Two Heaven's Hounds stood across from Li Tianming, their white robes billowing like ghost-flames in the forest breeze. They were enforcers, not mere cultivators — handpicked agents imbued with the authority of the Heavenly Mandate, tasked with eliminating all who walked forbidden paths.
The taller one with silver hair raised his hand again.
"Last chance. Surrender the Inverse Mark, or we will erase your threads."
Li Tianming's reply was soft, yet clear:
"You can't erase what was never written."
He stepped forward.
The glyph on his palm pulsed — and with it, the air around him changed. The spiritual pressure from the Hounds no longer pressed down on him. Instead, it twisted sideways, pulled inward, and reversed its own weight.
Even the trees nearby bent unnaturally, leaves shivering as if caught in an invisible tide.
The Threadstealer Gu hissed awake, coiling around his arm like smoke caught in wind. Fate threads bloomed into view — not just his own, but the world's.
The Hounds were powerful.
Their cultivation sat at the peak of the Soulbirth Realm, two minor realms beyond his current Mortal Vein stage.
But Tianming saw more than cultivation.
He saw their roots.
The silver-haired one: born without a spirit root, his cultivation forcibly bestowed by Heaven's law. His strength was not his own, but loaned. Borrowed.
A false root.
The second Hound: naturally gifted, born under the auspicious sign of the Jade Phoenix Star. A proud prodigy, but one who had never tasted true failure. His root burned brightly — yet rigidly.
A brittle root.
Li Tianming smiled.
It was time.
"First Rite… Invert the Root."
The glyph on his palm burned, and a sharp ringing filled the air. It was as if the world had been struck like a bell — and reality itself trembled.
A ring of inverted spiritual energy expanded outward from his body, washing over the two Hounds.
The effect was immediate.
The silver-haired Hound's power plunged — his false cultivation unraveled like cloth dipped in acid. His veins pulsed wildly, and the Heavenly Seal embedded in his chest sparked, unable to stabilize his qi.
"What…?!" he gasped, clutching his core. "My connection to the Sky Mandate—it's…"
"Unrooted," Li Tianming said simply.
The second Hound roared and dashed forward, his saber glowing with starfire, slicing down toward Tianming's head.
But Tianming raised one finger and touched the saber mid-air.
A twist.
A pulse.
The Phoenix Star in the man's fate thread flickered — and shattered. Not permanently, but momentarily reversed into a dying star. The pride and stability that came with his root turned into uncertainty. His spiritual core shook, and his attack faltered.
Li Tianming moved like ink flowing uphill — no wasted motion, no haste. He stepped inside the Hound's guard, struck once to the man's chest, and reversed his qi flow.
The man stumbled back, choking on his own spirit breath.
"You… you dare distort the ordained roots?!"
"I don't distort," Tianming replied. "I redefine."
By now, the forest itself had turned into a battlefield of threads.
Countless roots of grass, insects, and birds aligned around him — not by design, but instinct. All creatures knew when Heaven had been defied.
The silver-haired Hound recovered slightly, summoning a glyph of his own — a Heaven Seal, shining golden with absolute authority.
"By the authority of the Fifth Heaven Layer, I summon Heaven's Judgment!"
The seal exploded in light — and above them, the sky cracked. A single eye formed within the clouds, immense and uncaring.
A Partial Judgment Eye — a celestial punishment designed to incinerate deviation before it took root.
But as the eye gazed down…
It blinked.
The glyph on Li Tianming's palm flared, and fate itself curled inward, shielding him like an unseen cocoon. The eye hesitated — as if unable to recognize his existence in the way Heaven usually did.
"He's unrecorded…" the Hound whispered in horror. "He's not… registered by the Heavens…"
"Because I walk a path," Tianming whispered, "where Heaven has no eyes."
The sky cracked again—then retracted.
The Judgment Eye closed.
It blinked once… and retreated.
Silence fell.
The two Hounds stood frozen, disarmed not by brute force, but by metaphysical terror. One had been unrooted. The other had watched his divine support retreat in fear.
They understood now.
This was no rogue cultivator with a heretical technique.
This was the rebirth of a cataclysm.
The silver-haired Hound dropped to one knee, clutching his chest.
"We'll be back. You can't defy Heaven forever."
Tianming turned his back to them.
"Then tell your gods to send more than dogs."
Elsewhere — A Cold Palace Beneath the Azure Sky
A woman knelt before a crystalline lotus, eyes closed, listening.
Suddenly, she opened them.
"The Inverse Path… has activated its First Rite."
She looked toward the horizon.
"Yi Cangxue… has your shadow risen once more?"