Chapter 13: Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13: THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

The Night Weaver's face was unreadable, but something shifted in her ancient eyes—a flicker of something that might have been respect, or grief, or both.

"On the other side of the Sky-Splitting Abyss," she said. "Where the Heavenly Mountains themselves cracked open, and the light of the gods fell into the darkness below. The Vault was built there, on the very edge of the breach, so that it would be the last thing to fall if the demons ever broke through."

"Of course it was," Wang Lei muttered. "Because Heaven doesn't believe in best-case scenarios."

"The Abyss is not like the path you walked to reach the Court. The demons here are weakened, scattered remnants of a sealed army. The foothills of the Abyss are their staging ground. They gather there, pressing against the seals, waiting for any weakness they can exploit."

Wang Lei reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen glowed to life—one bar of signal, and the battery was at sixty-seven percent.

"No signal," he said. "But that's fine. I don't need service. I just need the map."

He opened his GPS app. It showed him a map of Chengdu, his current location marked as "Lotus Apartments, Wuhou District." He zoomed out. The map didn't change. There was no Heavenly Court on any earthly map.

"Stupid," he said, pocketing the phone. "What was I expecting? That they'd have the Heavenly Vault listed on Baidu Maps?"

"Your mortal devices won't work here," the Night Weaver said. "The magic that sustains Heaven is too different from your world's physics. But there are other ways to navigate."

She reached into her robes and drew out a thin strip of black silk, no wider than his thumb and impossibly long. It shimmered as it unspooled from her hand, and when it settled, it formed a single continuous line that stretched out before them, vanishing into the darkness.

"The Path of Silk," she said. "It leads to the Abyss. But it's not a straight road. The silk will guide you through the broken places, the forgotten paths, the routes that even the demons don't fully guard. Follow it, and it will take you where you need to go."

Wang Lei squinted at the shimmering ribbon. "And if I lose it?"

"You won't. The silk is bound to you now. It will always return to your hand, no matter how far it falls. But be warned—it doesn't just guide you. It shows you what you need to see. Sometimes that's not the same as what you want to see."

The ground beneath them shook. A low, guttural roar filled the void, and Wang Lei felt the temperature drop sharply.

"They're getting closer," the Night Weaver said, urgency creeping into her voice. "The seals around the Court are failing faster than we anticipated. Whatever they're doing out there, it's not just an attack. They're feeding on the Emperor's power directly."

Wang Lei's eyes flicked to the Emperor. The ancient being looked more shrunken than before, his skin a waxy pale, the golden seals across his chest flickering like dying candles.

"The package," he said. "What's actually in it? The Emperor said it was a key. A key to what?"

The Night Weaver hesitated. Then she reached out and touched the delivery bag at Wang Lei's side. The fabric rippled at her touch.

"It's not just a key," she said. "It's a piece of the Vault itself. Before the demons were sealed, the Vault was the last line of defense—a prison that could hold anything, even beings like the Star Eaters. When Heaven fell into disarray, the Vault was sealed with the Emperor's own essence. He gave up a piece of his soul to make sure nothing could ever open it."

"So you're telling me I'm carrying a piece of a god's soul in my delivery bag?"

"In a manner of speaking. The Emperor's last act of defiance was to hide that piece away, to ensure that even if the demons broke through the seals, they'd never find a way to access the Vault's true contents. And now that piece is in your hands."

Wang Lei stared at the bag. The weight of it suddenly felt impossible.

"What's in the Vault?" he asked.

The Night Weaver's face tightened. "I don't know. No one does. It was sealed before the first stars were born. But there are whispers—old whispers, from the earliest memories of Creation—that say the Vault contains the one weapon that can destroy a Star Eater for good. Not just seal it, not just imprison it, but erase it from existence."

Wang Lei's mouth went dry. "And the demons know this?"

"They know what they can sense. They can feel the presence of the Vault, taste the power radiating from it. They don't know where it is—not exactly. But they know the key exists. And they'll do anything to get it."

As if on cue, another roar shook the darkness. This time, it was closer. Wang Lei saw movement in the shadows—massive shapes, hunched and crawling, their forms barely visible but their presence unmistakable.

"Time to go," he said.

The Night Weaver stepped back. Her form began to blur, her edges dissolving into threads of silk that spiraled away into the darkness.

"One more thing," she said, her voice growing faint. "The Silk will guide you, but it will also test you. The Path is not just a physical journey. It's a journey of the soul. You'll face things that aren't real, see things that never happened, feel things you've long buried. Don't give in to them. The path only leads forward."

"Great," Wang Lei muttered. "So I'm on a haunted road trip through demon territory with a piece of a god's soul in my bag. This is definitely the best delivery of my life."

He reached for his scooter—and then stopped. The scooter was still there, parked where he'd left it, but the bodywork was cracked and blackened, the battery light dead.

"Ah, no. No, no, no."

He checked the bike more carefully. The front wheel was warped, the suspension collapsed, the tires flat. Whatever had happened when he'd fallen through the portal had done a number on it.

"You have got to be kidding me."

The Night Weaver's voice echoed from the darkness, barely audible now. "Your mortal vehicles will not survive the Abyss. The path will provide what you need—if you're worthy of it."

"Worthy? Worthy of what?"

But there was no response. She was gone.

Wang Lei stood alone in the void, the emperor's sleeping form behind him, the silk path glowing before him, and his broken scooter at his feet.

He crouched down and ran a hand over the cracked seat. This bike had gotten him through rain, sleet, traffic jams, angry customers, and at least three near-death experiences involving stray dogs and unmarked speed bumps.

And now it was dead.

"Okay," he said, taking a deep breath. "Okay. I've worked with less."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the charger cable—the one he'd been carrying for months, wrapped around his hand like a lifeline. It was frayed at the ends, held together by tape and prayer.

An idea sparked in his mind. A stupid, reckless, completely insane idea.

He looked at the cable. At the scooter. At the silk path stretching into the darkness.

"Ne Zha said I had the blood of a god in me," he muttered. "And my rating's never dropped below ninety-nine percent."

He pressed the cable's connector against the scooter's charging port. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes and focused, reaching for that strange warmth he'd felt in his chest since he'd arrived in Heaven—the same warmth that had let him command the wind and deflect demonic attacks.

He pushed that warmth into the cable. Into the scooter.

The bike shuddered. The headlights flickered—once, twice—and then blazed to life, cutting through the darkness like twin suns.

The tires straightened, the bodywork sealing itself, black scars filling in with new metal. The battery display, which had been dead, flickered to life: 1%—just enough to get him started.

"One percent," he said, swinging his leg over the seat. "That's all I need."

The scooter hummed beneath him, a low, eager buzz that felt almost alive. He gripped the handlebars, the silk path glowing ahead of him like a road made of moonlight.

"Alright," he said. "Let's see what Heaven's got."

He twisted the throttle.

The scooter launched forward, and Wang Lei's stomach lurched as the world blurred past him. The silk path wasn't just guiding him—it was pulling him, accelerating, dragging him through corridors of light and shadow that couldn't exist in any normal space.

The darkness around him twisted into impossible geometries—mountains that folded into themselves, rivers that flowed upward, forests made of glass and moonlight. The silk path cut through it all, a silver thread weaving through chaos.

He gripped the handlebars tighter, the wind screaming past his ears. The scooter's engine was roaring now, not with combustion but with something else—something ancient and powerful that he didn't fully understand.

Then he saw it.

Ahead of him, the silk path ended abruptly at the edge of a chasm so vast that his mind couldn't fully comprehend it. The Sky-Splitting Abyss stretched endlessly in every direction, a wound in the fabric of reality itself. At its bottom, so far down that it seemed more like a suggestion than a location, something pulsed with a sickly green light.

And standing at the edge of the chasm, blocking the path, was a figure that made Wang Lei's blood run cold.

It was massive—easily ten feet tall—with skin like cracked stone and eyes like burning coals. Its mouth was full of jagged teeth, and its arms ended in claws that dripped with a viscous black liquid.

It turned to face him, and Wang Lei felt the weight of its gaze pressing down on him like a physical force.

"Another one," the demon said, its voice like grinding boulders. "Another little godling, come to try his luck at the Vault."

Wang Lei skidded to a stop, the scooter's tires leaving scorch marks on the stone. He stared at the creature, his heart hammering in his chest.

"I'm not a godling," he said, his voice steadier than he felt. "I'm a delivery driver."

The demon tilted its head, a grotesque parody of curiosity.

"A delivery driver? What could you possibly deliver to the Vault?"

Wang Lei reached into his bag and pulled out the package. It felt heavy in his hands—heavier than it should have, weighted with the soul of an emperor.

"Your doom," he said. "By express delivery."

The demon laughed—a sound like tectonic plates grinding together.

"You have courage, little mortal. I'll grant you that." Its eyes flicked to Wang Lei's hands. "But you won't make it past me. The path ends here."

Wang Lei looked at the scooter's battery display. Still 1%.

Then he looked at the chasm stretching before him—the impossible depth, the shimmering walls, the green light pulsing at the bottom.

"You know," he said slowly, "I've been in this job for five years. I've delivered packages to the thirtieth floor of buildings with broken elevators. I've crossed flooded streets during typhoons. I've even had to navigate Chengdu's traffic during rush hour—which, trust me, is worse than any demon."

He revved the scooter's engine.

"But you know what I've never done?"

The demon took a step forward, its claws scraping against the stone.

"What's that, little mortal?"

Wang Lei grinned.

"Delivered a package to the bottom of a canyon."

He twisted the throttle, and the scooter launched forward, straight toward the edge of the chasm. The demon lung