Shen Wuqing walked.
No horizon. No stars. No scent of wind or weight of breath. He moved through a world where even direction had lost its meaning, where steps left no trace and presence did not cast shadow.
And yet, something waited.
It was not watching. It could not watch — for it had no eyes.
But it endured, buried in the place where forgotten things went to remember themselves.
A soft incline rose beneath him, though the land did not change. There was no soil, no stone, only conceptual terrain, shaped by ideas too old and too unwanted to be spoken.
And there, at the peak of the formless hill, stood a structure.
A temple.
Or rather, the memory of one.
Its pillars were bones of vanished faith. Its roof was a blanket of torn hymns. Its doors did not open, because no one had ever come.
Wuqing stepped forward.
The structure did not resist.
Because it had long since given up hope.
Inside, it was cold.
Not physically. But spiritually.
Like walking into a prayer that had been abandoned mid-sentence.
There were no offerings. No incense. No footprints in the dust.
Just a statue.
Colossal.
Kneeling.
Its head bowed so low it nearly touched its own chest. Arms extended in supplication. Mouth open — but no sound had ever passed those lips.
Tears of congealed blood wept from its empty eyes.
Not freshly carved.
But ancient. As if it had cried since time before time.
Wuqing stared.
The god was beautiful.
In that strange, terrible way only the unwanted can be.
It had no name.
No symbols.
No sacred rites.
No cult, no worshippers, no enemies, no temples across the lands.
It had never been invoked in prayer.
Never cursed.
Never feared.
It simply… existed.
Alone.
Unclaimed.
Forgotten before belief could form.
And it wept.
Slowly.
Steadily.
As if mourning not death — but never having lived.
He walked closer.
The god did not move.
Not because it was stone.
But because it had no purpose to move for.
And Wuqing felt it.
Not pity.
But recognition.
"Even the divine can be denied," he murmured.
The silence answered.
Not from the statue.
But from something beneath it.
A pulse.
Low. Uneven. Broken.
Not heartbeat.
But intention gasping for breath.
He stepped closer.
And the air shifted.
Not wind.
But memory reawakening.
Not his own.
But the god's.
Visions slithered past his eyes — not images, but the absence of them.
A world where this god was never born.
Where no believer ever dared imagine it.
Where the very possibility of its divinity had been erased before conception.
Yet it remained.
Why?
Why did it still exist?
Why had the void not consumed it?
He reached out.
Touched the base of the statue.
It was cold.
So cold.
Like the feeling of calling out in a dream, only to realize you have no voice.
And then—
It spoke.
Not aloud.
But into him.
A voice dry. Parched. Like dust choking on dust.
"You are not supposed to be here."
"I was never supposed to be anywhere."
"You bring remembrance into a place that feeds on forgetting."
"I devour forgetting."
"So do I."
He blinked.
The god's head remained bowed.
But something inside stirred.
Not anger.
Not joy.
But… hope.
"You walk without faith," it said.
"Yes."
"Yet you walk."
"Because the path itself is afraid of being devoured."
A long pause.
Then:
"Will you worship me?"
Wuqing stared.
Not in confusion.
But with the stillness of someone asked whether they breathe in silence or devour it whole.
"No."
"Will you destroy me?"
"No."
"Then why come?"
He looked at the weeping eyes.
Blood still trickled, slow and deliberate.
"I wanted to know," he said, "if even gods can be forgotten."
Another silence.
Then:
"They can."
"Then you are not a god."
"I never was."
And in that sentence—
A thousand echoes died.
Wuqing stepped back.
"You cried," he said, "for eternity."
"Because even nothingness has loneliness."
"And now?"
"Now… I remember how to kneel."
The statue moved.
Only slightly.
A single tremble in the fingertips.
Stone cracking. Dust shedding.
Not resurrection.
Not revival.
But something deeper.
Yielding.
"Take it," the voice whispered.
"What?"
"The right to be unnamed."
Wuqing stood still.
His existence pressed outward — not as aura, but as devouring permission.
The temple cracked.
The world around it peeled.
The belief that never formed began to curl like burning paper.
And from the god's chest—
A shard emerged.
Not crystal.
Not bone.
But possibility.
It pulsed once.
Then floated toward him.
He did not reach for it.
Yet it sank into his flesh.
And vanished.
No surge of power.
No flash of divinity.
Only the whisper:
"Let the world forget gods. But not the hunger that outlived them."
And the statue crumbled.
Quietly.
No explosion.
No final prayer.
Just dust.
And silence.
As if it had finally fulfilled its only purpose:
To be forgotten properly.
Wuqing left the temple.
Not changed.
But deeper.
The world around him shifted again.
Now the sky bled sideways.
The ground pulsed like a tongue. Language began to weep — words falling apart mid-thought.
He kept walking.
Because he understood:
Even gods could vanish.
But he?
He was not a god.
He was not a man.
He was not a memory.
He was not a name.
He was not even a question.
He was the thing that remains after the answer fails.
From far beyond, something called.
Not in sound.
But in absence of resistance.
The path opened.
A bridge of forgotten bones.
Leading deeper.
Always deeper.
And Shen Wuqing walked it.
Not because he had to.
But because there was nowhere else that dared to lead him.