The Hollow Star Sanctum trembled.
It wasn't the kind of tremor that shook walls or rattled stone. No, this was deeper—a vibration in the fabric of the world itself. As if the universe was holding its breath, dreading the moment it must exhale. The air shimmered with threads of memory and broken light. Reality thinned, warped, and pulsed like a dying star.
Zhao Lianxu stood at the center of it all, his hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of the Starshard Blade. The weapon pulsed in tune with the Sanctum, as though it, too, remembered. It hummed with memories not just of battles and glory, but of sorrow—countless lives lived and lost, unspoken oaths, broken trusts, and blood-soaked promises.
He closed his eyes.
And he listened.
The blade spoke, not in words, but in pulses, in imagery that bloomed in his mind like slow-burning fire. He saw cities that no longer existed. Friends who had turned to enemies. Lovers who had died in his arms. He saw Lingxi, over and over again, through lifetimes and forgotten aeons—as a queen, a rebel, a priestess, a murderer, and a mother. Always her. Always just beyond his reach.
"Name yourself," the blade whispered, a voice of light wrapped in grief.
He lowered himself to one knee. "Zhao Lianxu. Born of three legacies. Son of the Prime Minister of the Multiverse. Blood of the Demon Queen. Heir to the one who sealed the Tianmo World. I am all of them, and yet, none."
The blade vibrated violently, throwing off shards of memory that burst around him. Lingxi stepped forward, her voice steady but her eyes betraying a storm. "You don't have to do this alone."
He opened his eyes and met hers. "The sky remembers us. Even if the world forgets."
Far from the Sanctum, in a place where memory had begun to erode into oblivion, Tianluan stood at the edge of the Rift of Remnants. Around him circled the Vespers of Despair—specters formed from discarded memories, each a fragment of pain given shape. They spiraled around him like a storm of forgotten screams.
He raised his hands.
A pulse of black light surged outward, snaking across realms. One tendril split from the others and struck the heart of the Skylight Monastery—a sanctuary of wisdom and ancient peace.
In moments, monks who had meditated for centuries turned upon one another.
Not from hatred.
But because they could no longer remember why they had ever been brothers.
At the Sanctum, Mei Xueyan traced the golden inlays along the wall.
"These glyphs aren't decoration," she said. "They're stories. Etched memory. The Sanctum doesn't just guard knowledge. It is knowledge. Living, breathing, aching knowledge."
In the shadows, Yun Kai was still. His breath shallow, mind lost in trance. He drifted through ancient languages, some from before time, others that would not yet be born for ten thousand years.
And then he saw it.
A symbol.
A broken crown encircled by weeping flames.
He snapped back to the present with a gasp. "Tianluan... he isn't just trying to rule. He's trying to rewrite."
Zhao turned sharply. "What do you mean?"
Yun stood, shaken. "He's infecting memories with despair. Corrupting the threads of reality itself. If he reaches the Heart of the World, he won't just erase the past. He'll replace it. We'll be unmade before we ever existed."
A stunned silence fell.
Mei spoke softly. "Then we aren't fighting to live. We're fighting to be remembered."
They departed before the sky turned red.
The journey through the Fields of Fractured Time was harrowing. Around them, time bent and twisted. Echoes of unfulfilled moments shimmered like ghosts: a child waiting for a father who never came; a lover weeping at a grave never dug; a hero cut down before his name was known.
"These aren't illusions," Mei murmured. "They're dislocated memories. People history forgot."
Zhao reached out, brushing a hand through one such specter. It dissolved into golden mist, but not before whispering a name.
"Your name is still sung in one world," he said quietly.
When they reached what should have been the Worldheart Province, they found only void.
No cities.
No forests.
No wind.
Just a hollow scar in space. A place where reality had once breathed and now only silence remained.
They camped that night under the shattered remnants of a celestial tree. Its once-gleaming leaves now flickered with uncertain light, like memories on the verge of extinction.
Lingxi sat beside Zhao, her voice low. "Do you ever wonder if we were supposed to end differently?"
He turned to her. "In every life I've remembered, you were there. Sometimes you killed me. Sometimes I killed you. Once, we ruled the stars. Another time, we were beggars in an empire that had forgotten its soul. But always… always, we found each other."
She closed her eyes. "Why does it have to hurt?"
"Because it's real."
He hesitated. Then, more gently: "Because we mattered."
She reached for his hand.
He didn't let go.
Above them, stars began to fall.
Not meteors. Not comets.
Stories.
Each star was a forgotten tale, torn from the sky as Tianluan's spell deepened. Across the realms, cities caught fire not from flame, but from forgetting. Books turned to ash. Names vanished from lips. Lovers looked at each other and saw only strangers.
In the center of it all, Tianluan stood atop an obsidian spire, surrounded by twelve monoliths—each the petrified corpse of a forgotten god.
He raised his arms.
"Let there be silence," he said.
The world began to unravel.
Zhao Lianxu awoke with blood in his mouth. The Starshard Blade shrieked in his mind.
He stood.
The veil had fallen.
Tianluan had begun the collapse of the Pillar of Origin—the source from which all memory flowed. It was the final defense. If that broke, nothing would be left. No names. No love. No pain. No purpose.
Just unbeing.
Lingxi, Yun, Mei—they rose with him. No words were needed. They knew where they had to go.
The Sanctum had revealed the path.
They would march to the Pillar.
And they would remember.
Even if the world chose not to.