High above Gu World, beyond the last threads of cloud and qi tides, within the cracked vault where Heaven's Will once flowed without end—something trembled.
The pulse had reached it.
No voice. No form. Only will—broken, yet watching.
It remembered no names, only patterns. And one had changed.
A thread had formed where none should. A Gu had awakened that followed no rule. A myth had remembered a man who refused remembrance.
Heaven's Will, scattered though it was, reacted.
In the Eastern Sea, a fisherman watched a silver star fall. He had been mute since birth. Now, he spoke the language of myths. His eyes turned pale silver.
Far in Central Continent, an ancient Ancestor Tablet bled starlight. Worshipers fell to their knees, only to be turned away—not by force, but by ancestral whispers: "Forget him."
And deep within Star Constellation's Immortal Tomb, a dormant land spirit fragment stirred. It did not awaken, not fully. But it dreamed—of a figure walking where no thread had ever been laid.
Across the fractured world, old systems twisted slightly.
The balance shivered.
Heaven's Will did not yet know who it hunted. But it would not allow a will it could not thread.