Immortal Paladin

125 Hollowed World

“In my younger years,” Nongmin began, his voice echoing slightly against the stone walls and shelves of the small study, “I had a simple question. One that troubled me more than most cultivators would bother to ask.”

I raised a brow. “What? Like whether you were the protagonist or the villain?” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He ignored the jab and continued on whatever this was. “I wanted to know whether the world was flat… or a sphere.”

We were sitting across from each other, a modest tea set between us, though neither of us had touched it. The room wasn’t much, just a few sturdy shelves, some ancient scrolls, a jade cabinet humming with sealed energies. It was more study than grand archive, but the ambient pressure in the room suggested the knowledge stored here wasn’t ordinary.

“Huh,” I muttered, scratching my jaw. “I’d normally say a sphere. But considering this is… well, this world, it could be anything. Giant turtle. Endless plane. Floating lotus. But most often than not, it all boils down to whether the world is flat or round.”

Nongmin chuckled lightly. “That was my assumption too, once. But the answer is neither.”

That got my attention.

He raised his hand, fingers brushing through the air like a calligrapher painting on invisible silk. Slowly, golden geometric patterns began to appear, hovering inscriptions glowing softly with ancient script. Lines of light curled, merged, and reformed in the center of the study. The floating glyphs bent into a glowing model of what looked exactly like… a sphere.

I frowned. “That looks pretty sphere-ish to me.”

He shook his head, stepping toward the projection. “Not quite. What you’re seeing isn’t a solid world. This…” He moved his hand, causing the image to shift and rotate, “…is a hollowed sphere.”

A hollowed sphere? My brain stuttered for a second. “So… underneath us is another world? Different ecology? Inverted terrain?” The words tumbled out faster than I meant. “Are we talking ‘Hollow Earth’ here?”

That was a theory back on Earth, some tinfoil-hat nonsense about how there was an entire lost world beneath the crust of our own. Dinosaurs. Sky inside the Earth. Atlantean civilizations. That kind of thing.

Nongmin immediately shattered the comparison. “No,” he said with a firm shake of his head, “nothing like what you’re imagining. It’s not a second world beneath the first. It’s not even a sphere, not really. We just use the word. Rathered than a hollowed sphere, it’s more of a hollowed space, really.”

He pressed his palm to the edge of the illusory projection. The model opened like a fruit sliced in half, revealing its core. Inside, where I expected layers of rock or molten metal, there was instead a glowing orb… like a small sun, pulsing steadily with soft flame.

“That,” he said, pointing at the center, “is our sun.”

I blinked. “Wait. You’re telling me the sun is inside the world?”

Nongmin nodded, dragging his hand along the inner surface of the projection. “Our world is inverted. We do not live on the outside of the ball, like what a world must be. We live inside it.”

I leaned back slowly, staring at the model.

“Imagine a sphere,” he continued, “and the space in which we live clinging to the interior of its shell. The center of the sphere, where the core would be in most worlds, is the sun. A true fire. An object of immense cultivation and cosmic design, older than empires.”

“…What?” I mumbled dumbly. “That makes no sense. Gravity, light, stars… what about space?”

He gave me a sympathetic smile. “None of that exists here in the way it did in most worlds. There is no outer space. No stars. What we call stars are luminous formations suspended in the sky dome, reflections of the world’s inner workings. Our understanding of up and down, the heavens and earth, has always been shaped by what we think we see. But truth doesn’t need belief to exist.”

I stared at the model, my thoughts grinding.

“If the sun is inside,” I murmured, “then the light, the heat… all of it radiates outward.”

“Exactly.”

“And the sky?”

“An illusion, or a membrane. A barrier of cultivated essence. Something formed by ancients before even the immortals left their mark.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I just… sat there, arms crossed, trying to wrap my head around it. The world I’d fought in, bled in, lost people in: it was inside a goddamn ball.

“You’re telling me we’re all walking upside down?” I muttered.

“In a sense,” he replied.

I pointed at the projection. “So what happens if someone digs deep enough?”

“You would reach the membrane,” he said. “No one ever returns. No one ever survives.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Has anyone ever left this world?”

He looked at me, serious now. “Not that I know of. But this knowledge will be relevant to you in the long run. Especially if you ever try.”

There was something unspoken in his tone. A warning, maybe. Or a quiet hope.

“There are records,” he added, “of immortals ascending to other realms. But those records are fractured. Lost to dust and war.”

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure what to say. My mind felt like it was doing somersaults.

If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve called Nongmin crazy.

But this was Nongmin we were talking about.

Not some mad hermit screaming into the wind about sky conspiracies or buried suns. This was the man who ruled an empire, peered through time, and had access to knowledge forbidden even to most immortals. So when he told me the world wasn’t what we thought it was… I had to at least hear him out.

He stood beside the glowing projection of the hollow sphere, our world, according to him, and pressed his fingers against the edges of it like a craftsman admiring the fault lines in his work.

“It’s not something I can prove easily,” he said, “not to the world at large, and not through traditional means. But this model, this shape, explains more than anything else ever could.”

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I raised a brow. “So, the sun’s inside, we’re living on the inner walls… and that’s somehow more sensible than a normal world?”

He nodded. “You wouldn’t know it, being an Outsider. But ask any scholar from the Ten Thousand Provinces, any astronomer from the High Lotus Pavilion. They’ll all tell you the same thing: the world is a sphere, and above the heavens is the Great Void.”

I frowned. “So… a normal world model. Like stars, planets, space?”

This world might be more advanced in its astronomy than I gave them credit for… Or maybe it was just me misunderstanding things.

“Yes,” Nongmin said, “except it’s all wrong. They accept it without question, and when pressed, they don’t even know where the knowledge came from. No foundational scripture, no ancient origin. It’s simply… the accepted truth.”

He looked tired as he said it, like someone who’d shouted at deaf ears for too long.

“So why does it matter to you?” I asked. “Why spend decades chasing the shape of the world? Why does it matter if it’s flat, round, or inside-out?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he walked back to the table and finally poured the untouched tea, steam curling into the air between us.

“There are records,” he said quietly. “Very old ones. Fragments of tablets. Notes etched into the bones of long-dead sages. They don’t describe the world. They describe a prison.”

The words hit me like a weight. “A prison.”

He nodded. “A cage fashioned by ancient hands. Not metaphor. Not illusion. This world… is meant to contain something. Or perhaps, someone.”

I froze. That word again.

Shenyuan had said the same thing.

Back in the caverns when his true body revealed itself, when he was unraveling his final schemes, he’d laughed, told me I was too naive to realize that we were all prisoners in a world that wasn’t meant to be free.

“Shenyuan said the same thing,” I muttered.

“I know,” Nongmin replied. “That’s part of why I brought you here.”

He lifted his hand again, and the projection shimmered. A smaller illusion appeared above the hollow sphere, an image of a man, likely himself, rising upward through layers of energy, only to vanish in a burst of light… and then reappear, violently, on the opposite side of the sphere.

“I used the Heavenly Eye,” Nongmin said, “to peer into a possible future. In that vision, I tried to break through the heavens. To pierce the veil above the world and ascend beyond.”

He looked at me.

“I succeeded.”

“And then?”

“I reappeared… on the other side. Not a higher world. Just another region inside the sphere. As though the heavens folded inward and spat me back out.”

I stared at him. “So you’re saying… the sky loops?”

“Something like that,” he replied. “A self-contained illusion. A mirrored shell that prevents anything from escaping. I don’t know how it was made. I don’t know who forged it. But I know others must have seen it.”

“Then why haven’t they said anything?” I asked.

He gave me a grim smile. “Because either they are part of it… or they fear what lies beyond the veil. Either way, silence is easier.”

I leaned back, thoughts racing. A prison world. A false sky. A looping heavenscape that turns even ascension into illusion.

“Alright, but then… what about celestial movement?”

I stared at the illusion of the world rotating in the air between us, the dull orange light of the inner sun casting flickering shadows against the high stone walls. After a long pause, I pointed toward the glowing sphere at the center.

“What about the moon then?”

Nongmin raised his hand. The sun dimmed, faded, and in its place rose a familiar pale orb: silver, cold, and cratered. The moon.

“It’s the same,” he said. “One entity. It shifts between forms, alternating between sun and moon based on alignment and intent.”

I blinked. “Wait… entity?”

“That’s what I said,” he replied. “It is not a star, nor a rock. It has will. Or… something close to it.”

The way he said it sent a chill up my spine.

“I once tried to fly to it,” he went on, his tone casual but his eyes far away. “Gathered all my strength, all my techniques. Flew for days. Weeks. Months. No matter how fast I moved, no matter what realm I entered… I never got closer.”

He gestured lazily toward the projection again. “The distance isn’t real. Not in the way we understand. It stretches as you chase it. Warps. Bends. Even with the Heavenly Eye… I couldn’t pierce through. Couldn’t lock onto it. It’s like trying to grasp a reflection in water.”

I frowned. “So it’s a trick?”

“It’s more than a trick. It’s design. A system of layers that keep us turning in circles.”

I folded my arms. “And you think that’s why I can’t go home.”

He looked at me. “I think it’s one of many reasons. You’re not just in another world, Da Wei. You’re inside a sealed construct. A realm with curved laws, scripted heavens, and a sun that plays pretend.”

“Then why tell me all this?” I asked. “If there’s no escape, what’s the point of dangling hope in front of me?”

He smiled faintly. “Because I want you to find a way.”

I stared at him. I wasn’t sure what stunned me more: his answer, or the quiet certainty with which he said it.

“I thought you believed it was impossible,” I said.

“I do,” he replied. “But sometimes… I dream of ascension too.”

He turned away from the projection, his voice softer now.

“And if the day ever comes where I must evacuate this world, my people, my empire, I want to have options. Real options. Not blind guesses. Not half-baked schemes. I want a door I can trust.”

His fingers tightened slightly at his side.

“Because if this place truly is a prison… then I would rather be a fugitive in the Greater Universe than a warden doomed to rot in his own cage.”

I didn't say anything for a while.

The illusion of the moon still hung between us, glowing faintly.

There was a strange ache in my chest I couldn’t name. Not grief, not anger, just a heavy, hollow understanding. He wasn’t giving me this knowledge to control me. He was giving it to me because even he needed something to believe in.

Somehow, that made it worse.

“Guess I better start looking for keys, then,” I muttered. “The important thing is I got the gist of it, but really? A prison? But for who?”

He gave a tired laugh, the kind that sat somewhere between amusement and resignation.

“Yes, a prison… For who? I couldn’t tell…”

This was a good start as any.

“Okay,” I said. “Can you give me a sec… I need a walk…”

Leaving the study behind, I walked the stone halls of the Grand Ascension Library in silence, the air still buzzing faintly with the aftertaste of celestial truth. Maybe it was the talk of moons and prisons, maybe just the quiet, but for the first time in a while, I let myself think about going home.

Home.

That cramped apartment. My off-brand kettle. Those wailing, snot-nosed kids in the third grade to the fifth grade who thought the recorder was a battle trumpet.

I thought about wanting to go back, but I never really entertained it beyond that. Never chased it. Never obsessed. Because deep down, I knew, I didn’t even know how. It was just a thought. A direction, not a destination.

And now?

Now I had a god-emperor telling me the world was inside-out, the sky was a lie, and the sun was a shapeshifting entity that doubled as the moon depending on its mood.

So yeah. Exploring “outer space” or the so-called Greater Universe? That sounded like an insurmountable task. Impossible, really. But so what?

It was a goal, at least.

I sighed as I found myself near a balcony, overlooking the golden skyline of the Imperial Capital. The space was strange inside the Grand Ascension Library that they would change seemingly randomly. But in fact, they react to my thoughts. I stared at the scenery before me. Beyond those mountains, somewhere, were people who needed saving. My friends, their bodies were still with me, their souls, maybe, still lingering, waiting. That was my real task. My real goal.

The whole Greater Universe thing could wait.

I was getting attached to this world, whether I admitted it or not. The wind here smelled like dry pine and incense. People still bowed when they passed me, still whispered like I was someone worth fearing. It was strange, but it was familiar now.

I turned back, re-entering the study. Nongmin hadn’t moved. He stood with one hand on a spinning illusion of the Hollowed World, watching it slowly rotate like some cracked egg with a sun yolk at its center.

“Hey,” I said. “One last thing.”

He glanced at me, eyes tired but expectant.

“This place,” I gestured to the bookshelves, the floating projections, the knowledge humming behind every wall. “Can I access it again?”

He blinked slowly, then nodded. “You may return at any time. I’ll have a token prepared.”

“I’m going to need more than bedtime stories and apocalyptic star maps,” I said. “If I’m going to figure out the resurrection of my disciples, I’ll need access to the real stuff.”

He nodded again. “Then I’ll authorize you access to Class Five through Class One knowledge.”

My eyebrows lifted. “Unlimited?”

“As much as you can digest,” he replied. “That should be enough.”

I gave a low whistle. “You’re being generous today.”

“I had a good teacher,” he said, almost to himself.

I pretended I didn’t hear that. I didn’t want to start thinking about Xin Yune again.

Instead, I bowed slightly, not out of protocol, but something like respect, and turned once more to leave.

This time, there were no grand revelations waiting outside the door. Just the long hallways, lit with jade flame, and a direction. I had a goal. I had knowledge. I had a list of names I wasn’t going to let the world forget.

The universe could wait.

First, I was going to bring my people home.