The air in the village square did not turn cold. It became still—a heavy, suffocating stagnation, as if the world itself had been ordered to stop breathing.
Lu Feng sat atop his white stallion, his sneer twisting into something ugly and primal. As a Level Two Fire Anchor, he was accustomed to fear. To him, fear was heat; fear fed flames. Yet, the moment his gaze met Wei Wuque's indigo eyes, that familiar warmth evaporated.
There was no hostility in those eyes. No killing intent. No spark of human emotion at all. It was like staring into a depthless well—one that refused to reflect your image back at you.
"What did you say?" Lu Feng snapped, his voice cracking despite his silk robes and noble blood. "My order ends here? Do you even know who my father is? Do you understand the weight of the Lu Clan's name?"
"Your father," Wuque replied, his voice a calm ripple in the unnatural silence, "relies on a script written by a dying sun."
He took a step forward. The mud beneath Wuque's feet did not splash. It simply yielded—silently, as if the earth were retreating from his touch.
"I am the ink that crosses out the lines."
A visible ripple of unease passed through the guards. Their horses began to shift, hooves clopping nervously against the stone.
"Kill him!" Lu Feng screamed, panic finally rupturing the thin veil of his arrogance. "Burn the freak! Burn the forge—burn everything to ash!"
The flaming whip lashed forward, a streak of violent orange heat tearing through the mountain mist. Villagers flinched and turned away, their ears already braced for the screams of a boy being charred alive.
Wuque did not move.
The moment the whip entered a three-foot radius around him, the world faltered. Not shattered. Not resisted. It simply lost meaning.
The flame vanished—not extinguished by wind or water, but erased from reality. The glowing silk lost its essence as a weapon, crumbling into colorless, weightless dust that scattered into the wind before it could even brush Wuque's robes.
Lu Feng stared at the hollow, smoking handle in his hand.
"I… I can't feel it," he stammered, his face turning a sickly shade of white. "My Qi—my resonance—it's gone!"
"You call it Qi," Wuque said quietly, stepping closer. The light around him seemed to dim, as if embarrassed to exist in his presence. "I call it noise."
A faint chill crept up Wuque's spine—brief, precise. The Void demanded focus, and he gave it.
"And I am tired of the sound."
One of the guards roared, desperation overtaking his common sense. A Level One Metal Anchor, he drew his broadsword, the steel humming with a forced, mechanical confidence.
"Demon!"
The blade descended in a brutal arc. Wuque raised two fingers, catching the sword's edge with the casual grace of someone picking a leaf from the air.
There was no clash of metal. Only a soft, hollow sound—like air rushing into a sudden vacuum.
A perfect, smooth crescent of steel vanished where his fingers rested. The blade's molecular structure collapsed instantly, the remainder disintegrating into grey sand that slipped through the guard's terrified grip.
"My Anchor…" the man whispered, staring at his empty hilt. "I can't feel the metal. My soul—it's… hollow."
The horse beneath Lu Feng screamed. Its legs locked, eyes rolling white, foam dripping from its mouth. Beasts always understood before men did: the space around Wei Wuque was no longer governed by the Laws of Heaven.
"Stay back!" Lu Feng shrieked, fumbling for the jade talisman at his waist with trembling fingers. "Stay BACK!"
He crushed it.
A Level Three Fire-Burst erupted—not Lu Feng's power, but his father's authority sealed in jade. White-hot flames surged outward, warping the air and baking the mud into cracked clay.
Wuque inhaled once. Then, he reached out. He did not block the fire. He pulled.
He did not target the flames; he withdrew their permission to exist.
The inferno collapsed inward, dragged screaming into his palms, condensing into a trembling, microscopic spark that flickered for half a heartbeat—and then vanished.
Silence descended. Even the forge ceased its crackling.
Wuque exhaled slowly. The chill in his spine faded into a dull, cold satisfaction.
"Is that your inheritance?" he asked.
Before Lu Feng could blink, Wuque was beside the horse. He placed two fingers lightly against Lu Feng's knee.
"NO—PLEASE—!"
Wuque withdrew something invisible. Not flesh. Not bone. Authority.
Lu Feng's meridians did not shatter—they were rewritten. The Fire Anchor that had defined his worth since birth was severed so completely it was as if it had never existed in the first place.
The young master tumbled from his saddle, collapsing into the filth, screaming until no sound came out. His legs refused to answer him; they were no longer part of the "Script."
"Go back," Wuque said, looking down at him without contempt or mercy. "Tell your father the Monarch of Nothing is coming to audit his debts."
He leaned closer, his voice barely a whisper, yet it felt like it was echoing from the end of time.
"And tell him this: every light he believes he owns… already belongs to the dark."
The guards did not hesitate. They dragged the broken, sobbing Lu Feng onto a horse and fled, terror snapping at their heels like hungry wolves.
Wuque turned away. The villagers pressed themselves against their huts, trembling. Old Man Geng fell to his knees, his so-called 'Tough Hide' feeling thinner than wet paper.
Wuque did not look at them. He knelt beside his father.
Wei Chang's face was pale, his eyes heavy with a mixture of fierce pride and a deep, ancient dread.
"You've torn the Divine Script, Wuque," Wei Chang said quietly. "There is no return now. Next time, they won't send boys. They will send the Judges."
"I never intended to return, Father," Wuque replied, gazing toward the distant horizon where Luo City's golden spires gleamed like a predator's teeth. "The Heavens have shouted long enough."
Wei Chang tightened his grip on his son's hand, his decision made.
"Then we leave tonight. To the Under-City. We go where the light is afraid to follow."
Wuque nodded, a faint, dark shadow of a smile touching his lips.
"Good," he said softly. "That's where silence grows."