For three years, Dao Wei drifted between consciousness and oblivion, his body suspended in an endless abyss where time had no meaning. There was no sky, no ground, only darkness layered upon darkness, pierced occasionally by flashes of memory that cut sharper than any blade.
The chase.
The fall of the Sword God Sect.
The cold, merciless light of formations activating behind him.
And finally, the abyssal fall.
Then, silence.
Dao Wei's eyelids trembled.
A faint warmth brushed against his senses, gentle yet profound, like sunlight filtered through ancient leaves. Slowly, painfully, he opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was gold. Not the blinding gold of treasures or techniques, but a living, soft, deep, and immeasurable breathing radiance.
Above him towered a colossal tree.
Its trunk was wider than a mountain hall, its bark etched with natural runes that pulsed faintly with each unseen breath of the world. Roots thicker than rivers spread outward, disappearing into a ground that shimmered between soil and light. From its branches cascaded countless leaves, each one glowing like molten stars suspended in still air.
The Golden Bodhi Tree.
A myth spoken of only in half-forgotten scriptures. A symbol of enlightenment that no cultivator truly believed existed.
Dao Wei lay beneath it, his back pressed against warm earth, his body strangely light.
"...I'm alive?"
His voice came out hoarse, unfamiliar. When he tried to circulate Qi out of instinct, his brows furrowed.
There was no familiar response, no dense, obedient spiritual energy flooding his meridians.
His internal pathways felt vast, too vast. Where once his meridians had been rigid channels refined through countless life-and-death struggles, now they were fluid, rewritten into something more primal, more natural. His dantian felt empty, yet not damaged. It was like a calm lake before the first drop of rain.
Dao Wei slowly sat up. With that simple motion, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and fragments of memory surged forth.
He remembered Qingling, standing at the peak of the Saint Realm, praised as a genius, feared as a rising star. He remembered light and shadow coiling within his soul, never fully in harmony, always on the brink of tearing him apart.
And then… nothing.
The years of falling were gone, stripped away as if they had never existed.
"Three years…" he murmured, though he did not know how he knew. "So this is where I landed."
As if responding to his thoughts, the air around him stirred. The Bodhi Tree's leaves rustled without wind, releasing faint motes of golden light that drifted downward like falling snow. The moment they touched Dao Wei's skin, they dissolved, seeping into him effortlessly.
His heart trembled.
This was not ordinary Qi, neither did it carry any aggression. It simply was.
Suddenly, a presence brushed against his consciousness, it wasn't a voice, not quite a thought either, but an awareness vast and ancient.
"You have fallen far, child of cycles."
Dao Wei's pupils contracted. He did not stand, nor did he bow. Instinct told him that neither gesture mattered here.
"Who are you?" he asked calmly.
The presence did not answer directly. Instead, images bloomed in his mind: worlds forming and collapsing, cultivators rising and turning to dust, light birthing shadow, shadow cradling light. At the center of it all stood the Bodhi Tree.
"You are both beginning and end," the presence conveyed.
"You have walked as light. You have drowned in darkness."
"This time, you must see."
Dao Wei clenched his fists as pain flickered across his features.
"I don't remember choosing this," he said.
"No one ever does."
The ground beneath him pulsed once. Dao Wei suddenly felt something coiled deep within his soul, sealed yet unmistakable. A duality older than his current life, older perhaps than the world he had come from.
His breathing slowed.
"So… this is reincarnation?"
There was no affirmation, no denial. Only a final, resonant whisper that echoed through his very being:
"Break the cycle," the words echoed in his mind.
The presence receded, and the golden motes faded.
Dao Wei was alone once more beneath the vast canopy of the Golden Bodhi Tree.
He looked down at his hands, unscarred, refined, and reborn. Whatever cultivation he once possessed was gone, yet something far greater waited in its place.
A new path.
Dao Wei closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
"So this is where I ended up," he said softly. "Then… I'll start over here."
Above him, a single Bodhi leaf detached from the branch and drifted down, coming to rest gently against his chest, right above his heart.
The Bodhi leaf resting on Dao Wei's chest dissolved without warning.
It simply melted into him, seeping past skin and bone as if his body had always been waiting for it.
A quiet thrum echoed in his chest.
Dao Wei inhaled sharply. The breath felt… deeper than before. It was as if the world itself had made room for his lungs.
He rose to his feet.
Only then did he truly look around.
The space beneath the Golden Bodhi Tree extended far beyond what he had first perceived. What he had thought to be warm earth revealed itself as layered terrain, stone veined with glowing roots, soil infused with drifting Qi, streams of light flowing like shallow rivers across the ground.
This was not a single clearing.
It was a world folded inward.
Dao Wei took a step forward. The moment his foot touched the ground beyond the tree's shadow, the scenery shifted. The air grew thinner, and the warmth receded.
He froze.
The sky, if it could be called that, was fractured. Vast cracks split the firmament like broken glass, each fissure leaking strands of crimson energy that twisted and evaporated before reaching the ground. Elemental storms raged far in the distance: pillars of fire colliding with walls of water, metallic winds shredding mountains, earth rising only to collapse again.
The world was literally tearing apart.
"This is… " Dao Wei murmured.
Instinctively, he turned back.
The Golden Bodhi Tree still stood behind him, radiant and whole, its golden canopy untouched by the chaos beyond. Around it, an invisible boundary shimmered faintly, ancient seals layered upon seals, concealing this sanctum from the outside world.
The presence returned, quieter now, closer. No longer overwhelming, it was more like a patient observer.
"A primordial world carved from the last moment of balance."
Dao Wei clenched his jaw. "The world outside?"
There was a palpable silence for a moment.
"Already falling."
The words carried no drama.
Dao Wei stepped closer to the boundary, reaching out. The moment his fingers brushed the shimmering veil, a violent surge of chaotic Qi lashed back, forcing him to retreat. His arm trembled, skin crawling as conflicting elements tore at his senses.
If he had remained any longer…
He exhaled slowly.
"So even now… I can't step out."
"Not yet."
The Bodhi Tree's roots pulsed, sending waves of stabilizing energy through the sanctum. The chaotic storms beyond dimmed slightly, held at bay by the ancient seals.
"Your body has been reborn, but your foundation is empty.
The world beyond will tear you apart."
Dao Wei laughed softly. Not in bitterness, but much more like acceptance.
"Still the same," he said. "No shortcuts."
Dao Wei turned inward, focusing on his dantian. It was quiet, vast, and empty. Yet beneath that emptiness lay something coiled, dormant, watching. Light and dark intertwined, neither dominant.
A seed.
No… seeds.
His expression sobered. "You said the world remembers me not."
"You were erased from its flow."
Images surfaced, his fall through the abyss, time stretching and folding, his existence slipping between cycles. Qingling had moved on. Arrata had never known him.
"But the world still needs you."
Dao Wei closed his eyes.
He remembered his former self, always advancing, always competing, always chasing the next realm. Strength measured by how many stood beneath him, how many feared him.
That Dao Wei had fallen.
Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground and sat cross-legged beneath the Bodhi Tree once more.
"Then I'll make this my home," Dao Wei said quietly.
Whoosh!
The Qi within the sanctum stirred, not violently, but gently, gathering around Dao Wei like curious fireflies. The Bodhi Tree's light dimmed slightly, not fading, but focusing. Its radiance flowed downward, brushing against Dao Wei's consciousness.
The storms beyond the boundary continued to rage. Cracks widened. Somewhere in Arrata, mountains collapsed, rivers boiled, cultivators screamed at the sky.
But within the Sanctum of Roots, there was stillness. And in that stillness, Dao Wei took his first true breath in this new world.