Age Sixteen.
It was the age when even the most ordinary scion of the White Court Empire had long since grasped their Dao. Lightning, shadow, blade, water — even obscure paths like Echo or Bone had bloomed early in others. At sixteen, cultivators were already being groomed for Elder seats, military command, or Heavenly Academy placement.
And yet, Aeon stood beneath the Grand Observatory's jade archways — unawakened.
He wore the ceremonial white robe of his House. His long black hair, bound by silver thread, shimmered under the array of celestial mirrors. Officials, instructors, and disciples lined the viewing platforms. Not to gawk — no one dared disrespect the son of Sovereign Yurell — but to confirm what they feared: that Aeon was indeed still without a Dao.
He had stood here before.
Once at age six, again at eight, twelve, and fourteen. The testing formations always failed to react. Not a tremble. Not a flicker of Qi from the heavens or the earth. Nothing.
But today… today was different.
Not because Aeon had gained a Dao.
But because he had changed.
For the last year, he had studied in near silence. Devouring old tomes. Whispering questions to the air. Watching the stars from the Matriarch's rooftop at midnight. He had not cried, nor lashed out. But something within him had coiled tight — like the string of a divine bow pulled to its absolute limit.
Somewhere inside, he had begun to remember.
Not as memory — but as echo.
When Aeon was five, he had wandered into a forbidden chamber and found a scroll. Not just any scroll — but the scroll. The same that had hung impossibly large across the sky the moment he was born, a divine phenomenon witnessed by the highest elders and recorded in silent dread. A scroll not written in ink, but in truth. It had shimmered across the upper realms like a veil of infinite parchment, with no visible end. And whoever gazed upon it — even the Matriarch herself — felt their sense of self falter.
"It showed me myself," one ancient had whispered. "But it also asked… why?"
That scroll had vanished moments after his birth. But not before something — or someone — intervened.
For when the Grand Dao itself, in knowing all past, present, and future, reached out to erase this paradox of a child — it failed. Not because it could not strike, but because the record of Aeon's existence had already been sealed. By what? Or who? No one knew.
In truth, it was Aeon himself.
Or rather — a future Aeon, transcendent, beyond Grand Dao, who had reached back across time and written his own name across the scroll. In doing so, he made the Grand Dao hesitate, for it could not erase what had already become eternal.
That moment had left a mark. Not one visible on the skin, but one buried deep in the soul.
Aeon had found the scroll again — or rather, a fragment of it — when he was five.
But it had taken eleven more years for his mind to ask the question buried within it.
"Begin the test," intoned High Master Verron, unfurling the Dao-Sensing Silk.
Aeon stepped forward.
He placed his hands upon the silk, let his breath fall still.
Silence.
Not a hum. Not a glow.
A low murmur ran through the crowd. But it stopped at a glare from Lady Hanyin, his mother, who stood beside the Matriarch, tall and unreadable in her violet battle robes.
From his perch, Sovereign Yurell did not rise. He merely watched. Eyes piercing, unreadable. His son had failed again. And yet… he made no move to speak.
But within Aeon — something stirred.
It was not anger. Nor shame.
It was a question.
"What are you sensing for?" he thought. "Fire? Sword? Stars? Why must I be named by something lesser than myself?"
He let his gaze fall to the cloth. The Dao-Sensing Silk, revered by generations, meant to reflect the 'signature' of a soul.
And he realized — it sensed Walkers.
But he was not a Walker.
He was the Path.
The cloth meant to guide him had no power over him.
He lifted his hand slowly and stepped back.
"I have no Dao," he said calmly. "Because I do not follow."
Gasps. Not from what he said. But the way he said it.
The tone. The presence.
It was as if the boy who had been empty his entire life now carried the weight of inevitability.
In the Matriarch's heart, a tremble echoed. She looked down from her platform, eyes misting.
"He is not empty," she thought. "He is the question before all answers. The silence before the first sound. The stillness that demands meaning."
One of Aeon's elder sisters' moved to stand — her robe glowing with the runes of the Dao of Memory. She had always been the most affectionate, the most present in Aeon's life. Her brow furrowed, but her voice was clear.
"Aeon…"
But she said nothing else. For she remembered. Not just events — but emotions, echoes. And what she saw in Aeon now frightened her — not in fear, but awe.
She could not remember ever meeting anyone with a soul that refused definition.
Later that night, Aeon wandered the western grounds alone.
The ceremony had concluded. No punishment. No shame cast upon him.
For he was still the prince of the White Court Empire. His bloodline could burn through mountains. His father commanded armies, and his mother had once subdued a celestial beast by word alone. His siblings, all Dao-touched, respected him, even if they did not understand him.
But even amidst all this greatness… he had never felt more apart.
He sat beneath the moon-tree planted by the first Sovereign Emperor. And from his robe, he took out the scroll. The one he had stolen years ago, buried deep in the restricted archives. The one that had first whispered the word:
Existence.
He read the faded lines again. And though he had read them a hundred times, tonight, they were different.
"The Dao is the path."
"The path exists because there is one to walk it."
"Therefore, the proof of existence precedes even the Dao."
His hands shook.
Not from fear. From understanding.
"Then let it be so," Aeon whispered. "If I cannot follow a path… I will become the one that precedes all paths."
As if answering his vow, the stars above shifted — just slightly.
And in the farthest corner of the heavens, a light pulsed once. Prismatic. Opalescent. White beyond white.
And in the soul of a boy denied by all scripts, a seed bloomed.
The Dao of Existence had begun to awaken.