Xian Yu's fingers trembled as he brushed away the dust covering the ancient stone tablet. The dim moonlight filtering through the cracks of the forgotten ruins illuminated the strange symbols etched into its surface. He wasn't supposed to be here. His sect forbade disciples from wandering too far from the main grounds, yet something had drawn him to this place.
A whisper.
A voice, ancient and hollow, had echoed in his mind for days, calling him toward the forsaken abyss at the edge of the Misty Cloud Mountain Range. Most disciples feared this place, claiming it devoured those who ventured too deep. But Xian Yu wasn't like the others—he was desperate.
His talent in cultivation was mediocre, his body frail compared to the prodigies of the sect. In a world where strength dictated one's fate, he was nothing more than a stepping stone for the gifted.
Until now.
The whisper grew louder as his fingers traced the inscriptions on the stone. A sudden pulse of energy surged through his body, cold and vast, as if the entire universe had momentarily collapsed into a singularity within him. His vision blurred, and a bottomless void swallowed his consciousness.
---
Darkness.
Infinite. Endless. Devouring.
Xian Yu gasped, but no air entered his lungs. He floated in an abyss of nothingness, his body weightless, his soul trembling under an unseen force.
Then, he saw it.
A figure, neither man nor beast, cloaked in a shroud of swirling void energy. It had no face, only two burning, silver eyes staring deep into his existence.
"You have heard my call," the entity's voice reverberated through the abyss. "You are… unworthy."
Pain.
A sensation far worse than death gripped Xian Yu's soul as his very essence was stripped apart, examined, and reforged in an instant. He wanted to scream, but sound did not exist here.
But something deep within him resisted.
A will he never knew he possessed surged forth, a defiance against the void itself. His soul refused to crumble. His existence would not be erased.
The silver-eyed entity paused.
"Interesting."
A flick of its finger, and the void itself collapsed around him. Xian Yu felt something pour into him—a force beyond comprehension. It was unlike spiritual qi, unlike any cultivation technique he had ever heard of. This… was something else.
Then, everything exploded.
---
Xian Yu woke up with a gasp, his body drenched in sweat. The ancient stone tablet had vanished, replaced by a swirling black vortex hovering in front of him. The air around him crackled with an unseen power, bending reality itself.
His breath hitched.
Something was different. His meridians pulsed with an unfamiliar energy. His dantian, once ordinary, now held an abyssal core, radiating an aura of unfathomable depth.
A new path had opened before him.
The path of the Void Immortal.