Chapter 157: The Immortal’s Message
The sky was not quiet.
Even in this hidden gorge beneath the Deadwind Spine, where no sunlight reached and even the wind feared to whisper, Rin Xie felt the tremble of divine intention pulsing through the heavens above.
It beat in the distance like a war drum wrapped in velvet—too faint for mortals to sense, but to him, it was deafening.
He stood over a man half-buried in mud and blood. A rogue cultivator whose name he would never learn. The man had been dragged by the tides of fate into a storm meant for gods.
And now he served his final purpose.
"Take it..." the man rasped. His mouth was dry, teeth cracked from internal backlash. His meridians had already collapsed—the price of resisting something he never understood.
Rin knelt, silent.
The cultivator's trembling hand held out a jade slip. Not common—this was Heaven-carved, etched in a script older than written time. The jade itself pulsed faintly with a breath not its own.
Rin reached for it.
The cultivator shivered, blood foaming from his lips. His eyes turned upward—not to Rin, but to something beyond.
"I didn't read it," the man whispered, voice splintered like a dying fire. "Didn't want to see what they say about you..."