---
Before the scream, there is silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that holds its breath…
right before reality fails to hold itself.
---
The Eternal Heaven Realm had stood for a million years.
Its walls weren't built from stone, but from uninterrupted belief.
Its formations did not guard—they reminded the world what law was.
But today, they flickered.
Not broken.
Uncertain.
---
A celestial bell tolled. Not out of schedule, but reflex.
The High Guardian of Eternal Heaven opened his eyes in meditation and felt it first:
A subtle dimming in the threads that flowed through him.
"Lightning Law… isn't responding?"
He opened his palm. The air curled.
But the thunder didn't come.
"Impossible…"
A thousand meters below him, disciples in formation stopped mid-chant.
Fire users exhaled—and the flames didn't answer.
A healing formation collapsed. A divine furnace turned cold.
---
From the peak of the realm, the Divine Grand Elder stood.
He watched as a figure in black walked slowly through the Seven Gate Array—without permission.
Not a ripple. Not a sound.
"Who enters the Eternal Heaven Realm without declaration?"
"State your Sect. State your Title."
The man said nothing.
Only when he passed the final gate did the Grand Elder feel it—
Presence.
The kind that should be impossible.
"...Yun Che."
The Grand Elder's pupils shrank.
---
The Divine Mirror of Spirit Sound activated.
Dozens of realm protectors watched from a sealed observation point.
But they couldn't see his face.
Every time the mirror tried to focus, it shuddered.
Each frame was slightly different—as if the world itself couldn't remember what it was seeing.
"He's Unraveling the viewing law…" one protector whispered in horror.
"How is this possible…?"
---
Across the realm, cultivators dropped to their knees—not in reverence…
but because their bodies no longer recognized how to stand in his presence.
Jade slips cracked.
Technique scrolls lost ink.
Entire spiritual veins began to dim.
Yun Che walked with his hands by his sides. He didn't draw his blade.
He didn't summon his energy.
He was the energy now.
The absence of everything.
The presence of something that should not be.
---
"This isn't power," the Grand Elder muttered.
"It's… contradiction."
He raised his hand to strike.
The moment he summoned lightning—
He forgot why he needed to.
His hand fell. Empty.
"...I don't remember what technique I was using…"
---
Above, in the Palace of Eternal Law, the Celestial Warden's decree descended.
"CLASS RED MEMORY ANOMALY."
"SUBJECT: Yun Che."
"CONDITION: UNREMEMBERABLE PRESENCE DETECTED."
"RESPONSE: FULL REALM QUARANTINE INITIATED."
"BEGIN LAWBACK: LEVEL III"
---
But it was too late.
The Sky Bell fractured.
The Realm Core dimmed.
And someone in the Divine Archives screamed—
"THE SCRIPTURE IS BLEEDING!"
They opened a jade scroll written 80,000 years ago…
…and Yun Che's name appeared in it.
Yun Che — Observer Class, Eternal Witness
*Date of Entry: Before Script.
*Entry Method: Retrocausal.
---
The Eternal Heaven Realm began to shake.
Not from earthquake.
But from doubt.
It began to wonder if it had ever truly been divine—
if its laws were real…
or merely convenient memories agreed upon too long ago.
---
Jasmine, far away, clutched her chest.
Tears rolled down her cheek.
"You're no longer walking back into the world…"
"You're making the world walk back into you."
Lyra dreamt of him again that night.
Except this time, when she said his name—
no one tried to erase it.
---
And far, far beneath the fractured heavens, in the vault that kept Primordial Scrolls,
a silent girl with white hair opened her eyes.
Sāra whispered:
"The scream has begun."
"And it will not stop until heaven forgets what silence was."
---