The wind screamed through the broken ravines of the Scarlet Ridge, dragging veils of red dust into the evening sky. The horizon boiled with hues of ember and ash as if the heavens themselves were burning away. Zhao Lianxu stood at the cliff's edge, cloaked in silence, his black robes fluttering like shadows eager to abandon their master. The cries of distant beasts echoed like omens from some forgotten age, each gust of wind laced with the weight of ancient sorrow.
He had changed.
Not in the way warriors changed through battle scars or accumulated wisdom, but in a manner that touched the root of his existence. Something primal, something divine and terrible, now pulsed beneath his skin. His bones hummed with raw energy, and his veins shimmered faintly with celestial light. His eyes, once clouded by grief and wrath, now shimmered with a serene, almost inhuman clarity. Every breath he drew disturbed the balance of Qi around him. The very earth beneath his feet seemed to hum in response to his presence. Birds veered off course mid-flight, and distant mountains cracked under unseen pressure.
The memories of the Tower still burned behind his eyes. Not just the revelations, but the sensation of truth wrapping around him like a second skin. He hadn't simply inherited a legacy; he had become it. The voice of the ancient seal lingered in his consciousness, its cadence like a whisper from eternity. The truth he had learned in that place reshaped not only his mind, but his very soul.
Behind him, Yan Shuyin stepped cautiously forward, her gaze darting to the horizon and then back to Zhao. The wind caught strands of her hair and swept them across her face, but her expression remained unreadable. Her presence was like a thread of memory, something grounding amid the unraveling cosmos.
"You haven't spoken since the Tower," she said finally. "Not even a word."
Zhao turned his head slightly, not enough to meet her eyes, but acknowledging her presence. His voice came, low and distant. "Words... are too small now."
She flinched, not from his tone, but from the weight behind it. The Zhao she knew was still there, buried beneath layers of silence and power. But something vast and unfathomable now shared his soul. A duality had formed — mortal and god, sorrow and serenity. Every motion he made felt like prophecy incarnate.
They stood in silence for a moment longer before Zhao finally turned, fully facing her. The air around him shimmered with translucent arcs of energy, each pulse of his aura brushing against the boundaries of reality.
"You should go back to the alliance camp," he said. "The final war is coming."
"And what about you?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Will you lead us, or will you watch the world burn from afar like a celestial judge?"
His eyes softened for the briefest instant. "I don't know yet. I only know... the Spire calls."
At the mention of it, the air around them thickened. The Eternal Spire—a mythical place said to exist between realms, where fate, time, and essence converged. It was there, according to the seal's final vision, that Zhao Lianxu's true purpose would be tested.
He began to walk, and with a silent understanding, Yan Shuyin followed.
The journey to the Spire was unlike any path they had walked before. It defied geography. One moment they walked across barren mountains; the next, they were treading on rivers made of starlight. Time fractured around them—days passed in seconds, and moments stretched into eternities. Strange flora whispered secrets in forgotten tongues, and constellations shifted above them in unfamiliar patterns.
Zhao began to lose track of the world he had known. Voices from his past echoed faintly: his mother's lullabies in the Demon Tongue, his father's cold, commanding orders, the whispered warnings of the Sword Sage who sealed the Tianmo World. Each step felt like shedding a layer of identity. Memories peeled away like bark from a dying tree, revealing a self shaped more by destiny than desire.
And yet, at his side, Yan Shuyin endured it all.
He noticed her pale face during moments of rest, how her breathing grew ragged after hours in fractured time streams. But she never asked for pause. Never questioned. Never abandoned him. Her presence was a tether to the human world, an anchor to emotions he was beginning to forget.
At a rare moment of respite on a crystalline ledge suspended above a sea of floating realms, Zhao looked at her. "Why are you still here?"
She didn't look up from where she sat, legs crossed, eyes half-lidded in exhaustion. "Because if you forget who you were... someone has to remind you."
The answer struck deeper than any sword. Zhao said nothing, but a flicker of warmth crossed his face.
They arrived at the base of the Eternal Spire on the seventh day—or perhaps the thousandth. It stood beyond mortal comprehension. No stone, no steel, no divine element could match its composition. It rose endlessly into the void, each tier flickering between realities. Faces of forgotten gods swam in the architecture. Runes older than language etched its walls. Wind howled in chords, and shadows danced without sources.
And at the entrance, a gate of bone and fire waited.
"Only one may enter," intoned a voice. It belonged to a guardian forged from paradoxes—its head that of an infant, its wings both feather and flame. Its eyes held universes. Its voice bore the weight of absolute judgment.
Zhao stepped forward.
But Yan grabbed his wrist.
"Don't forget," she whispered. "Don't become something I can't reach."
He nodded. Then passed through the gate.
The interior was not a place, but a confrontation.
He stood before versions of himself. Zhao the prince. Zhao the avenger. Zhao the demon's heir. Zhao the seal-bearer. Each of them demanded dominance. They screamed, fought, bled, and begged. The Spire forced him to witness every path he could have taken, every failure, every triumph warped by ego or fear. The echoes of his regrets haunted the walls like phantoms.
But then, in the heart of the Spire, he saw a mirror. No twisted versions, no divine masks. Just himself. Wounded, uncertain, yearning.
He approached it, hand trembling.
And the mirror spoke.
"What do you choose?"
"Balance," Zhao answered.
"You cannot hold divinity and mortality."
"Then I shall be the bridge."
And the Spire accepted him. Light folded into him like armor forged from paradox, and for the first time in centuries of fate-bound lineage, he became truly himself.
When Zhao Lianxu stepped out, the world was quiet.
The sky was darker than before, as if bracing for the storm to come. Yan Shuyin waited at the threshold, eyes wide.
Zhao reached her. No words passed between them. But when he took her hand, gently, the winds changed direction. Somewhere across the multiverse, ancient powers stirred. Realms trembled. The balance had shifted.
The final war had begun.