The sky had not healed.
High above the Eastern Wasteland, the fracture still lingered — a thin, dark seam stitched across the firmament. In daylight, it resembled a fading scar. At night, it cut through the stars like a blade that had never been withdrawn.
No one knew when it truly appeared.
They only knew that after the battle atop Ten-Thousand Sword Mountain, the heavens were no longer the same.
Lin Mo stood upon a jagged cliff, robes torn by wind, dried blood marking the edges of his sleeves. The ashes of the Profound Saint Patriarch had long scattered, carried away by mountain gusts. Yet something of the old man remained — a stubborn fragment of dao intent clinging faintly to the air.
But that was not what troubled him.
It was the feeling of being watched.
Not from the earth below.
Not from behind.
But from above.
From beyond the veil of the sky.
He closed his eyes.
His divine sense spread outward like silent ripples over a dark ocean. It crossed valleys, forests, rivers — until it reached the fracture.
There, it stopped.
Not blocked by force.
Not repelled by pressure.
It simply... could not pass.
As if the world itself ended there.
And then he heard it.
Not sound.
Not voice.
But meaning.
"You have touched the outer layer."
"You do not belong to this place."
"You are a variable."
The three thoughts descended without origin. They carried no emotion — neither hostility nor benevolence.
When he opened his eyes, the sky remained still.
But Lin Mo understood.
Something had acknowledged him.
Three months passed.
The Eastern Wasteland began to change.
Stars shifted slightly from their ancient trajectories. Spiritual veins beneath the earth trembled, altering the flow of qi across the land. In distant mortal villages, wells turned cloudy overnight. In ancient sects, defensive formations activated without command.
The Heavenly Calculation Pavilion sealed its gates.
The Northern Profound Sacred Land summoned every elder from seclusion.
Deep within underground halls, ancient cultivators who had slumbered for centuries opened their eyes at the same time.
"Heaven's axis has tilted."
"This is not natural calamity."
"It is causality... being distorted."
Lin Mo's name was spoken in secret councils.
Not because he had slain the Profound Saint.
But because from the day his sword split the sky, the order of the Eastern Wasteland began to tremble.
Yet Lin Mo was nowhere they searched.
He had descended to the bottom of the Endless Sea.
The Endless Sea was not merely water.
It was the convergence of spiritual arteries beneath the continent. At its deepest point lay a separate layer of space — the Sea Ruins.
There was no sun there.
No moon.
Only pale pillars of blue light rising from spiritual currents below, illuminating ruins swallowed by silence.
At the center stood a stone gate.
Carved upon it was the same symbol that had once burned upon Lin Mo's forehead — a broken circle, incomplete, its inner lines revolving like distant galaxies.
He approached.
The gate opened on its own.
Inside was a collapsed hall of worship. Pillars cracked. The ceiling partially fallen. And at the center stood a statue.
It had no face.
No arms.
Only a hollow cavity in its chest.
Lin Mo stopped before it.
Heat flared upon his brow.
Then a voice spoke.
Not from outside.
But from within him.
"You have arrived."
He did not answer.
"You are not a creation of this world."
"You are a fragment from a higher layer."
His sea of consciousness churned violently.
Images flickered — a silent explosion in emptiness, a collapsing void, a formless hand pushing a spark into a forming bubble of existence.
Was that... him?
"Who are you?" Lin Mo asked quietly.
The voice chuckled — dry and distant.
"I was once like you."
"I was marked."
"And I failed."
Cracks spread across the statue's body. From within the fractures leaked a light darker than shadow.
"You must choose."
"Become a piece... or overturn the board."
The Sea Ruins trembled.
Above, the Endless Sea surged into violent waves. Across the Eastern Wasteland, the fracture in the sky widened imperceptibly.
Lin Mo stood unmoving.
He understood the weight of this choice.
If he became a piece, he would be granted ascent. Power beyond imagination. A path beyond the limits of this world.
But the world itself would remain confined within unseen boundaries.
If he overturned the board —
This entire realm might shatter.
He remembered the mortals at the foot of the mountain.
Children chasing one another in dust-lit streets.
Farmers tending fields beneath an ordinary sky.
They did not know of Observers.
They did not know of outer layers.
They only lived.
Simply. Honestly.
Lin Mo closed his eyes.
"I refuse to choose."
The voice fell silent.
"I will not be a piece."
"But I will not destroy this world either."
"I will break what stands behind it."
For a heartbeat, nothing existed.
Then the statue exploded.
Black and white energies spiraled around him, intertwining yet never merging. The symbol upon his brow shattered into two halves, revolving in opposite directions like twin celestial bodies caught in paradox.
In that instant, Lin Mo felt himself shift.
He was still standing.
Yet not entirely.
When he emerged from the Sea Ruins, he knew he had changed.
Not because his aura was stronger.
But because his existence was no longer singular.
His shadow lagged half a breath behind his body.
His footsteps echoed twice — from two slightly displaced positions.
He had entered a realm unrecorded in the cultivation history of the Eastern Wasteland.
A realm of Tilted Axis.
Here, he could see threads.
Causal threads.
Invisible strands binding every living being to heaven and earth.
He could perceive faint filaments stretching beyond this world — connecting it to countless other spherical realities suspended in a vast unseen ocean.
The Eastern Wasteland was merely one bubble among innumerable others.
And all of them...
Were being observed.
He lifted his gaze toward the fracture.
"Have you seen enough?"
The wind ceased.
The sea stilled.
Within the crack, something shifted.
An eye opened.
Vast.
Emotionless.
It did not glare.
It did not judge.
It simply recorded.
But when that eye focused upon Lin Mo—
A hairline crack appeared upon its surface.
Almost invisible.
Yet real.
Lin Mo smiled faintly.
They were not untouchable.
In another layer of space —
Not the Eastern Wasteland.
Not the Sea Ruins.
A floating continent drifted in void.
Upon it stood nine black towers piercing upward into darkness.
Inside one tower, a man in white opened his eyes.
Within his pupils reflected the image of the fractured sky.
"The variable has completed the first phase."
Another voice responded from the shadows.
"Shall we eliminate him?"
The man in white shook his head.
"Not yet."
"We require one capable of breaking the outer shell."
Outside the tower's window, hundreds of worlds hovered like suspended stars.
Each bore a faint fracture across its heavens.
The man in white spoke softly.
"The game advances to the second layer."
That night, the Eastern Wasteland seemed peaceful.
Yet beneath that stillness, forces moved.
Major sects began secret investigations.
The Heavenly Calculation Pavilion compiled a hidden registry known as the Tilted Axis List — individuals capable of distorting heaven's order.
Ancient beings emerged from seclusion.
Far beyond the visible cosmos, the Observers added a notation.
"Variable displays conscious resistance."
But they did not understand something.
Lin Mo was not merely resisting.
He was looking back.
And when a being under observation turns and observes in return —
The structure believed to be absolute begins to fracture.
The fracture may be small.
But through it, another kind of light can enter.
Chapter Four ends here.
But from this moment onward, the story is no longer about a cultivator defying heaven.
It is about existence itself challenging the layer that contains it.
And somewhere in the vast ocean of universes —
One bubble has begun to tremble by its own will.