The Sutra of the Severed Heaven
It was not just a cultivation method or a technique.
It was heresy—a scripture written in the blood of a primordial being who had done the unthinkable. Not just slain a god. Not just conquered a heaven.
But killed the very concept of Heaven itself.
The sutra appeared only once every cosmic cycle, born from the corpse of Order's embodiment. It didn't teach cultivation—but annihilation. Not of flesh, but of rules. Of fate. Of the invisible chains that bound all existence to heaven's will.
To walk this path was to declare war on reality.
And Lan—
Lan had just taken the first step.
> Forbidden Path Initiated
You have entered the Sutra of the Severed Heaven.
Status: [HeavenDenial] Activated
Warning: All celestial protections revoked. You are now considered an anomaly.
HeavenDenial
Pain was too small a word.
Agony too kind.
Lan lay convulsing on the chamber floor, his body caught between being and unbeing, as the first character of the sutra burned through him like acid.
Deny.
The stroke he'd traced in the air still hung there, a scar of black fire that leaked shadows thicker than blood. Every gasp of air felt like swallowing knives. His meridians, so carefully opened and stabilized, now screamed as foreign power—antipower—flooded through them.
"The heavens are a cage made of golden light."
Xie Wuchen's voice slithered through his own mind, equal parts warning and temptation.
Lan's vision fractured. The room melted.
Suddenly, he saw them—the chains. Countless golden threads woven through his flesh, his soul, his past. The heavens' laws. The universe's demands.
Obey. Submit. Know your place.
Lan's teeth nearly shattering from how hard he clenched them.
"No."
He reached—not with hands, but with will—and grabbed the brightest chain. The one that wrapped around his dantian like it were the noose of a hanging man.
The Law of Cultivation.
The first rule every child learned: Qi flows upward. Realms progress linearly. This is the Dao.
A lie. A cage.
Lan pulled.
[System Interference Detected]
You are attempting to override a Core Cosmic Law:
Law of Cultivation (Qi Ascension Protocol v1.0)
Progress: (42%)
Warning: Unauthorized resistance will trigger divine backlash.
The chain screamed and so did he.
Blood poured from Lan's eyes, his nose, the crescentmoon wounds where his nails tore into his own palms. His muscles locked so tight he heard bones creak. The shadows in the room had come alive, thrashing like hanged men as reality protested what he was doing.
Somewhere distant, palace drums began to wail.
Lan didn't care. Couldn't care.
Not when the chain was finally—
Snap.
The recoil sent him skidding across the floor, ribs cracking against stone. The golden thread dissolved into motes of light...
And his dantian exploded.
Not outward.
Inward.
> New Affinity: [Dark Qi]
Traits Gained: Consumption, Anti-Law
Resonance, Soul Resistance
Warning: Existence classified as "Unstable.
Aberration." Heaven's Judgement pending...
A black hole where the chain had been, sucking in the remnants of his carefully gathered qi and transforming it. The energy that emerged was nothing like before—not clean, not ordered, but hungry. A void that devoured first the broken chains around it, then the very light in the room.
Lan gasped as the transformation reached his mind.
Memories surfaced—not Xie Wuchen's, but his. Every humiliation. Every lash. Every whispered "useless". The heavens had watched it all. Allowed it all.
Because that was their design.
"To reject the crown is to grasp true freedom."
Lan laughed—a wet, broken sound—as understanding dawned.
He'd been weak not because he was flawed.
But because the universe demanded it.
No more.
The first thing Lan noticed when consciousness returned was the silence.
Not true silence—somewhere beyond the ruined door, shouts echoed. Magic flared. The palace was in chaos.
But his world was quiet.
The second thing he noticed was the blood. Gallons of it, painting the floor, the walls, even the ceiling in abstract arcs. His body was a patchwork of wounds, some still weeping.
The third?
The absence.
Where before golden chains had choked his soul, now there was... nothing. A void. A freedom so vast it terrified him.
And in his dantian?
Not just qi.
But hunger.
A knock came at the ruined door.
"Enter," Lan croaked.
It wasn't Seraphine.
Cassian stepped through the wreckage, his white robes pristine, his expression unreadable. The envoy took one look at the carnage, at the still fading shadows writhing at Lan's feet, and sighed.
"Come," he said, flicking a drop of blood off his sleeve. "The Imperial Princesses demands an audience with you."
Lan stood.
His body screamed in protest—muscles torn, bones knitting themselves back together, the void in his dantian gnawing at his insides like a starving animal. But he stood anyway.
Cassian didn't offer help. Just turned on his heel and walked, his white robes fluttering behind him like a surrender flag.
Lan followed.
The training yard had been transformed into a museum of pain.
At the center, Third Prince Kain sprawled in the dirt, his oncehandsome face a ruin of split lips and shattered teeth. His armor—specially forged from saint steel—lay in pieces around him like the carapace of a butchered insect.
But it was the figure beside him that made Lan's pulse stutter.
First Guard Dain.
The man who'd trained every Solaris prince for three generations. Who'd singlehandedly slain the Frost Wyrm of Valtros. Now kneeling in a pool of his own blood, his left arm bent at an impossible angle, his legendary greatsword snapped clean in two.
And above them—
Her.
Imperial Princess Iris Aregard sat perched on a makeshift throne of stacked weapon crates, her legs crossed at the knee, her chin resting on one bloodsmeared hand.
The stories hadn't done her justice.
Hair like liquid moonlight spilled over shoulders clad in armor so black it seemed to drink the sunlight. Eyes the color of a stormchurned sea—calm, endless, and utterly merciless. Her lips, painted the same crimson as the blood drying on her knuckles, curved into a smile that promised violence as casually as others promised tea.
"If it isn't the useless prince himself," she purred.
Lan bowed—just deep enough to be polite, just shallow enough to be insulting. "To what do we owe the pleasure of being graced by Your Highness's presence?"
Iris's smile widened. She lifted a hand, examining the blood beneath her nails.
"I'm hosting a little banquet. For the empire's most... interesting young royals and warriors." Her gaze flicked to Kain's broken form. "I've been traveling personally to test potential guests. So far im yet to find anything impressive here."
Lan followed her glance. The blood splattering her dress wasn't just Kain's—it was Dain's too. The message was clear: rank meant nothing. Reputation meant nothing. Only power mattered.
"A shame," Lan said mildly. "But if I've been summoned for the same purpose, I must disappoint. You wouldn't want me at your banquet."
Iris tilted her head, moonlight catching the razoredge of her cheekbones. "Why? Because you're weak?"
"No." Lan met her gaze squarely. "Because the last time I endured hours with drunken noble brats, one lost a head."
Silence.