The earth held its breath.
Jian stood atop the skeletal remains of the Spirit King's burial ground, his robes scorched, his aura coiled tightly around him like a sleeping dragon. The battle with the Five Heavenly Elders had changed him, but what stirred within him now — that was something else entirely.
"Frostveil," he said calmly, even though his voice trembled with buried rage. "Teleport me to Heaven."
Her eyes widened. "You can't. You're not a Celestial. Their laws—"
"I don't need to stay," he interrupted. "Sixty seconds. I need sixty seconds. The laws of Heaven bend to Soul-Space Transference. Your soul Dao. You can reach beyond dimensional law. Send only me."
There was silence.
Then Frostveil exhaled. Her hands formed seals — old, complex, fractal arrays of soul glyphs that burned the surrounding air. Her twin inner worlds pulsed in unison, and her soul reached beyond.
"Only sixty seconds. The backlash will be fatal otherwise."
Jian said nothing. He stepped forward into the glyph, and in an instant, he vanished — soul hurled through dimensions.
---
The Celestial Heavens.
A universe separate from the mortal plane, constructed from immortal Qi, adorned with floating palaces made of moonstone, time-suspended gardens, and halls lined with eternal starlight. Light didn't shine — it emanated.
Jian arrived with no explosion. He appeared silently in the Central Court — the very throne room of Heaven's judgment.
The Heavenly Tribunal, a circle of nine elders garbed in ever-shifting cloaks of starlight, paused their eternal deliberations. In the center sat the Grand Immortal, a being said to have long transcended emotion.
They looked down upon him as one would an insect who had found itself in a flame.
"You," the Grand Immortal whispered, his voice void of tone. "Are not allowed here."
Jian smiled. A calm, sharp thing. "And yet here I am."
The Tribunal rose. Time began to stutter.
"I did not come to fight," Jian said. "I came to speak."
He raised his finger and carved a line in the air — a single stroke of Sword Dao.
"You have hunted me, lied to your people, erased an entire race to protect your thrones. You wore your divinity like masks, while butchering truth in its cradle."
He pointed toward the Grand Immortal.
"I want you to know this: your heavens will burn."
Time snapped.
The nine elders moved at once. Qi that could break continents ignited. Dao sigils older than time screamed into life. Swords, spears, heavenly punishments were launched.
And Jian exhaled.
His Sword Dao erupted.
The heavens dimmed.
His aura roared from him like a collapsing star, a vortex of white-gold fury that swallowed sound and light. In that moment, every sword in the Celestial Heavens rang in harmony. Every blade bent toward Jian.
He didn't draw a weapon.
He became one.
"One stroke."
He swept his hand.
A cut split the sky — not a physical one, but one through Dao itself. The attack did not move. It simply existed. Everything in its path stopped — ideas, motion, spirit, time.
The Tribunal staggered. Two elders dropped to their knees, blood spraying from their mouths. Their meridians cracked. One screamed as his inner world collapsed, shattering like a glass sphere.
The Grand Immortal held his ground, but even he paled.
"Impossible..."
Jian stood there, his aura spiraling beyond comprehension. The air screamed around him. And from the mortal realm — from Earth — cultivators, beasts, and sages alike felt it. Felt the pulse of his presence. Mountains shook. Seas parted. Stars above flickered in acknowledgment.
Heaven had been touched.
"You have 30 seconds left," came Frostveil's voice in his mind.
Jian stepped forward. The Court shattered beneath him. Palaces folded under the weight of his presence. Statues of Celestial Lords crumbled into ash.
"You declared war the moment you hunted a child of the Spirit King. You declared war the moment you lied to the people of Earth. So now — hear this."
He raised his hand and with a flick of his Dao, carved nine glyphs into the sky.
"This world belongs to no Heaven."
The glyphs ignited. They were not words. They were oaths. Truths. Laws rewritten.
Jian turned.
"Time's up."
In a blink, his body vanished. Soul retracted.
The Heavens howled.
---
He landed in Frostveil's arms, unconscious, skin scorched from soul-burn, breath ragged.
She caught him, tears falling down her cheek.
Behind them, the sky above Earth glowed.
And far, far above, the Celestial Realm began to fracture.