BENEATH HEAVENS GAZE

Chapter 5 – A Storm of Silence

The clouds gathered without warning.

Chen Fi stood on the southern edge of the mountain, where the pines thinned and the cliffs dropped into endless mist. Below, villages dotted the distant valleys, specks of life ignorant of the sky above them.

Tonight, the heavens were not calm.

A black star had appeared—faint but undeniable. It hung above the eastern ridge, pulsing with dark crimson light, trailing embers like ash falling through water.

He knew what it was.

A Soul Rot Seed—a cursed fragment of a failed Ascension, hurled from beyond the mortal realm. They were rare, but each one carried tainted Qi that corrupted not just cultivators, but land and life itself.

And it was falling.

Not toward the sects. Not toward cities. No—it had somehow chosen his mountain.

Chen Fi sat on a smooth boulder and extended one hand into the air.

He didn’t summon a sword.

He didn’t cast an art.

He simply... breathed.

The wind shifted.

The soil beneath him echoed his heartbeat. The trees turned their leaves upward. The mountain exhaled with him, slowly and deeply, as if reminded that it was alive.

Then, he spoke.

One syllable. A sound that had no translation in any human tongue—a tone from a time before cultivation had names. The moment the sound escaped his lips, the falling star paused.

The heavens blinked.

Clouds tore sideways as though something had swiped the sky.

And then—stillness.

The star dimmed. Its tail vanished. The darkness around it unraveled like burnt cloth. It did not explode. It did not crash.

It simply ceased to exist.

Chen Fi opened his eyes again. His hand fell back to his side.

But the damage was done.

He could feel it.

Somewhere far off—across realms of spirit and void—a presence had noticed. His suppression of the Soul Rot Seed was too… precise. Too absolute. That kind of act left no ripple, but it drew attention by its silence.

They would not know his name.

But now, they would know something was there.

---

Back at the cottage, Liun sat curled beneath the eaves, watching the last traces of unnatural cloud melt away. The forest had grown strange—quiet, too quiet.

The spirit birds that once chirped at dawn had flown elsewhere.

The frogs had gone silent.

Even the wind seemed hesitant.

Then, footsteps.

She turned. Chen Fi stepped out of the trees, robes untouched by dust or rain.

“Are we safe?” she asked.

He looked at the sky.

“For now.”

She stood slowly. “…What was that? That star?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Then said, “A shadow.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

She frowned. “Why do you hide? You could destroy any sect. You could become… anything.”

He turned to her, and this time, something flickered behind his gaze. Not malice. Not pride. But… sorrow.

“I’ve already been everything.”

She opened her mouth to ask more—but the earth trembled suddenly.

Chen Fi’s head snapped to the north.

His silence deepened.

Then, softly, he said, “They’ve come.”

---

Far below, deep in the forest shadow, three figures in black robes knelt around a pool of stagnant water. Their faces were hidden beneath bird-like masks of iron.

The Shadow Crows.

Each one pulsed with a strange Qi—not strong in raw power, but ghostlike. They moved like wind, unseen by most. They had no core, no heartbeat. Their cultivation was rooted in secrets, in rot, in watching.

Now, they stared into the pool, watching a scene reflect upon its surface: a man standing at the edge of a cliff, vanishing a star with a single breath.

“…That was no formation.”

“…No technique I know.”

“…Even our Grand Elder can’t erase a Soul Rot Seed.”

One leaned closer. “Should we report this?”

Another nodded.

“And mark the mountain,” the third whispered.

“Not as a place of danger…”

“…but a realm where the heavens themselves turn aside.”