For three nights the wind did not sleep.
It prowled through the pines like a restless spirit, brushing frost from the needles, whispering secrets only the mountains could hear.
Ryu Jin lay awake, staring at the rafters of the small hut where he had hidden since the fall of the Skywatch Order.
Sleep would not come; the stars outside the paper window called to him with a quiet insistence, a rhythm that beat in time with his heart.
At the fourth hour before dawn, he rose.
Mist clung to the ground like drifting silk. Master Kang sat before the dying fire, the lines of age cutting deep across his face. He did not ask where the boy was going. Perhaps he already knew.
"Master," Ryu Jin said softly, bowing. "Thank you for keeping your promise to my father."
Kang nodded once. "The path ahead is yours alone. Remember—light is not found by chasing it."
Those were the last words his master spoke as Ryu Jin turned toward the forest and vanished among the shadows of pine.
---
He walked for hours. The path narrowed, climbing ever higher into the mountains until snow lay in thin white veils across the stones. Ravens circled above, their cries echoing through the cold. When the sun finally broke through the clouds, it was a dull, blood-colored disc.
By midday he reached a waterfall hidden behind a ridge. Behind the curtain of water was a cave mouth—dark, breathing, waiting.
The boy's pulse quickened. This was the place from his father's stories, the entrance to the Trial of the Star Realm.
Inside, the air was dry and ancient. His lamp threw trembling shadows across the rock. He walked until the sound of the waterfall faded and the silence pressed close against his ears. Then he stopped, sat cross-legged upon a smooth slab of stone, and drew out the jade pendant.
Its surface shimmered faintly, a small galaxy sealed in crystal.
He set it before him and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed. In. Out. The echo of his heartbeat filled the cavern. The pendant began to hum, low and steady, and the light around it thickened until it seemed to pour upward like smoke in reverse.
Then the ground fell away.
---
Weightlessness seized him. The cave dissolved. Darkness turned liquid, then shattered into a sea of light. When he opened his eyes he was standing upon a vast expanse of nothingness, surrounded by drifting stars. Above, below—everywhere—constellations burned and faded like living embers. There was no horizon, no up or down, only the endless glow.
A voice, neither male nor female, neither near nor far, rolled through the void.
> "Welcome, successor of the Skywatch. You have stepped beyond the mortal veil and entered the Realm of Stars."
Ryu Jin turned toward the sound. Light gathered before him, swirling into a tall silhouette—fluid, faceless, radiant. The figure's outline shifted like flame seen through water.
"Are you… the guardian of this place?" Ryu Jin asked.
> "Guardian, echo, memory—names are dust. I am the will left by those who mastered the Heavenly Star Art before you. Through me the trial begins."
"The trial…" His gaze swept across the starry expanse. "What must I do?"
> "The Heavenly Star Art holds seven forms, each born of a star's path. To master them you must learn to hear the rhythm of the heavens, to draw upon the current that flows between all stars—Star Qi. Only then will form become truth."
The figure lifted an arm. Light spilled from its palm and arched across the void, linking seven distant stars in a single curve.
> "These are your steps. Each will test not your strength, but your heart. When the seventh star shines within you, the realm will release you. Until then, there is no return."
Ryu Jin's breath caught. "No return?"
> "Your body will remain in meditation. Time will not touch it. But your spirit is bound here until the art is complete. Fail, and you will wander this sky until your light fades."
For a moment the enormity of it pressed upon him, the knowledge that he might never again open his eyes in the mortal world. Yet deep within that fear was calm—a faint, steady flame that would not bow.
"I understand," he said quietly. "Then let it begin."
---
The faceless figure dissolved, its voice spreading through the air.
> "First Form: Still Light. Hear the breath of the stars."
The surrounding brilliance dimmed until only faint motes of silver floated in the dark. Ryu Jin knelt, closed his eyes, and let his thoughts fall silent. He searched for the rhythm beyond sound—the pulse he had felt that night beneath the sky.
Minutes—or hours—passed.
At last he sensed it: a slow heartbeat that was not his own, vast and steady as the tide. He reached toward it with his will, drawing the light inward.
Pain burst through him like frost shattering glass. Star Qi ripped through his meridians, each thread of energy too pure, too immense. He gasped, his body—or spirit—arched in agony. The stars flared, then scattered like frightened birds.
> "You grasp too tightly," the voice murmured, unyielding. "Star Qi chooses those who are still. Do not command it—become it."
He forced his breath to steady. He released every desire: revenge, fear, even the longing to prove himself. His mind emptied until nothing remained but quiet awareness.
Then, gently, the pain softened. Light drifted back toward him, tentative, like snow returning to earth. Threads of silver touched his skin, sank into his chest, and pooled behind his navel in a faint, glowing core.
A low hum filled the realm.
> "Good," the unseen voice said. "You have opened the first gate."
Ryu Jin looked down. Beneath him seven points of light arranged themselves in a line, the first burning faintly beneath his feet. He could feel the connection now—the rhythm of the stars echoing inside him.
He breathed in. The silver light swelled, rising and falling with each motion until his entire body shimmered faintly. He felt lighter, not stronger exactly, but clearer, as though the boundaries between flesh and heaven had thinned.
He stood.
Ryu Jin lifted his hand. Light followed.
Every motion left a faint trail, like a comet's tail across the night. The energy did not rush or roar; it drifted, as if waiting for him to understand its rhythm. He remembered the faceless voice's command — Do not command it. Become it.
He inhaled. The starlight entered him through breath and thought alike. When he exhaled, it rippled outward, folding into the vast sky.
And then it began.