The wind carried no word tonight.
Across the silent steppe, the outline of a withered tree stretched like a forgotten character inked upon the earth. The moon cast its pale eye upon the world, and in its gaze, all things held their breath — as though nature itself awaited the birth of a single sound.
Rei stood barefoot on the cold soil.
His white hair drifted with the wind. His violet eyes stared into the void, unblinking. There was no emotion on his face — not sorrow, not fear, not even curiosity. Only stillness. Only silence.
Above him, the sky was clear, but the stars seemed to keep their distance — as if unwilling to gaze upon him too closely.
Ancient glyphs glimmered faintly beneath his skin, running along his arms, chest, and back like dormant rivers of memory. His long robe fluttered as if stirred not by wind, but by something unseen — a presence, a pressure.
And then… it came.
A breath.
A whisper.
Not from outside — from within.
⟪ Xuān... ⟫
The Word of Nothingness.
The soil trembled. Stones shifted.
The wind stopped.
The sound didn't echo. It was the echo. It spread, not through the air, but through meaning itself.
Rei's eyes widened slightly. The voice wasn't his — yet it resonated in his bones like something long lost. Something waiting.
He raised his hands.
A soft violet glow emerged from his palms. The glyphs on his skin began to move, as if alive. One by one, they ignited — not in flame, but in remembrance.
The earth around him felt heavy. Words had weight here, and this one... bent the world toward silence.
Then — footsteps.
Rei didn't turn. He felt them. Not through sound, but through the disturbance in the stillness.
A figure emerged from the mist, clad in crimson robes. Scrolls lined his back like sealed sentences, and a sword of etched stone hung at his side. His face was lined with age, but his eyes burned with recognition.
He stopped several steps away and spoke, his voice like parchment tearing.
> "It took us time to find you. You are the Echo of the Lost Word."
Rei turned his head slightly. No surprise. No fear. Just a question:
> "Why does my Word remain silent?"
The man knelt, pressing his fingers to the ground. Then, he looked up.
> "It isn't silent. It's listening.
You have yet to understand what it means."
Rei's eyes fluttered shut. And for a moment, the burden inside him rose like a tide — the need to know, the grief he buried, the silence that gnawed at his soul.
And then... falling.
The ground slipped away. The moon pulsed. The Word whispered one more time:
⟪Xuān⟫
His knees buckled.
Darkness came swiftly.
Just before he lost consciousness, he heard the man's voice again:
> "My name is Shān-Luò.
I am taking you to the Temple of Last Words — where echoes are born."
---
End of Chapter One