The ground trembled beneath the Heavenly Mandate Hall as the echoes of battle bled into the marrow of the earth. Marble pillars cracked. Celestial wards flickered like dying stars. The ancient dome, once a vault of divine peace, now lay fractured above them—each jagged shard a mirror of a world unraveling.
Zhao Lianxu stood still, the blood from his shoulder wound soaking into his obsidian robe. His gaze, once firm as mountain stone, flickered like a torch caught in wind. Before him stood the man he'd once revered above all—his father, Xuan Zhao—the Prime Minister of the Multiverse.
Alive.
Changed.
Haunted.
Xuan Zhao's cloak of woven cosmic energy billowed behind him, hiding his war-torn frame. His face was older than memory, yet untouched by time—each wrinkle a story, each shadow in his eyes a realm that had burned for the greater good. Lianxu saw something in him he hadn't before.
Fear.
But it wasn't fear of death. It was the fear of repeating the same mistake.
"Yurei must die," Xuan said again, calm and unshaken.
Behind Lianxu, Yurei stood tall despite the chaos. Her armor glinted, dulled by blood—his blood. Her blade was lowered, but not discarded. Her breath came heavy, not from fatigue, but restraint.
She hadn't killed him when she could have.
"You knew this moment would come," Xuan added, stepping forward. "She was always meant to be the sacrifice."
Lianxu's hands trembled.
"You're wrong," he said, voice low. "She chose to betray me because you pushed her into a corner. You orchestrated this!"
"Yes," Xuan replied without hesitation. "Because I saw what you could become. I saw the destruction that followed in every timeline where she lived."
Lianxu's face twisted in disbelief. "And what of my will? What of my choice?"
"You are my son," Xuan said, almost gently. "But you are also the Vessel. The last true Key to the God Gate. If she lives, the darkness within you will awaken beyond control. You'll lose yourself. You'll burn the realms."
Lianxu stepped back, shaking his head.
"No. That's not the truth. That's fear talking."
"It's mathematics," Xuan said coldly. "It's prophecy. It's observation. I've seen thousands of worlds die because of one foolish act of mercy. This—" he gestured to the broken compass, "—is proof. You cracked reality by letting her live."
Yurei moved then, slowly, warily. "If you're so certain, then kill me yourself."
Xuan Zhao didn't flinch.
"I can't," he said.
Lianxu stared. "What?"
Xuan's face tightened. "Only you can end her. Only your hand can sever the bond that connects her soul to the fate of the realms. You forged that bond. Not I."
Silence.
Lianxu felt the weight of everything—his bloodlines clashing inside him like beasts, the power of space-time thundering behind his eyes, and the warmth he still felt when he looked at her. That warmth was what kept him human. And yet… the darkness within stirred. It wanted her gone. It whispered that Xuan was right. That peace could only come through pain.
But peace without love—what world would that be?
"I don't believe in destiny," Lianxu said finally. "And I don't believe in killing the only thing that kept me from turning into the monster you fear."
Xuan's lips thinned. "Then you're not ready."
"I don't care."
He turned toward Yurei.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
She blinked, surprised. "You shouldn't be asking me that."
"I'm not asking if I deserve it," he said. "I'm asking if you still have it."
Her eyes welled. She nodded.
Lianxu lifted both hands and clapped them together in a seal. The jade tattoos lining his arms ignited, glowing like molten rivers. The five elements awakened in him—flames twisting around his legs, wind howling in his lungs, water dripping from his fingertips, stone crawling up his spine, and ether pulsing from his soul like a drumbeat from the heavens.
Xuan's expression darkened. "You dare invoke the Eternal Vow? Now?"
"I do," Lianxu whispered. "Let the realms hear me."
He spoke the incantation in the Old Tongue, words that had not been uttered in eons. The vow would seal his fate—and hers. If he betrayed her again, his soul would be unmade. If she betrayed him again, her heart would stop.
"I bind my fate to hers," he said, as power swirled. "Not as a shield. Not as a chain. But as an equal."
Light burst from their chests—two stars spiraling into one. The vow sealed.
Yurei gasped, collapsing to her knees from the force of it. "Why… would you… risk this?"
"Because I'd rather die with you than live without you."
The wind screamed.
Above them, the rift split wider.
And from it descended the First Calamity.
A being made of shadow and broken time, a malformed echo of an ancient deity long devoured by chaos. Its face bore no features, but its presence reeked of death. Eyes that were not eyes opened across its form—windows into timelines where everything had burned.
"The Vow is defiance," it said in a thousand voices. "You shatter the design. You must be erased."
Xuan Zhao shouted, summoning a sphere of celestial armor around them all.
"It's too soon!" he barked. "You woke it too soon!"
Lianxu's voice hardened. "You made me choose. Now we face the price."
The First Calamity raised a hand. Reality cracked.
Lianxu pulled Yurei into his arms, shielding her as the strike fell. A thousand screams echoed from every direction. The walls of the Hall collapsed. Entire memories unraveled as if they were pages in a book being burned.
And then—
A second voice rose from the storm.
"We hold the line."
A surge of divine power burst from the ruins.
Descending from the east sky, the Phoenix Sect arrived, led by High Mistress Xialin—the matriarch who had once taken Lianxu in as a child when his power first spiraled out of control. Her crimson wings, forged of flame and divinity, blazed across the battlefield.
From the west, the warriors of the Five Abyssal Peaks charged into the fray—dark-armored figures, bearing pacts with spirits of the void. Despite their allegiance to neither gods nor demons, they had come.
From the north came the old shadows—followers of the Tianmo Guardian himself. Their silver masks and blades hummed with the legacy that had once sealed the abyss.
And from the south—shockingly—the Demon World, now flying the black-gold sigil of Lianxu's mother, Empress Veyra. She had returned. With her came legions of horned cultivators, monsters, and mystics all bound under one oath: protect the boy who would break heaven.
The war had truly begun.
Lianxu stood, lifting Yurei beside him.
Around them, forces collided. Sects that had not stood together in millennia now bled for one cause.
He looked to the sky—at the Calamity tearing holes through the firmament—and for the first time, he did not feel alone.
Xuan approached, his gaze unreadable.
"You defied me," he said.
"I did."
"…And I'm proud," Xuan whispered.
Lianxu blinked. "What?"
"I had to make sure you'd choose your heart. Not the design."
Lianxu's face tightened. "You manipulated me?"
"I saved you from becoming what I became," Xuan said. "The Prime Minister… is a man who no longer remembers what love is. But you do. That's why you must take my place. You must lead them all."
Lianxu shook his head. "I'm not ready."
"You're already doing it."
Above them, the First Calamity descended once more—its form no longer formless. It had chosen a shape.
Lianxu's shape.
A mirror of himself, corrupted by the very choices he didn't make.
A version of him that had killed Yurei.
That had burned the worlds.
"I am what you could have been," it said.
Lianxu stepped forward, drawing his sword—Voidrend. A blade born from darkness, reforged by light.
"And I am what you never will be," he replied.
The battle between the self and the shadow began.
And the realms held their breath.