The network interface hovered in Wei Jin's mind like a spiderweb made of red laser light.
It was vast, intricate, and terrifyingly complex. It stretched from the edge of his perception into the deep void, connecting nodes that pulsed with the cold logic of the Silencers. Each node was a monitoring station, a relay satellite, or perhaps a weapon platform waiting for the signal to fire.
Wei Jin sat in his cavern, his physical body immobile while his Spirit Severing consciousness probed the edges of the web. He was careful. He was using a "virtual proxy"—a construct of Soul Force designed to mimic a passive data packet. He was trying to find a vulnerability, a port he could slip through to see what they saw.
He pushed a little harder against a firewall labeled [SECTOR 9 - CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS].
"Don't bother."
The voice didn't come from the network. It came from the chair opposite him.
Wei Jin snapped his consciousness back to his body. His eyes flew open.
Red Tulip was sitting there. She was swinging her legs, looking bored. She was wearing a yellow sundress this time, and she was eating a bag of spicy chips.
"You're very persistent," she said, crunching loudly. "It's annoying. But also kind of cute. Like a hamster trying to pick a lock."
Wei Jin didn't panic. Panic was inefficient. He activated his Iron Mind Fortress, sealing his thoughts behind walls of adamant will.
"Commander," he said evenly. "You have bypassed my defenses again."
"I am your defenses, silly," she said, tossing a chip into her mouth. "Or at least, I built the foundation they sit on. You can't lock the architect out of the house."
"Why are you here?" Wei Jin asked. "Have I crossed the line?"
"Not yet." She dusted crumbs off her hands. "But you were about to trip a silent alarm on the network. If you had touched that firewall, the automated defenses would have scrambled your brain. I decided to save you the trouble."
"How generous."
"I am generous!" She smiled, a flash of white teeth. "I'm the nice one. You should meet Commander Black Thorn. He doesn't talk. He just deletes."
She stood up and walked around the room, inspecting his equipment. She paused by the Spirit-Steam engine prototype in the corner.
"Quaint," she murmured. "Primitive. But effective."
She turned back to him. Her eyes lost their playful glint, becoming the deep, swirling pools of data he remembered.
"I am here to give you a task, Wei Jin."
"A task?"
"A promotion. A burden. Call it what you want." She hopped onto his desk, sitting on the polished obsidian. "The Collective Logic has shifted its priorities. We have detected a Tier 5 anomaly in the Andromeda Sector. A civilization that just figured out how to weaponize black holes. They are… messy."
Wei Jin felt a cold sweat. Weaponized black holes. That was the scale of the universe he lived in.
"We need to reallocate resources," Red Tulip continued. "We are pulling the main fleet from this sector. We won't bother this corner of the galaxy for a few centuries. Maybe five, maybe ten. To us, it's a coffee break."
Wei Jin's mind raced. The fleet was leaving. The immediate threat of sterilization was receding.
"You are leaving us unsupervised?" he asked, skeptical.
"Hardly." She tapped his forehead. "I'm leaving you in charge."
Wei Jin froze. "Me?"
"You are the Mole. The Hybrid. The Bridge." She smiled. "This is your test, Wei Jin. You must grow up and regulate this sector yourself. You must be the gardener. You must keep the weeds down. You must keep the noise level below Tier 4."
"You want me to do your job."
"I want you to prove that a civilization can self-regulate," she corrected. "We have never seen it happen. Every time a species reaches your level, they either blow themselves up or they get too loud and we have to step in. But you… you have the Code. You have the perspective."
She leaned in close.
"If you succeed… if you keep the humans quiet, if you keep them from building world-killers… then maybe, just maybe, when we come back, we won't have to wipe you out. We might even… welcome you."
"Welcome us to what?"
"To the club. The Galactic Community. The survivors."
It was a dazzling promise. Survival. Ascension. A seat at the table.
But then her face darkened. The air in the cavern grew heavy, gravity increasing until the stone groaned.
"But be warned, Wei Jin. If you go overboard… if you let them build something we can't ignore, or if you try to build it yourself… I will know. The System will know."
She placed a finger on his chest, right over his heart.
"I will erase your consciousness. I will wipe 'Wei Jin' from the hard drive. And I will put the Code in charge. Your body will remain, your power will remain, but you will be gone. You will become a meat puppet for the Silencer protocols. A perfect, unfeeling administrator."
Wei Jin stared at her. The threat was absolute. It wasn't death; it was erasure. It was becoming the very thing he feared.
"Do you understand?" she asked softly.
"I understand," Wei Jin said.
"Good." She hopped off the desk. "Oh, and about the network access… don't try to hack it again. I'll give you a dedicated line. A red phone, so to speak. Use it only for emergencies. Or if you have a really good joke. I get bored easily."
"Wait," Wei Jin said as she began to fade.
She paused. "Yes?"
Wei Jin looked at her. He saw the immense power, the ancient intelligence, the terrifying indifference. But he also saw a hint of… hope? Was she rooting for him? Or was she just betting on a horse race?
"I need something," he said.
"Of course you do. Humans always want things."
"I am about to reach the peak of the Spirit Severing stage," Wei Jin said. "My cultivation method—the Azure Soul Refining Method—has reached its limit. I need the next step. I need a Soul Formation method."
Red Tulip raised an eyebrow. "Greedy."
"Practical," Wei Jin countered. "If I am to be your warden… if I am to police a planet of billions, and hold back neighbors like the Felixians… I need power. Spirit Severing is not enough to deter a starship."
She considered him. She tapped her chin.
"True. Zale respects strength. And if the Thousand Beast Sect gets their hands on some ancient tech… you'll need a bigger stick."
She grinned.
"As an agent, you must have some privileges, right?"
She snapped her fingers.
A beam of red light shot from her hand into Wei Jin's forehead.
It didn't hurt. It felt like cold water being poured into his brain. Information flooded his mind. Complex geometries. Soul structures that defied Euclidean space. The architectural blueprints for a divinity.
[SYSTEM ALERT][DATA RECEIVED: SILENCER PROTOCOL - SOUL FORMATION VARIANT][INTEGRATION PENDING…]
Wei Jin gasped, clutching his head. The complexity was staggering. It wasn't just a cultivation method; it was a schematic for turning a soul into a computational engine.
"It's a modified version," Red Tulip explained. "Optimized for your hybrid nature. It emphasizes control, perception, and… suppression. Fitting, don't you think?"
She waved.
"Good luck, Warden. Don't disappoint me."
She vanished.
—————
The Burden of the Warden
Wei Jin sat alone in the cavern for hours. The new data hummed in his mind, a cold, efficient song.
He was free. Partially.
The fleet was leaving. The immediate executioner was gone. Humanity had a reprieve. Five hundred years. A millennium. Time enough to grow, to change, to prepare.
But the cost was high.
He was now the jailer. He had been deputized by the very force he sought to resist. He had to suppress his own people to save them.
He thought of the Northern King he had killed. Was he any different now?
"I am what I decide to be," he reminded himself. "I will use their tools, but I will not use their logic."
He made a decision. He would not tell anyone about this meeting. Not even Lin Mei. Not even Ruyi.
It was too dangerous. If they knew the Silencers were gone, they might get complacent. They might push too hard, too fast. They might think they had won.
And if they knew Wei Jin was one step away from being overwritten by an alien AI… the fear would paralyze them.
"They need to believe the threat is imminent," Wei Jin decided. "Fear breeds caution. Caution buys time."
Then he turned his attention to the new method.
[SILENCER PROTOCOL - SOUL FORMATION VARIANT][Description: A method to restructure the Nascent Soul into a 'World Soul.' Allows for the direct manipulation of planetary ley lines, localized reality overwriting, and massive parallel processing. Requires: Peak Spirit Severing cultivation, 100% Mental Fortress efficiency, and… Total Emotional Control.]
Total Emotional Control.
The Silencers wanted him to be a machine.
"I will master it," Wei Jin vowed. "But I will keep my heart."
He began the integration.
—————
Two Years Later
The integration was grueling. The Silencer method was efficient, brutal, and devoid of the organic flow of his previous techniques. It felt like replacing his veins with fiber optics.
But it worked.
Wei Jin sat on the roof of the central tower. It was midnight. The city below was a jewel of light, but he had dimmed it. New laws had mandated "light discipline" after midnight to reduce the energy signature. The citizens grumbled, but they obeyed. They trusted the Architect.
His cultivation had reached the absolute peak of the Spirit Severing realm. The Late Stage was full. His soul was a dense, vibrating mass of power, pushing against the constraints of reality.
He was ready to break through. To the Mid-Level Spirit Severing? No. To something beyond. The nomenclature of the Silencers was different. They didn't use "levels." They used "processing states."
But in human terms, he was approaching the threshold of Soul Formation.
The step where the soul leaves the body not just as a projection, but as a permanent state. Where the body becomes a mere anchor, a shell.
He needed to test his new power.
He connected to his clones. They were now fully integrated into the global network, acting as silent guardians.
"Report," Wei Jin projected.
"Clone 1: The fusion reactor prototypes have been dismantled. We replaced them with high-efficiency geothermal taps. Energy signature reduced by 12%," reported the Scientist.
"Clone 42: The Thousand Beast Sect has quieted down. Our spies report that their cyborg beasts are malfunctioning. The 'virus' we introduced into their control runes is working," said the Strategist.
"Clone 7: The Empire is stable. The Crown Prince—now Emperor—listens to Wei Tianming. He fears the 'Alien Threat' more than he fears us," said the Diplomat.
Wei Jin nodded. The world was quiet. The garden was pruned.
He looked at the sky. He activated his new Silencer Protocol.
His perception zoomed out. He left his body. He left the city. He rose into the stratosphere.
He saw the planet. A blue and green marble, wrapped in the faint, shimmering web of the Planetary Cloak.
He saw the ley lines of the world, glowing like veins of gold.
He reached out with his new, cold power. He grabbed the ley lines.
Adjust.
He tweaked the flow of global qi. He diverted energy from the volatile volcanic regions to the depleted agricultural zones. He smoothed out spiritual storms over the oceans.
He was tuning the planet. Making it hum in a lower key.
It was intoxicating. The power to shape a world.
But as he looked down, he saw a tiny spark of resistance.
In the Western Federation, in a secret bunker deep underground, a group of scientists were powering up a particle collider. They were trying to create a miniature black hole.
Wei Jin sighed. "Children playing with matches."
He focused. Reality Editing.
He reached down, through the rock, into the machine. He didn't destroy it. He simply… altered the friction coefficient of the superconducting magnets.
The machine seized. The experiment failed. The scientists scratched their heads, confused.
"Not today," Wei Jin whispered.
He returned to his body.
He opened his eyes. He was sweating. The strain of planetary manipulation was immense.
But he had done it. He had kept the noise down.
Red Tulip would be pleased.
Or would she?
He checked the panel.
[CULTIVATION SYSTEM v4.5][Admin Message Received: "Nice touch with the friction. Subtle. I like it. - RT"]
She was watching. Always watching.
Wei Jin stood up.
He needed to advance. He needed to reach Soul Formation. Because at that level, the protocol said he would gain access to "Local Sector Command."
He could take control of the orbital defenses left behind by the Silencers.
If he could control the guns, he didn't have to be just a warden. He could be a king.
—————
The Visit to the Family
The next day, Wei Jin visited the family compound.
Wei Long was there, now 27. He was a Late-Stage Golden Core cultivator, a genius who made Wei Jin look slow. He was working on a holographic table, manipulating streams of code.
"Hi," Wei Long said, not looking up. "The new encryption algorithms for the Cloak are ready. I used a recursive fractal pattern based on the ancient texts."
"Good work, Long," Wei Jin said.
"It's not enough," the young man said, turning. His eyes were intense. "The Cloak hides us, but it blinds us too. We can't see out clearly."
"We see enough."
"Do we?" Wei Long tapped the table. "I picked up a signal yesterday. Extremely faint. Directional. It wasn't from the Silencers. And it wasn't from the Felixians."
Wei Jin frowned. "Source?"
"Unknown. Deep space. But the modulation… it was mathematical. Prime numbers. It was a greeting."
Wei Jin's heart skipped a beat. Another civilization? Or a trap?
"Did you respond?"
"No. Protocol forbids transmission." Wei Long looked frustrated. "But … if there are others… allies…"
"Or other hunters," Wei Jin said. "Delete the data. Scrub the buffer."
"But-"
"Delete it." Wei Jin's voice carried the weight of the Spirit Severing realm. It wasn't a request.
Wei Long clenched his jaw. He typed a command. The data vanished.
"Done."
"Trust me, Long," Wei Jin said softer. "Curiosity kills the civilization."
He left the room.
He walked into the garden. Ruyi was there, playing with their daughter, Wei Ling. The girl was five years old, a bright, happy child with no cultivation yet. Wei Jin had forbidden it until she was seven. He wanted her to have a childhood.
Ruyi looked up. "You look heavy."
"The air is heavy," Wei Jin said.
"You have secrets," she said. "New ones."
"Necessary ones."
She stood up and walked to him. She placed a hand on his chest.
"You are becoming… cold, Wei Jin. Your qi is losing its warmth."
"It is the new method," he lied. "Starlight is cold."
"Is it?" She looked at him with her ancient eyes. "Or is it the company you keep?"
"I am doing what I must," Wei Jin said.
"I know," she said. "Just… don't forget why you are doing it. Don't forget her." She pointed to Wei Ling, chasing a butterfly.
"I never forget," Wei Jin said.
He watched his daughter. She laughed as the butterfly landed on her nose.
For her, he would be the monster. For her, he would be the jailer.
For her, he would lie to the world.
—————
[CULTIVATION SYSTEM v4.5][Project: SOUL FORMATION BREAKTHROUGH - Estimated Time: 1 Year][Warning: Emotional Suppression at 40%. Recommend Increase for Stability.]
Wei Jin looked at the warning.
Emotional Suppression. The Silencer method required it. To wield the power of a world, one could not be swayed by the weeping of a child or the anger of a general.
He had a choice. Increase the suppression, become the perfect administrator, and guarantee the breakthrough. Or keep his feelings, risk instability, and maybe fail.
He looked at Wei Ling.
"Decrease suppression to 20%," he commanded the system.
[WARNING: EFFICIENCY WILL DECREASE. RISK OF BACKLASH INCREASED.]
"Do it."
[CONFIRMED. ADJUSTING…]
He felt a rush of warmth. Fear. Love. Guilt. It was overwhelming. It hurt.
But it was him.
He would break through the hard way. He would drag his humanity through the needle's eye of divinity.
He walked over and picked up his daughter. She giggled.
"Caught you," he said.
"Catch me again, Baba!" she squealed, wiggling free.
Wei Jin smiled.
"I will," he promised. "Always."
—————
End of Chapter Six, Book Five
—————