Across the cultivation world, most believed the great threats had been vanquished in the War of Crimson Heaven thirty thousand years ago. Demonic cultivators had been pushed to the realm's edges. Ancient evils slumbered in sealed tombs. The age of catastrophic battles between gods and demons had passed into legend.
Most were wrong.
In hidden spaces between realities, in pocket dimensions accessible only to those who bore specific marks, an organization older than current dynasties maintained its vigil. They called themselves the Last Alliance—not because they were the final alliance, but because they had formed to combat the last threat reality would ever face if they failed.
The temporal scars.
One hundred and twelve wounds in the fabric of existence itself, each bleeding paradox and impossibility into the ordered cultivation world. Most cultivators who stumbled upon these scars died instantly, their minds unable to process the contradiction of existence and non-existence occupying the same space. The lucky ones simply vanished, erased from the timeline as if they'd never been.
But recently, someone had been harvesting them.
The Weeping Mountains earned their name from the perpetual moisture that seeped from their stone faces, creating the illusion of tears running down ancient cheeks. Chen Jiaxing, known within the Last Alliance as the Eternal Warden, stood at the edge of a crystallized crater where those tears had stopped falling three days ago.
"Temporal variance confirmed at 287% above baseline," his assistant reported, a Core Formation cultivator whose name he'd never bothered to learn. Names became burdensome when you'd lived through enough generations to see them recycled. "The anomaly spans approximately fifty meters in diameter."
Chen Jiaxing stepped forward, his Nascent Soul Fifth Stage cultivation creating ripples in space that made the moisture in the air crystallize and fall as geometric snow. Where his feet touched stone, the mountain's weeping paused, as if holding its breath in the presence of something that had witnessed the birth and death of dynasties.
The crater wasn't natural. Nothing about it suggested the violent impact of a meteor or the slow erosion of time. Instead, the stone had been twisted into patterns that hurt to perceive—spirals that turned inward and outward simultaneously, surfaces that seemed to exist in more dimensions than the customary three.
"When did the extraction occur?" he asked, kneeling at the crater's edge.
"Best estimate places it between seven and ten days ago. The temporal distortion makes precise dating impossible."
Chen Jiaxing extended his spiritual sense, letting it flow into the wounded space. The sensation was like running fingers along shattered glass, each edge threatening to cut not flesh but understanding itself. This was a temporal scar—a wound in reality that wept possibility instead of water.
His unique ability activated. The technique that had earned him his title within the Alliance: Eternal Moment Preservation. Time around him crystallized, creating a bubble where he could examine the scar's history without interference from its chaotic temporal flow.
Images flooded his perception. A figure in black robes, face obscured by formations that rejected observation. Hands moving in patterns that shouldn't exist, drawing power from the scar with techniques that predated current cultivation systems. The extraction had been methodical, careful—not the desperate feeding of a power-hungry fool but the calculated harvest of someone who understood exactly what they were handling.
"Whoever did this has done it before," he murmured, releasing the technique. "Many times."
"Should we alert the local sects?" his assistant asked.
"No. They lack the conceptual framework to understand what they'd be investigating." Chen Jiaxing stood, his ageless face showing the weight of centuries despite its youthful appearance. "Prepare a detailed report for the Alliance Council. Classification: Vermillion Threat."
The assistant paled. Vermillion was second only to Void classification—threats that could unravel the fabric of cultivation society if left unchecked.
As they prepared to depart, Chen Jiaxing took one last measurement. The scar's energy signature was distinct, like a fingerprint left in the substance of reality itself. He'd encountered similar signatures before, scattered across the continent like breadcrumbs leading to some cosmic horror.
The journey back to the Alliance's hidden stronghold took three days through conventional flight. Chen Jiaxing could have torn through space directly, but doing so near temporal scars risked creating new wounds. The last thing they needed was to multiply the problem through impatience.
The Eternal Garden existed between heartbeats, a pocket dimension accessible only to those who carried the Alliance's mark. Here, heroes from across realities had established a bastion against threats that transcended individual worlds. The architecture defied conventional description—buildings that existed in multiple time periods simultaneously, gardens where past and future bloomed side by side.
"Warden Chen." The greeting came from Mei Xianlu, her Immortal Ascension cultivation making the air taste of lightning and ancient secrets. "Your message suggested urgency."
"The extractions are accelerating." He handed her a jade slip containing his observations. "Seventeen confirmed sites in the last two months. Someone with comprehensive knowledge is systematically harvesting temporal scar energy."
She absorbed the information instantly, her expression darkening. "The pattern?"
"Expanding outward from a central point. Based on extraction sequences and energy degradation, I've triangulated the likely origin." He projected a map woven from spiritual energy, marking each confirmed scar with a point of light. "The Azure Cloud region."
"A backwater territory controlled by minor cultivation families," Mei Xianlu mused. "Hardly the place one would expect to find someone capable of this level of manipulation."
"Which makes it the perfect hiding place." Chen Jiaxing highlighted several points. "Three scars within a hundred li of Azure Cloud City. Fresh extractions at two sites. Whoever our harvester is, they're growing bolder."
"Or more desperate. What could drive someone to risk reality itself for power?"
Chen Jiaxing had theories, but none he was ready to voice. In his long existence, he'd seen cultivators attempt the impossible for reasons ranging from noble to incomprehensible. But the methodical nature of these extractions suggested something more sinister than mere ambition.
"I request permission to investigate directly," he said. "The local powers won't have the expertise to recognize what they're dealing with."
"Granted. But Jiaxing..." Mei Xianlu paused, her ancient eyes holding depths of concern. "The last time we encountered systematic scar exploitation, it took thirteen Dao Lords to contain the resulting catastrophe. If someone has rediscovered those techniques..."
"Then they must be stopped before they can complete whatever grand working they're attempting." He accepted the formal mission seal she produced. "I'll need a cover identity. The locals will panic if an Alliance Warden appears openly."
"Scholar Wei Zhen, researching historical anomalies. It's been prepared." She handed him documentation that would pass any inspection. "The Azure Cloud authorities have been notified to expect a visiting academic interested in local phenomena."
Chen Jiaxing spent the next day reviewing intelligence. The Liu family controlled Azure Cloud City—a respectable but unremarkable clan that had produced few cultivators of note. Recent reports mentioned a "deviation genius" named Liu Wei who had shown unusual advancement after a near-death cultivation accident.
Temporal techniques in a backwater family. The coincidence was too pointed to ignore.
The journey to Azure Cloud took five days, during which he investigated two additional scars. The first, hidden in the Ghostwood Forest, revealed something disturbing. Ancient ruins surrounded the wound—not built after its creation but seemingly designed around it. Carved pillars bore inscriptions in a variant of demonic script that predated the current cultivation age.
"Temporal Demon Transformation Scripture," he translated, reading weathered stone that should have crumbled to dust millennia ago. "Chapter Seven: The Feast of Moments."
Someone had used these scars before. Someone had built an entire cultivation system around them, using reality's wounds as resources. The implications sent ice through his ancient blood.
The second scar, barely thirty li from Azure Cloud City, showed signs of recent activation. The extraction had occurred within the last week, the technique identical to what he'd observed in the Weeping Mountains. But this time, he found something else—a residual emotional signature clinging to the scar's edges.
Amusement. Pure, undiluted amusement at some cosmic joke only the extractor understood.
"The harvester finds this funny," his assistant observed with disgust.
"Or they understand something we don't," Chen Jiaxing replied. "True madness often wears the mask of humor."
As Azure Cloud City came into view from their position atop Sunset Peak, the sprawl of mortal districts surrounding cultivator compounds seemed deceptively peaceful. Smoke rose from ten thousand hearths. Merchants hawked wares in markets that had existed for centuries. Children played in streets unaware that reality itself might be unraveling beneath their feet.
His assistant pointed to energy readings spiking on their detection artifacts. "Warden, there's active temporal manipulation occurring within the city right now."
Chen Jiaxing's expression hardened. The harvester wasn't just bold—they were actively using their stolen power in populated areas. The potential for catastrophic breach had just multiplied exponentially.
"Location?"
"Eastern district. The signal is... strange. Artificially dampened, as if someone's trying to hide the manipulation while performing it."
Clever. Most cultivators who stumbled onto forbidden power used it recklessly, drunk on newfound strength. This harvester understood subtlety, understood that the best predators were those their prey never saw coming.
"Document everything," he ordered. "Tomorrow, Scholar Wei Zhen begins his investigation. And somewhere in that city, our reality thief is laughing at dangers they don't truly comprehend."
Or worse, he thought privately, they comprehend perfectly and simply don't care.
The Weeping Mountains had stopped crying three days ago. If patterns held, Azure Cloud City might stop existing in far less time than that. Unless he could find their mysterious harvester first.
Thunder rumbled across clear skies as his killing intent leaked through perfect control. Even nature recognized when the Eternal Warden began his hunt.
"Warden," his assistant said quietly, "what if the harvester is stronger than we anticipate? What if they're not some lucky fool who found ancient techniques but someone who truly understands them?"
Chen Jiaxing was quiet for a long moment, watching the sun set over Azure Cloud City. In the dying light, the city looked like any other—full of mortal concerns and small ambitions, unaware of the cosmic forces gathering around it.
"Then we face something that hasn't walked this reality for fifty thousand years," he finally answered. "And heaven help us all."
Because in his investigations, he'd found one disturbing commonality among all the temporal scars. They weren't random wounds. They were precise, calculated, positioned with intent that suggested not accident but architecture.
Someone hadn't just damaged reality. Someone had performed surgery on it, leaving specific wounds in specific places for specific purposes.
And now, fifty thousand years later, someone was coming back to collect what they'd planted.
The hunt would begin tomorrow. Tonight, Chen Jiaxing meditated on a single, terrifying possibility: what if the harvester wasn't stealing power from the scars?
What if they were simply reclaiming what had always been theirs?