A week passed.
Qingyun Station had been patched up, the garden promenade replanted, and the Vault resealed with layers of script only the most suicidal would dare tamper with.
But Li Tianxuan didn't feel safe. Not truly.
He sat alone in the meditation chamber, breathing in, breathing out. The Codex pulsed faintly inside him—not painfully, but... eagerly. Like a coiled beast waking from centuries of hibernation.
Around him, the walls glowed with embedded starstone. Elder Qiao had left him with ten cultivation scrolls, three meditation exercises, and one extremely vague warning: Don't trust everything the Codex tells you.
Thanks for the clarity, old man.
Tianxuan exhaled slowly and began to focus.
Within his mind's eye, the Stellar Meridian Map unfolded again—brighter now. Each vein in his body linked to a different constellation. Some pulsed with light. Others remained dim, hidden, locked.
He reached out mentally.
And for the first time, one of those dark stars blinked.
The Codex whispered.
> "Yīn Wú Lòu… the Star of Lost Origins…"
Tianxuan gasped as pain lanced through his spine. Energy coursed through his core, not like before—no gradual unfolding. This was a flood. Images rushed into his mind. A city on a broken planet. A boy with silver eyes. A battle in orbit, fought in silence. Then darkness.
He collapsed onto the mat, sweat pouring down his face.
"What... was that?"
From the corner of the room, Greg beeped gently.
> "You unlocked a star with a trauma signature. Would you like me to prepare your Will and Testament?"
"Go boil yourself."
"Already boiling. That's literally my job."
Groaning, Tianxuan dragged himself upright. Every cell in his body trembled, but something had changed. His awareness felt larger. His senses stretched—he could feel the movement of ki in the walls. The drift of dust in the air.
And something else.
A pull. Faint. Distant. But insistent.
Like a signal calling him from across the stars.
---
Captain Lin Gaoyang returned the next day.
His face looked even more tired than usual, which, given his normal state of barely-contained despair, was impressive. He gathered the core crew—Tianxuan, Wuming, Suyin, Greg, and Elder Qiao—in the Broken Dream's debrief chamber.
"I've spoken with the Star Profound Alliance," he said. "They confirmed it. The Obsidian Empire is hunting Codex bearers. Tianxuan's not the only target—just the most... problematic."
Suyin folded her arms. "Why do we always end up with the problematic ones?"
"Fate," Wuming said. "And also possibly the fact that we took a job on a cursed moon two years ago. I think karma's still mad."
Gaoyang continued. "We need answers. Real ones. The Vault gave us a clue—Yīn Wú Lòu. That's not just a star. It's a location."
Tianxuan's eyes widened. "I saw it. In a vision."
Elder Qiao nodded. "A remnant memory embedded in the Codex. Very rare. Likely a trigger from a previous bearer."
"Then that's where we're going," Gaoyang said. "Yīn Wú Lòu is an abandoned system on the edge of Sector 93-Beta. It used to be a spiritual research colony—until it went silent a hundred years ago."
Suyin raised an eyebrow. "Went silent how?"
"Everyone vanished."
"…Cool. Definitely not cursed."
"Which is why we're leaving immediately," Gaoyang said, rising. "Pack warm. Sector 93 gets cold."
Greg whirred. "My circuits are already shivering."
---
The Broken Dream dropped out of hyperspace three days later, entering the Yīn Wú Lòu system.
Silence.
No ships. No broadcasts. Just drifting debris and the flicker of dead satellites.
The central planet, Wùjiàn IV, hung below like a gray marble cracked through the center. It was half-shattered, its crust peeled away, exposing glowing rivers of frozen plasma and broken ley-lines.
Tianxuan stared out the viewport. "That's where we're going?"
"Yup," Suyin said, chewing gum. "Ghost world with probably a 95% chance of psychic radiation."
"Great."
The ship descended into orbit, slipping through the outer ring of planetary defense fragments. What remained of Wùjiàn IV's atmosphere shimmered strangely—like light bending around forgotten truths.
They landed near a collapsed temple, its towers twisted by gravitational warping. Symbols along its walls pulsed faintly, like they resented being remembered.
The crew disembarked.
Almost instantly, Tianxuan felt the pull again. Stronger now. He walked ahead, almost entranced, ignoring the biting cold and the flickering air around them.
Inside the temple, vast murals covered the inner halls—depictions of stars birthing civilizations, of giant beings with multiple arms meditating between galaxies.
Then they reached the sanctum.
A massive altar sat in the center. Floating above it: a single shard of glass.
No—not glass.
A Codex fragment.
Tianxuan stepped forward. The room responded. Murals shifted. Symbols realigned.
Suddenly, a ghostly image emerged beside the altar—a translucent woman in ancient robes, her eyes glowing with quiet sadness.
> "If you have reached this place," she said, "then you carry the burden we once failed to protect."
> "I am Meiran of the Ninth Path. Codex Bearer. Chosen in the Cycle of Collapse. I speak now across time, to warn you…"
> "The Throne is not salvation. It is a trap."
Everyone froze.
> "Each bearer was chosen not to claim the Throne—but to delay it. To keep it from awakening. To scatter its pieces so none could assemble the path again."
> "But now... one does not scatter. One gathers. The cycle repeats. And if you stand here, it means they are close to completing it."
The ghost flickered.
> "The Pale Hunters... were us. Twisted by the Codex. Consumed by it. When a bearer falls... they become the weapon."
Tianxuan's breath caught in his throat.
> "You must not awaken all stars. Do not finish the map."
The vision ended.
The room dimmed.
For a long time, no one spoke.
Then Wuming said, "Well. That's terrifying."
Gaoyang rubbed his face. "The Codex isn't a key. It's a containment field."
Suyin turned to Tianxuan. "So what do we do now? Destroy it?"
"I don't think we can," he said quietly.
Elder Qiao stepped forward. "There is another path. I've seen fragments in the Vault—references to an override. A failsafe that only manifests once all nine bearers' remnants are united."
Greg beeped in alarm. "That's assuming the other remnants weren't scattered into star-eating singularities, which, statistically—"
"We'll find them," Tianxuan said.
His voice didn't tremble. Not this time.
"We'll track every remnant. We'll find the truth. And we'll end this cycle."
Wuming clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Now that's the suicidal confidence I like to see."
Greg chirped. "Recording quote for your future gravestone."
The Codex pulsed again. Stronger.
It had accepted the mission.
For now.
---