The Empty Threshold

The valley was silent, save for the low hum of spiritual bells echoing from the mountain above.

A golden ship floated midair—engraved with sacred scriptures, radiating divine light. Dozens of disciples stood in formation, clad in flowing white robes etched with golden phoenixes. At the center stood a woman with silver eyes, her presence like a sunrise pressing against darkness.

Saintess Liye of the Everlight Pavilion.

> "Our divine senses confirm it," a disciple reported, bowing. "The entity passed through Gray Mist Valley. All cultivators sent ahead have vanished. No blood. No soul fragments. No remains."

> "He's not a ghost," Liye murmured, her gaze fixed on the jagged valley below. "He walks. He breathes. Yet the world cannot hold his name."

She lifted a jade talisman. It glowed with a sun-like brilliance—an artifact said to judge all things impure. When pointed toward evil, it would scream. When faced with demons, it would burn.

She aimed it toward the valley.

Silence.

No light.

No heat.

Just cold.

The jade turned black.

> "Impossible." Her voice cracked for the first time. "That's divine jade... it cannot lie."

From behind her, an old elder withered in voice but heavy with years stepped forward.

> "It didn't lie, Saintess. It did what all things do when they see him.

It surrendered."

A silence heavier than qi settled across the ship.

Liye's lips parted.

But no order came out.

Below, the figure moved through the valley.

He wasn't hiding.

He wasn't hunting.

He was simply... walking.

---

They descended.

A protective formation carved into the air itself surrounded the elite squad. Light hummed across their robes, layered with centuries of spiritual protection and blessings.

Liye stood at the front, her hands glowing with sacred flame.

> "Whoever you are—" she began.

The boy didn't stop walking.

> "You've wandered into sacred land. State your name and purpose."

He passed them.

His eyes—still void of any will—didn't even flick toward her.

He wasn't ignoring them.

He wasn't hearing them.

> "You're cursed," she said, louder now. "But the light can cleanse you."

She stepped forward. Her palm stretched toward his back, igniting with purifying flame drawn from the Pavilion's inner altar.

> "Be reborn in sanctity!"

Her hand touched his shoulder.

The flame snuffed out.

Like breath against frost.

Her eyes widened. Her knees buckled.

The sacred light in her core—the source of her very Dao—shivered.

And then… it fled.

Her Dao spirit severed itself.

Her flame abandoned her.

The very light she worshipped chose not to touch him.

> "Wh-what... what are you?"

Still no answer.

She collapsed to her knees, coughing up blood.

Her disciples rushed forward, blades drawn, holy seals flying from their sleeves.

> "Protect the Saintess!"

Too late.

The boy turned.

For the first time, he looked directly at someone.

The air around them did not ripple.

It screamed.

The golden ship above cracked in half—no explosion, no impact, just a hairline fracture that grew across the hull until it split like parchment.

Disciples screamed as they fell.

Some burned midair.

Some didn't even fall—just disappeared into flakes, like forgotten memories.

One talisman floated toward the boy's foot.

It caught fire—before touching him.

Not from heat.

From despair.

He kept walking.

Saintess Liye shivered on the ground, her eyes wide, her cultivation bleeding out from every pore.

> "You are not cursed…" she whispered. "You are not evil…"

Her vision dimmed as he passed. Her voice cracked one last time.

> "You are… the absence of judgment."

---

Later, in the Pavilion's sacred archives

A white-haired elder closed the scroll, his fingers trembling.

> "Not even light dared touch him?"

> "Not even that," the survivor whispered.

> "He does not belong to this world."

The elder nodded grimly.

> "Then from this day, across all sects who value light and law... we shall pass a single warning."

He reached for the blackened jade and placed it in a shrine.

> "If you see him—do not speak. Do not reach. Do not chant."

> "For he is not impure."

> "He is untouchable."

> "The Silent Ripper walks."