When dawn crept over the tiled roofs, Jin Mu had not slept.
He sat by the open window, the cold seeping into his bones, and watched the first servants trudge across the inner courtyards.
From here, he could almost believe this was any other morning—just another day of petty humiliations and quiet endurance.
But in the hollow of his chest, the memory of that vast eye still pulsed, a warning he could not yet decipher.
And the phrase from the forbidden scroll kept resurfacing: When the Sign of Thirteen is seen…
He let the thought fade as footsteps approached.
He stood, schooling his face into composure.
He had expected another summon to the Hall of Accord.
Instead, the steward merely inclined his head. "You are expected in the Celestial Archives."
Surprise flickered across his mind. The Archives were reserved for advanced studies—those few initiates deemed worthy of exploring the higher architecture of their discipline.
He nodded, hiding the unease in his gut.
If this is a trap, I have no choice but to walk into it.
The Celestial Archives were a vault of etched crystal and inked vellum. Every scrap of knowledge was chained to its pedestal, proof that even wisdom was a form of confinement here.
An archivist in a sand-colored robe gestured him to a side table where an immense codex lay open.
"I was instructed to provide you access," she said, her eyes never meeting his. "You will not remove the text."
Jin Mu inclined his head.
He drew a steadying breath and leaned over the parchment.
The Anatomy of the Splintered Paths, the title read.
Beneath it, dense glyphs spiraled in concentric rings, every line vibrating with a silent potency.
In the cold quiet, he read.
He had always known the art of advancement was not a simple ladder—no mere sequence of steps. But he had never before seen this diagram, this raw map of how power forked and proliferated.
Every Pathway was not a line but a web.
The Core Sequence—the central thread that defined the practitioner's nature—wove outward into Sub-Paths, specialized channels of affinity and domain.
Each Sub-Path, in turn, birthed Splinters—narrower refinements, unique techniques and truths that could only be realized by crossing into forbidden understanding.
No two practitioners ever walked exactly the same lattice.
Some splinters were so perilous they ended in oblivion or madness. Others were so subtle that their existence remained unproven.
It struck him, as he traced the branching glyphs, that no one in the sect truly controlled this process.
The masters liked to pretend the hierarchy was ordained by nature. But it was not.
It was merely a labyrinth of choices—and the cruelty of fate deciding who would find the door out.
At the bottom of the page, a single notation had been inked in cramped, nervous script:
Those who attempt to twist or bypass the sub-paths without preparation often become Chained Ones.
He had heard the term whispered in the dormitories.
Chained Ones—failed aspirants, minds shattered, their bodies hollowed by power they could not contain.
Many were quietly sold into servitude.
Others simply vanished.
He closed the codex with a soft exhale.
He set the book aside and rose, stepping to a nearby window.
From here, he could see the lower concourse where the bonded laborers were marshaled each dawn—women and men whose ancestors had been captured in border raids, or who had sold themselves to escape famine.
The overseers carried rods carved with iron sigils.
Those marks did more than brand flesh. They sank into the marrow, imprinting a compulsion that not even death could fully erase.
He had once believed that was the worst cruelty this sect could devise: to make a man love his own bondage.
But the last life had taught him otherwise.
Sometimes, the worst cruelty was in the pretense of benevolence—the hollow assurances that one day, through service and loyalty, a slave might be lifted to a station of respect.
He watched as a boy no older than fifteen stumbled under a load of grain sacks.
No one helped him.
This world is built on the lie that some are born deserving.
He turned from the window before the old anger could take root.
When he returned to his quarters, the steward was waiting again.
"A package," he said tonelessly, and departed.
Inside the oilskin wrap lay a single iron fragment scorched black.
Jin Mu frowned.
He recognized it instantly: a sliver of the dart that had nearly killed Lady Xue Yiran.
There was no note, no explanation. Only the implicit command: Find the truth if you dare.
He set the fragment on his table and lit a fresh taper.
If I can understand who forged this, I can find the real hand behind the attack.
He reached for the old scrying bowl, fingers brushing the rim.
And then he hesitated.
Because part of him still remembered what he had seen the last time he had scryed for hidden knowledge.
The eye.
The vast, indifferent eye that promised no deliverance.
His mouth tasted of ash.
He sank into the chair, covering his face with both hands.
There were moments when he hated himself.
Hated the hunger for clarity that would never be sated.
Hated the sick, scalding envy that still rose when he thought of men who could simply believe the world was fair.
Most of all, he hated how even now, after all he had seen and lost, some part of him still hoped.
Hoped that if he could pull apart enough lies, he would find a truth that did not repulse him.
With a slow breath, he set the iron fragment in the bowl.
He poured the prepared ink, thick with ground obsidian and dried nightshade.
The surface rippled once.
Twice.
Then resolved into a blurred image: a forge lit by green flame. A hand in a black gauntlet lifting the red-hot dart from the coals.
Who are you?
The vision blurred, twisting into a spiral of darkness.
He felt the first hint of that impossible presence rising again—something watching him from the spaces between breaths.
But he would not look away.
Show me.
The darkness receded, and for a single heartbeat, he saw a symbol carved into the forge stone:
A serpent swallowing its own tail.
The image shattered.
Jin Mu jerked back, gasping.
Sweat poured from his hairline. His pulse thundered in his ears.
But the terror was tempered by something harder.
Resolve.
I will not be passive.
He wiped the ink from his fingers.
If the Splintered Paths have no mercy, neither will I.
And in that moment, he knew the next steps he must take—no matter what it cost him.