The fragrance of white lotus drifted across the Azure Cloud Sect's testing plaza, a scent that once brought Lu Chen comfort. Now, it smelled of rot and betrayal.
Lin Mengyao stood ten paces away, her pristine white robes fluttering in the mountain breeze. The murmurs of the tens of thousands of outer disciple hopefuls died instantly. To them, she was a goddess descended from the inner peaks, the brilliant fiancée of the Heaven-Blessed Son, Fang Tianyou. To Lu Chen, she was the parasite who had helped rip the Innate Spirit Root from his Dantian.
Her cold, beautiful eyes were locked entirely on him. She descended the jade steps, her aura as a Foundation Establishment cultivator pressing down on the crowd like a physical weight.
"You," her voice was crisp, echoing with infused Qi. "Look up."
Lu Chen's heart remained a placid lake of ice. He did not reach for his sword. He did not cycle his Void Intent for combat. Instead, he forced his shoulders to tremble, allowing the natural, instinctual fear of a mortal facing a cultivator to take over his body. He slowly raised his head, widening his eyes in a perfect mask of awe and terror.
Deep within his spiritual sea, the Luck-Binding Mirror hummed. Through its invisible lens, Lu Chen saw the truth. A thick, golden thread of Qi Yun—Providence—connected Lin Mengyao back toward the inner sect peaks. It was Fang Tianyou's luck, bleeding over into her, elevating her destiny. But intertwined with that gold was a faint, struggling wisp of azure energy. *His* energy. His stolen Spirit Root was inside Fang Tianyou, and its faint resonance had rippled through the golden thread to alert Lin Mengyao.
*You are feeding on my corpse,* Lu Chen thought, his inner voice devoid of rage, possessing only the absolute chill of the Abyss. *But a corpse has no pulse. And I am the Void.*
With a microscopic shift of his will, Lu Chen turned his Void Sword Intent inward. He didn't project it; he simply allowed it to swallow the faint azure resonance emanating from his own soul. He became a black hole, reflecting nothing.
The moment he did, Lin Mengyao frowned. She stopped three paces from him, her delicate brows knitting together. The profound, terrifying familiarity she had felt just seconds ago vanished, replaced by the mundane, unwashed scent of a rogue cultivator in cheap hemp robes.
"Fairy Lin?" an elder testing official hurried over, bowing deeply. "Is this rogue causing offense? I can have the Enforcers remove him immediately."
Lin Mengyao stared at Lu Chen's trembling form for another long second. Her eyes swept over his plain features, altered slightly by a subtle bone-shifting technique. Disgust flickered in her gaze.
"No," she finally said, waving a hand as if swatting away a fly. "A trick of the light. His presence is weak and his foundation is murky. Don't waste time. Continue the testing."
Without a second glance, she turned and floated back toward the inner sect pavilions, dismissing him entirely from her reality.
Lu Chen lowered his head, hiding the razor-thin smile that touched his lips. Arrogance will be your grave, Mengyao. Enjoy my luck while it lasts.
"Next batch! Hurry up!" the testing elder barked, eager to regain the momentum of the ceremony. "Step up to the Azure Destiny Stone. Place your dominant hand flat against the surface. Do not attempt to force your Qi. The stone judges your Innate Root and your Providence. Anything below Mortal Grade, Fifth Tier, goes straight down the mountain!"
Lu Chen shuffled forward with a group of ten anxious youths. Looming before them was the Azure Destiny Stone, a massive, jagged slab of meteoritic jade that pulsed with centuries of accumulated spiritual energy. It was the pride of the outer sect, said to hold the lingering will of the sect's founders.
To the naked eye, it was just a glowing rock. But through the Luck-Binding Mirror, Lu Chen saw a feast.
The stone was saturated with the residual Qi Yun of tens of thousands of geniuses who had touched it over the millennia. Every time a prodigy tested their talent, a microscopic fraction of their destiny rubbed off on the stone, creating a swirling, chaotic sea of golden and purple luck trapped within the jade.
If I touch that, Lu Chen realized, the stone will try to measure my destiny. But I am the Sovereign of the Void. I have no destiny. The stone will show absolute nothingness, and every elder in the sect will instantly know I am an anomaly.
He needed a result. An average, forgettable result.
"You there, the one who startled Fairy Lin!" the elder snapped, pointing at Lu Chen. "Stop dawdling. Hand on the stone!"
"Yes, Elder," Lu Chen said meekly. He stepped up to the massive jade slab. He could feel the sheer weight of the history inside it. He raised his right hand and pressed his palm flat against the cool surface.
Instantly, a probing energy rushed up his arm, seeking his Dantian to measure his potential.
Lu Chen's eyes darkened. *You want to see my destiny?* he thought, communicating directly with the Luck-Binding Mirror in his sea of consciousness. *Then let's take yours instead. Eat.*
In a fraction of a second, the invisible maw of the Void opened within Lu Chen's palm. The probing energy of the stone was instantly annihilated. Before the stone's internal array could register the lack of a result, Lu Chen's Void Intent latched onto the massive, swirling ocean of residual Qi Yun trapped deep within the meteoritic jade.
Siphon.
A silent, invisible vortex activated. The golden and purple threads of ancient luck screamed as they were violently ripped from their moorings inside the stone and dragged into Lu Chen's body. The sheer volume of raw, unrefined providence flooded his Dantian, crashing against the nine pillars of his Perfect Foundation. It was like drinking a waterfall.
Lu Chen forcefully suppressed the urge to break through on the spot. Instead, he took a tiny fraction of the most mediocre, dull-yellow luck he had just stolen and forcefully injected it back into the stone's display array.
The entire process took less than a heartbeat.
The Azure Destiny Stone gave a pathetic, wheezing hum. A dull, sickly yellow light slowly crept up the side of the stone, stopping less than a third of the way up.
The testing elder sighed, shaking his head. "Name?"
"Chen Lu," Lu Chen replied, pulling his hand back. He noticed a microscopic hairline fracture appear on the surface of the jade where his palm had been, but he quickly stepped away to obscure it.
"Chen Lu. Mortal Grade Spirit Root, Third Tier. Bone Age: Eighteen," the elder announced loudly, his voice dripping with boredom. "Providence: Mud-tier. Barely passable. You only make it in because we need bodies for the menial peaks. Go to the left courtyard."
Lu Chen bowed respectfully and joined the group of dejected youths trudging toward the left courtyard. This was the reject pile. They weren't true outer disciples; they were glorified servants.
Inside the courtyard, a fat deacon with a greasy mustache was assigning chores.
"You, latrines. You, spirit beast stables—try not to get eaten. You..." The deacon paused, eyeing Lu Chen. "Chen Lu, is it? You look like you have a steady mind, but your talent is garbage. The outer sect has a vacancy. You are assigned to the Sword Graves. Sweeper."
The other rejects audibly gasped, stepping away from Lu Chen as if he carried a plague.
"The Sword Graves?" a boy whispered in horror. "That's a death sentence! The lingering resentment from broken swords drives people insane within a year!"
The deacon sneered. "Silence! The sect does not feed useless mouths. Keep the graves free of rust-weed and polish the intact hilts. That is your life now."
Lu Chen kept his head down, but a cold, predatory thrill coursed through his veins. The Sword Graves. A canyon filled with tens of thousands of shattered weapons, each carrying the dying intent and unfulfilled destiny of fallen cultivators.
For anyone else, it was a cursed wasteland. For the Sovereign of the Void, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
"I accept this honor, Deacon," Lu Chen said smoothly, taking the wooden token tossed his way.
As Lu Chen turned to leave the courtyard and head toward the shadowed canyon at the rear of the sect, a loud, arrogant voice echoed from the testing plaza outside.
"Make way! Open your eyes and witness a true genius!"
It was Wang Lei, the pampered son of a wealthy merchant clan known for their deep pockets and moderate talent. He strutted up to the Azure Destiny Stone, puffing out his chest as the elders watched with mild interest.
"Behold my destiny!" Wang Lei roared, slamming his palm dramatically against the surface of the massive meteoritic jade.
Lu Chen, walking away, didn't even look back. He simply counted down in his head. Three. Two. One.
CRACK.
The sound was like a thunderclap.
Wang Lei's confident smirk froze. Beneath his hand, the microscopic hairline fracture Lu Chen had left behind suddenly spider-webbed across the entire ten-foot slab of jade.
Without its centuries of accumulated Qi Yun to hold its structural integrity together, the ancient, indestructible Azure Destiny Stone simply gave up.
CRASH!
The massive stone shattered into a million pieces of chalky, mundane dust, burying Wang Lei to his knees in gravel.
Dead silence fell over the plaza. Tens of thousands of people stared in absolute shock. The testing elder's jaw hit the floor.
"I... I didn't do it!" Wang Lei shrieked, waving his hands frantically. "I just touched it!"
"YOU DESTROYED THE SECT'S ANCIENT RELIC!" the elder bellowed, his face turning purple with rage. "GUARDS! SEIZE HIM!"
Chaos erupted as Enforcers swarmed the screaming young master.
Far away from the panic, Lu Chen strolled onto the winding, desolate path leading to the Sword Graves, the screams of the merchant's son fading into the wind. He tossed his new wooden token in the air and caught it, feeling the immense weight of the stolen providence settling into his Perfect Foundation.
The path grew darker, the air thick with an oppressive, metallic scent. Jagged cliffs rose on either side, and soon, the canyon opened before him.
It was a breathtaking, horrifying sight. Millions of swords were stabbed into the gray earth, some rusted to the hilt, others cleanly snapped in half. The air was physically distorted by the sheer volume of chaotic, resentful Sword Intent lingering in the valley.
Lu Chen took a single step into the graveyard.
Instantly, the Luck-Binding Mirror in his mind didn't just hum—it let out a violent, ringing alarm. The sensation was so intense Lu Chen staggered, clutching his head.
This wasn't the scattered luck of dead men.
Deep within the center of the Sword Graves, beneath mountains of rusted iron, a singular, massive aura of pure black Providence awakened. It was ancient, heavy, and completely opposed to the natural laws of the Heavens.
A voice, dry as grinding stones, echoed directly into Lu Chen's soul, vibrating with a terrifying power that dwarfed even Fang Tianyou's stolen destiny.
"Finally..." the voice rasped, the sound causing the millions of dead swords in the valley to rattle in their graves. "A vessel of the Void has arrived..."
Lu Chen's eyes narrowed, his hand slowly drifting to the hilt of his plain iron sword.
He wasn't alone in the dark.