In the highest chamber of the Celestial Fang Sect, within the East Ascendancy, bells tolled with eerie precision. The Oracle of Stars stood unmoving, her eyes closed, yet her lips whispered prophecy:
"The Tyrant walks again. Flame shall tread where false halos stand. Let judgment waver, and let the sky weep."
The acolytes around her collapsed in unison as her vision burned into their minds.
Elsewhere, the Silver Judge Tian Mu sat atop a jade lion, gazing at the crimson horizon. He wore the robes of absolute authority, his blade Heaven's Verdict glowing dimly.
His attendant, a young cultivator named Xun Fei, knelt before him. "Your Excellency… the flames have returned."
"No," Tian Mu said coldly. "They never left. They were buried. Now they seek air."
He rose. "Dispatch the Mirror Blade Envoys. If Yan Zhuo walks again, he shall be judged again. But this time, there will be no tomb to return to."
In a quiet tea house in the Western Wilds, a drunk old man dropped his cup.
It shattered.
The patrons paid it no mind. The man, however, stood slowly, brushing off the dirt.
He stared at the drifting clouds and whispered, "The fire I lit with him… still smolders."
He reached behind the counter, retrieving a sheathed blade that hadn't been drawn in eighty years.
The barkeep watched in silence. "So you were one of them."
"I was the last to leave his side. I won't be the last to return."
Meanwhile, Yan Zhuo reached the outer edges of the Desolate Wastes. The world beyond shimmered with spiritual pressure, as if reluctant to welcome him back.
He stood upon a cliff, his gaze sweeping across the lands he once protected and was later banished from.
His voice carried on the wind: "Three sects will hunt me. One will mourn. One will remember."
He stepped off the cliff—and vanished into flame.
Back in Wanyu Ridge, Yue Lian gathered relics left behind by the Azure Blossom Sect. She opened a scroll sealed by blood—her mother's handwriting faded but intact.
It read:
If the heavens betray him, then I shall betray the heavens.
Lin Huo stepped in. "We've decoded the second jade slip. It mentions something called the 'Heartswept Pact.' You know what that means?"
Yue Lian's hand trembled. "That was their vow. Yan Zhuo, my mother, three others... They pledged to never raise arms for themselves, only for the innocent."
She looked out the window.
"It's time the world learned the truth."
In Frostvale Citadel, General Yun of the Northern Sky Sect read the dispatch with a grim frown. "Yan Zhuo lives?"
His advisor nodded.
Yun crushed the scroll in his hand.
"Then Heaven must prepare for war."
But deep in his heart, he remembered a night long ago—a boy sharing roasted lotus seeds beside a frozen lake, whispering dreams of peace.
And for the first time in years, Yun hesitated.
The winds gathered. Factions stirred. Old debts resurfaced.
The Tyrant had returned.
But the world no longer agreed on what made a man a tyrant.
Some began to wonder—what if he had always been the hero?