Chapter 90
The aftermath did not come gently.
It crept in through fractures left behind by retreating forces that refused to fully withdraw. The city stood intact only by habit, buildings leaning slightly as if unsure they were still meant to exist. Formations lay dead, their once-living geometry reduced to meaningless lines etched into stone.
Shenping drifted in and out of awareness.
He felt Lin Yue's grip first—firm, grounding, real. Her breathing was uneven, close to his ear, every exhale a reminder that she was still here. Still anchored. Still defying systems that had tried to erase her relevance.
"Don't sleep," she said quietly.
"I'm not," Shenping replied, though the effort of speaking felt disproportionate to the words.
Wei Han dragged himself closer, one arm useless, the other shaking as he tried to push upright. Half his implants were gone, torn out or burned dead, leaving scorched flesh and bleeding ports along his spine and neck.
"That," Wei Han rasped, "was a terrible idea."
Shenping managed a weak smile. "You're alive."
Wei Han laughed once, sharp and pained. "Barely. And blind in three spectrums."
Lin Yue glanced at him. "Can you still move?"
"Eventually," he said. "After I stop seeing probability ghosts."
Shenping closed his eyes briefly, centering himself. His inner world was chaos. Meridians strained and misaligned, cultivation flowing in unstable loops where it had never flowed before. Techniques he had relied on no longer responded cleanly, as if they were questioning his authority.
He had crossed a threshold.
Not forward.
Sideways.
The world around him felt smaller now, but also more fragile, like glass under tension.
"They're gone," Lin Yue said, following his awareness. "For now."
"For now," Shenping agreed.
High above, the sky finished knitting itself shut, though the scars remained—faint spirals etched into the firmament that would not fade with time. Anyone who looked up would feel it: something had pressed too hard, too directly.
And something had pushed back.
Sirens began to sound across the city—mundane alarms, late and confused, triggered by systems that had no understanding of what they were responding to. Fires burned in scattered districts where spiritual backlash had overloaded infrastructure.
Wei Han exhaled slowly. "This place won't hold," he said. "Not anymore. They marked it."
"Yes," Shenping said. "Which is why we won't stay."
Lin Yue stiffened. "You're thinking of moving now?"
"I'm thinking of disappearing," Shenping replied. "Properly."
She studied his face, then nodded. "Where?"
Shenping opened his eyes.
"Where they can't easily model us," he said. "And where what comes next began."
Wei Han frowned. "You mean—"
"The past," Shenping finished. "But not the one they targeted."
Lin Yue's grip tightened. "Another divergence?"
"Yes."
Wei Han let out a humorless chuckle. "You really enjoy breaking their assumptions."
"They built their dominance on inevitability," Shenping said. "I intend to make them improvise."
He shifted, forcing himself to stand. Pain flared instantly, sharp and punishing, but he remained upright. The beacon fragments responded sluggishly, drifting toward him as if unsure whether to obey.
Lin Yue watched closely. "You're unstable."
"I know."
"Then don't do this alone."
He met her gaze. "I wasn't planning to."
Wei Han swore under his breath. "If you're asking me to jump timelines in this condition—"
"I'm not asking," Shenping said. "I'm telling you that if you stay, they'll dissect what's left of you."
Wei Han sighed. "You're really bad at recruitment pitches."
Despite everything, Lin Yue smiled faintly.
They moved quickly after that.
What remained of the watchtower was stripped bare—anything that could be traced, anything that carried a clear signature of Shenping's methods, dismantled or destroyed. Shenping rewrote residual logic, blurring the event into something that would take decades to properly analyze.
By the time the city's surviving authorities reached the site in force, it would already be a legend.
They descended into the underlayers, into spaces forgotten by both ancient cultivation and modern oversight. There, beneath dead formations and abandoned infrastructure, Shenping rebuilt the beacon.
Not as a declaration.
As a whisper.
Lin Yue sat opposite him, legs folded, palms resting lightly on her knees. She watched his hands move—precise, restrained, far more careful than before. He no longer forced outcomes.
He negotiated with them.
"You changed," she said softly.
"Yes," Shenping replied without looking up.
"Are you afraid?"
He paused.
"No," he said. "But I'm aware."
Wei Han lay against the wall nearby, tools scattered around him as he manually rewired what little tech he had left. "He means he knows they're watching closer now."
Shenping nodded. "And that they learned something."
Lin Yue leaned forward. "What?"
"That I'm not the only variable," Shenping said. "And not the most dangerous one."
She felt a chill. "You think they'll come for me again."
"I think they already adjusted for you," he replied. "Which means next time, they won't isolate."
Wei Han grimaced. "They'll exterminate."
Silence settled over them, heavy but not paralyzing.
Shenping completed the final alignment and sat back, breathing hard. The beacon did not glow. It did not hum.
It waited.
"This jump won't be clean," he said. "We won't land where we expect."
"When do we ever?" Wei Han muttered.
Lin Yue stood and stepped beside Shenping, placing her hand over his. The thread between them stirred—not strained, not burning, but resonant, as if acknowledging a shared direction.
"Wherever we land," she said, "we face it together."
Shenping covered her hand with his own. "Yes."
Wei Han pushed himself upright with a groan. "Then let's make history nervous."
Shenping activated the beacon.
Space folded inward, not violently, but decisively. The underlayers vanished, replaced by rushing absence as timelines peeled past them like pages torn from a book.
Shenping held the anchor steady, guiding rather than dragging. Lin Yue focused on alignment, her presence acting as counterbalance rather than fuel. Wei Han screamed something incoherent as the jump tore through what remained of his implants.
Then—
Impact.
They fell hard onto earth that smelled of rain and iron.
Shenping rolled to his knees, breath ripping from his lungs. Lin Yue landed beside him, already scanning their surroundings. Wei Han crashed into a tree trunk and did not immediately get back up.
Shenping looked around.
Mountains rose in the distance, sharp and ancient. Forests pressed close, dense and alive with unfamiliar pressure. The air itself carried weight—not technological, not observational.
Cultivation.
Pure.
Untamed.
Lin Yue's eyes widened slightly. "This is… early."
"Earlier than intended," Shenping said, pushing himself upright.
Wei Han groaned. "Please tell me this is before people started worshipping rocks."
A presence shifted in the forest.
Not hidden.
Not hostile.
Aware.
Shenping felt it immediately—a gaze older than the city they had left behind, heavier than the observers' scrutiny, rooted deeply in this era's unforgiving soil.
From between the trees, a figure stepped forward.
White hair bound simply. Robes worn thin by time rather than neglect. Eyes sharp, amused, and far too knowing.
The man looked at Shenping, then at Lin Yue, then at the faint distortions still fading in the air behind them.
"So," the man said calmly, "you're the ones who tore the sky."
Shenping met his gaze.
"Yes," he replied.
The man smiled.
"Good," he said. "I was getting bored."