded from him, nearly shattering the rings in the chamber.
Elder Qiao burst in, eyes wide. "You— You've opened the Void Meridian?! That's the fifth step! How?!"
Tianxuan blinked. "Wait… I was aiming for the fourth."
From behind, Suyin yelled, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'ACCIDENTALLY'? I TOOK A YEAR TO OPEN MINE!"
Wuming just nodded approvingly. "Remind me to never spar with you without insurance."
---
Meanwhile — Infiltration Begins
What no one noticed was that one of the monks in Qingyun's outer sanctum… didn't quite belong.
He moved slightly too silently. Bowed slightly too precisely.
His shadow didn't match his body.
He was a Pale Hunter in disguise.
As he passed through the library archive, the runes on his hand glowed — recording every page of the Dao Codex fragments stored here. He paused briefly at one scroll glowing faintly gold.
"Fragment Seven," he whispered. "The Star Incantation. The key to the inner cosmos…"
Then he turned — and disappeared into a crack of silence in the air
In the main courtyard of Qingyun Station, Tianxuan stood opposite a training dummy made of alloyed spiritwood. Its arms spun with bladed attachments, powered by a cranky cultivation core.
The dummy's name was Bob. No one knew why. Suyin once said it stood for "Blunt Object of Brutality," but Zhao Wuming claimed it was because someone once lost to it in combat.
Tianxuan stood shirtless, steam rising from his back as starlight patterns glowed across his skin. His third and fifth Astral Veins shimmered faintly, pulsing with Dao resonance.
He launched forward with a sudden flicker, movement too fast for the eye.
CRACK!
Bob's left arm exploded in a shower of sparks.
From the shade of a nearby tree, Elder Qiao whistled. "Well then. You broke Bob's arm."
Tianxuan exhaled, wiping sweat from his brow. "Didn't mean to."
"You're not supposed to mean to. Bob's made of sacred spiritwood blessed by three elders and a crab god."
Wuming sauntered over, sipping an iced concoction. "It's true. The crab god was surprisingly chill."
Tianxuan turned. "I still don't get how I advanced so fast. I haven't even fully studied the Codex."
Elder Qiao stepped forward, his expression more serious now. "The Codex responds to destiny. Most cultivators beg for years to form a single Meridian. You… you have a stellar inheritance. Not one forged in blood, but written into your soul."
Wuming raised an eyebrow. "You're saying he's a reincarnated Star Lord or something?"
"Not quite. But close enough I'd start wearing flame-resistant robes if I were him."
Tianxuan blinked. "What?"
"Because destiny," Qiao said, "tends to explode."
---
That Night
The corridors of Qingyun Station dimmed to deep blue as the artificial starlight filters activated. Most cultivators retreated to rest or meditate.
Tianxuan wandered the garden promenade alone, watching koi fish that swam through levitating streams of water. They shimmered like constellations — small, playful, and utterly uninterested in the fate of galaxies.
He felt… almost at peace.
> You are not alone.
The voice came not from around him… but within.
The Codex.
He froze. "You… you can talk now?"
> Only in fragments. The rest of me lies shattered in the Void Beyond.
Tianxuan swallowed. "Why me?"
> Because you saw the stars fall… and did not flinch.
Suddenly — a ripple in space behind him.
A figure stepped from the shadows. Clad in white and bone-gray, face obscured by a porcelain mask.
A Pale Hunter.
> "Child of the Codex," it said. "You are summoned."
Tianxuan's body reacted before his brain did. He spun and summoned a ring of cosmic light.
The Pale Hunter raised a single finger.
Everything around them — light, sound, motion — collapsed into silence.
Tianxuan tried to scream but no voice came. He was floating. Trapped in stillspace.
The Pale Hunter raised a blade of crystallized moonlight.
And then—
CRACK!
Wuming's sword shattered the stillspace barrier.
"I KNEW IT!" he yelled, eyes blazing. "No one just randomly walks around in porcelain at night!"
The Pale Hunter turned. "You are not the target."
"Yeah," Wuming said. "But I'm still gonna kick your ass."
Wuming's sword glowed with layered formations—his Sevenfold Void Edge, a technique known to split asteroids. But the Pale Hunter was faster. Every move it made sliced the air like silk, weaving death between space and silence.
Tianxuan stumbled back, struggling to stabilize his spiritual flow. The Codex within him pulsed erratically, sensing danger.
Wuming clashed with the masked intruder again. Sparks burst, shadows writhed. It wasn't a fight—it was a surgical execution with Wuming barely keeping up.
> "Run!" Wuming barked.
But Tianxuan didn't move. Something inside him was waking up.
The Pale Hunter spun, tracing a spiral glyph midair. Time slowed—seconds stretched into infinity.
> "Your soul will be extracted. The Codex will return to its cradle," the Hunter intoned, its voice layered, ancient, and inhuman.
"Yeah?" Tianxuan breathed, blood trickling from his nose. "Good luck with that."
The Codex flared.
For a single moment, the stars above responded. Reality fractured.
BOOM.
A glyph burst from Tianxuan's chest—The Stellar Chain Formation.
Dozens of glowing chains erupted, interweaving around the Pale Hunter. Each one was inscribed with symbols from ten extinct civilizations.
The Hunter screeched. "Impossible. That diagram… that's forbidden even in the Vault of Suns!"
Tianxuan didn't know what that meant. He just held his stance as the chains dragged the Pale Hunter through a shimmering vortex—and sealed behind it.
Silence returned.
Wuming dropped to one knee. "You good?"
Tianxuan coughed. "No. My soul feels like it was used as a backup power core."
Suyin and Elder Qiao came sprinting into the garden promenade. Behind them, the station's alarm began to blare.
"We have a problem," Qiao said grimly. "Three more Hunters have entered the perimeter."
"And one of them is heading for the Codex Vault."
The Codex Vault was hidden beneath the central axis of Qingyun Station—beneath 108 layers of runic defense and spiritual encryption.
It didn't matter.
The Pale Hunters tore through it like paper.
One masked invader floated down the central staircase, every step silencing the world behind them. Walls cracked, defensive arrays imploded, and guardian statues crumbled to dust.
Inside the vault, dozens of scrolls hovered, sealed in stasis fields. A giant crystalline orb in the center—the Core Fragment of the Dao Star Codex—glowed faintly.
The Hunter extended a hand.
The orb pulsed.
Suddenly—a fist slammed into the Hunter's mask.
Suyin stood there, fists ablaze with ki-tech gauntlets. "You picked the wrong ancient relic, freakshow."
The impact sent the Hunter crashing into a wall. But it didn't stay down.
It rose silently, blade in hand. Its mask now cracked.
Suyin gritted her teeth. "All right. Round two."
Up above, Tianxuan and Wuming raced down the corridors. Their footfalls echoed as the station began lockdown procedures.
Elder Qiao's voice came through the intercom.
> "Get to the vault. If they take the Codex Core, they'll have access to every cultivation technique written in pre-Epoch star script!"
"Which means what?" Tianxuan shouted.
"Which means we all get deleted from history."
---
Inside the Vault
The Pale Hunter's blade sliced through air and stone alike, forcing Suyin to dodge rather than block. Her gauntlets sparked, cracked, and hissed.
Behind her, the Codex orb began to vibrate.
Then Tianxuan arrived.
He didn't speak. He simply lifted his hand—and the Stellar Meridian Map burst into the chamber.
All five of his awakened Astral Veins glowed. His skin shimmered like a celestial array.
The Hunter paused.
Then lunged.
But Tianxuan didn't flinch. His hands moved in a pattern only he could see—tracing diagrams he hadn't learned but somehow remembered.
A vast constellation appeared in the air. Nine stars. A dragon made of nebulae. A spiral turning backward in time.
The Hunter's blade reached his chest—
—and shattered.
"WHAT—" Suyin gasped.
Tianxuan's body emitted a soft tone—like the song of planets orbiting in harmony.
Then he unleashed his first true technique:
> Stellar Collapse Palm.
The impact sent the Pale Hunter flying, compressing the air so violently that vacuum pockets exploded across the vault.
The Codex Core stabilized.
The Hunter lay twitching on the ground, mask fully broken. Beneath it—
—a human face.
A young man. Barely older than Tianxuan. Eyes wide, scared.
"Wh-who are you?" Tianxuan breathed.
The Hunter whispered, "We… are what you could become."
And then dissolved into pale dust.
The vault alarms ceased. The Codex orb floated calmly once more. But the tension hadn't lifted.
Not really.
Later that night, Tianxuan stood alone on the highest deck of the station, staring into the starlit void. His body still hummed with energy, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
Wuming appeared, offering a lukewarm drink.
"Thanks," Tianxuan said, sipping it. "Tastes like roasted copper and depression."
"Perfect. That's what Greg calls Morning Clarity."
They stood in silence.
Then Tianxuan said, "They said something about a Star Throne."
Wuming frowned. "Yeah. I've heard that before. Only in rumors. A legend from the days before the Galactic Collapse. Some say it's a throne made from collapsed stars. Others say it's the seat of the first cultivator to map the entire Dao of the Cosmos."
"Why would they think I have a claim to it?"
"Maybe you do," Wuming said. "You've got a living Codex fragment in your chest and your meridians look like they were drawn by a cartographer on a divine bender."
Tianxuan sighed. "That's not helpful."
"It's not wrong."
Behind them, Suyin limped up with a fresh bandage and a glare.
"Next time, wait for me before unleashing forbidden star fists."
Elder Qiao followed, carrying a scroll.
"I've decrypted a portion of the vault data. Tianxuan… you weren't the first Codex bearer."
"What?"
"There were others," Qiao said. "Every few millennia, the Codex seeks a new host. A new map. A new path to the Star Throne."
Tianxuan felt his stomach twist. "What happened to the others?"
"They all died," Qiao said flatly. "Hunted. Betrayed. Or they became Pale Hunters themselves."
No one spoke.
Overhead, a comet passed through the skies of Qingyun Station, trailing silent fire.
> In the silence, the Codex whispered again:
> You are the last chance. The stars remember.