The Eastern Wasteland began hunting a name.
Lin Mo.
Not with drums and proclamations.
But with silence.
Within half a month, seven major sects issued sealed internal decrees. There were no public bounties, no wanted posters. Yet enforcement squads quietly departed their mountains and dispersed across the continent.
The Heavenly Calculation Pavilion reopened its auxiliary gates.
At the summit tower, twelve elders joined hands to activate a formation that had not been used for centuries — the Heaven-Measurement Disk.
Upon the crystalline surface, threads of light intertwined into countless trajectories. At the center hovered a dim black point.
"Is that him?"
"No."
An elder with snow-white brows shook his head.
"That is where causality has been severed."
"We cannot see him."
The air in the tower grew heavy.
If the Heavenly Calculation Pavilion could not perceive him, it meant Heaven itself had lost its grasp.
And that was more dangerous than rebellion.
At the southern edge of the Eastern Wasteland, where desert met ancient forest, an abandoned city lay beneath fading twilight.
Lin Mo stood upon its broken walls.
He did not need eyes to feel the change in the world.
Since entering the realm of the Tilted Axis, he could see invisible threads binding every being to heaven and earth. Now those threads were tightening.
Many of them... pointed toward him.
He was being tracked.
That did not surprise him.
What unsettled him was the speed.
Suddenly, a particular thread trembled.
It did not originate from the Eastern Wasteland.
It descended from above.
From beyond.
He lifted his gaze.
The fracture in the sky flickered faintly.
A cold thought brushed his consciousness.
"Testing reaction."
Lin Mo narrowed his eyes.
So he was not merely observed.
He was being experimented upon.
Night fell.
The ruined city sank into stillness.
Lin Mo sat cross-legged in the shattered plaza. He did not conceal his aura. He did not deploy formations.
He waited.
The wind shifted at the third watch of the night.
Twelve figures appeared on the surrounding rooftops.
Black robes.
Silver masks.
Their individual auras were not overwhelming.
But when they took position, an invisible net formed between them.
"Enforcement Hall. Northern Profound Sacred Land."
A deep voice echoed.
"Lin Mo, you have been listed on the Tilted Axis Register."
"You will come with us."
Lin Mo opened his eyes.
"The Tilted Axis Register?"
"Those capable of distorting Heaven's order."
"You are the first."
A faint smile touched his lips.
"So Heaven fears me?"
No answer came.
A silent signal.
The twelve moved simultaneously.
They did not attack directly.
They sealed.
Twelve pillars of black light shot upward, linking into a closed cage.
Space compressed.
Time slowed.
This was no ordinary formation.
It was designed to contain anomalies.
Lin Mo felt it clearly — each pillar was anchored to distant spiritual veins, drawing upon the land itself.
They did not intend to kill him.
They intended to lock him down.
"You think," Lin Mo said calmly, "that I still occupy the same layer of space as you?"
His shadow shifted.
Not detached.
But misaligned.
The twelve enforcement cultivators stiffened.
In that instant, Lin Mo stepped forward.
Only one step.
But it was a step sideways in reality.
The cage still existed.
But it now enclosed... the version of him that had already moved.
He appeared behind one of them.
A single finger extended.
There was no explosion of spiritual power.
Only the severing of a causal thread.
The cultivator froze.
His eyes emptied.
He did not die.
But he lost connection to Heaven.
A hollow vessel.
The remaining eleven instantly altered formation.
Containment shifted to suppression.
An ancient sword manifested above, drawing the surrounding spiritual currents into a single devastating descent.
This time, they held nothing back.
But as the sword fell—
The fracture in the sky widened slightly.
A pressure descended.
Not targeting Lin Mo.
But pressing upon the entire city.
"Recording high-intensity reaction."
The thought was cold.
The Observers were intervening.
Lin Mo raised his head.
His gaze locked with the fracture.
"So this is your test?"
He lifted his hand.
The broken sigil upon his brow rotated in opposite directions.
A vortex formed around him.
Not spiritual energy.
Not dao intent.
But deviation.
The descending sword trembled.
The formation skewed.
Space tilted.
To the enforcement cultivators, Lin Mo appeared doubled.
Then tripled.
Then layered in overlapping planes.
He did not move faster.
He simply ceased to occupy the position they perceived.
One by one, they collapsed.
Not from wounds.
But from severed anchors of causality.
When silence returned, the city lay further ruined.
Twelve enforcement cultivators lay motionless.
Alive.
But no longer bound to Heaven.
Lin Mo stood amid debris.
His breathing was steady.
The Tilted Axis was not without cost.
Each shift between layers consumed vast spiritual will.
And deep within his consciousness, he sensed something else.
Another eye... opening.
Not within the fracture.
But above it.
Far beyond the Eastern Wasteland.
Upon the floating continent suspended in void.
Inside the Third Black Tower, a youth in gray robes sat before a black-and-white board.
The pieces upon it were not stone.
They were worlds.
Points of light representing universes.
One point flickered intensely.
"Interesting."
The youth placed a piece.
Another world trembled.
"Let us see how far you can tilt."
Behind him, the man in white observed silently.
"Do not break it too early."
The youth smiled faintly.
"I am only increasing the difficulty."
Back in the Eastern Wasteland, news of the twelve missing enforcement cultivators reached the Northern Profound Sacred Land.
This time, silence ended.
A covert kill-order was issued.
Three seclusion-bound ancestors broke their retreat.
The Heavenly Calculation Pavilion finalized the Tilted Axis Register.
Besides Lin Mo, two other faint names emerged.
Two unknown variables.
The grand game began to move.
That night, Lin Mo left the ruined city.
He did not return to any sect.
He traveled westward.
At the far edge of the Eastern Wasteland lay a cliff known as Heaven's End.
Legend claimed it was where the sky touched earth.
It was also where the first fracture had appeared.
He could not remain reactive.
If he was a variable—
He had to seek the equation's origin.
Wind roared across the cliff.
Below lay an endless misted abyss.
Above, the fracture pulsed faintly.
Lin Mo stepped to the edge.
For the first time, he deliberately pushed his consciousness beyond the primary layer.
Not half a step.
But fully outward.
In that instant—
He did not see stars.
He saw an ocean.
An infinite ocean.
Within it floated countless bubbles.
Each bubble a universe.
And between them stood colossal silhouettes.
The Observers.
One turned toward him.
For the first time, its gaze was not entirely indifferent.
There was fluctuation.
"Variable... unauthorized boundary crossing."
Lin Mo met its gaze.
"I am not your variable."
"I am your question."
The ocean trembled.
And within that tremor—
A distant bubble, small and far away...
Developed a crack.