---
Even hours after the Chaos Vision ended, Li Tianming still felt it —
The chains.
The tower.
The words etched in steel with his name already burned into fate.
He gripped his blade tighter as the system recalibrated around the new mutation.
> [Chaos Eye: Origin Layer I — Stabilized]
[Trait Active: Reflective Dissonance]
[Side Effect: +10% Mental Instability]
[Corruption: 6.9%]
Ash drifted around him like snow.
The Raven Abyss had gone silent.
But the silence felt… watched.
> "Someone's still here," Tianming said quietly.
He reached for the fractured data cube Yue Xian'er had given him. The orb pulsed once, and a second location was revealed — a shattered observatory on the edge of the Sundered Spire, a lightning-struck ruin once used to monitor soul currents.
It was barely 30 klicks east.
But the moment Tianming stepped forward—
A voice rang out.
Old. Hoarse. Familiar.
> "So the Eye opens again…"
Tianming froze.
Someone was walking toward him — a cloaked figure, wrapped in gray rags, face hidden under a rusted hood. But their soul signature was unlike anything he'd seen before.
> [Analyzing…]
[Identity: NULL]
[Soul Structure: Overlapping. Past Sync Detected.]
[Corruption: 0% — but Fragmented across multiple timelines]
> "Who are you?" Tianming demanded, raising his blade.
The figure chuckled — and pulled back his hood.
The face underneath was Tianming's own — older, scarred, and with eyes that burned red and gold.
> "You ask the wrong question," the man said.
"You should ask: When am I?"
Tianming took a step back. The Chaos Eye pulsed in protest, like it couldn't process what it was seeing.
> "You're a clone. An illusion. A ghost from the Tower."
> "Wrong," the man said, shaking his head. "I'm what's left of your first life."
Tianming's pulse spiked.
> "What do you mean first life?"
The man knelt and pressed his palm against the dirt.
A black glyph bloomed from the earth, shaping itself into the symbol of the Chaos Seal, but reversed.
> "Before the Collapse, before the Dragon Empire rewrote reality… there was another you."
"A test subject. Chaos Host Prototype #000."
"The only one who survived the Origin Burst."
Tianming's mind reeled. The system was silent — refusing to confirm or deny.
The man looked up, eyes suddenly filled with mourning.
> "They erased me from memory. From code. From time itself. But pieces of me… survived."
"And now you wear my name. My face. My curse."
> "No," Tianming whispered. "I'm not your second life. I'm—"
> "You're the only life left," the man said. "And that makes you dangerous to everyone.
Because you weren't just born for war…
You were born to end it."
He reached into his robes and pulled out a black box — pulsing with time-locked soul script.
> "Inside this box is a memory shard. Not from the Tower. Not from the Collapse."
"From the first experiment. The true origin of the Chaos System."
> "If you open it… your world will change."
Tianming stared at it. The box vibrated — like it was alive, or trying to get home.
The system finally spoke.
> [WARNING: Quantum Echo Shard Detected]
[Origin Data — Era Zero.]
[Potential Trait Evolution Trigger: Chaos Eye ➝ Chaos Root Layer]
[Irreversible. Fragment may overwrite current personality layer.]
Tianming whispered, "What happens if I open it?"
The man smiled.
And faded.
Dust on the wind.
> "You'll remember."
---
[Elsewhere – Golden Bird Nation, Oracle Temple]
A row of child oracles chanted beneath a burning banyan tree, their third eyes glowing white. At the center sat a golden-masked priestess — her hands trembling as she carved prophecy into the wood.
Suddenly, her knife stopped.
Her mouth opened.
And she screamed.
> "The Chaos Soul has seen its first self.
A Root Echo has been triggered.
The past will bleed."
---
[Back – Raven Abyss]
Tianming held the black box.
His grip tightened.
The voices of the fallen Seeds still echoed in the air.
The Tower's chains hummed beneath the ground.
And in his mind…
A whisper from the man who wore his face.
> "Open it. Or burn like the others."
Tianming raised the box.
> [Confirm Activation: Quantum Echo?]
[Y/N]
A single choice.
He pressed Y.
And the world shattered again.
---