The ink bled.
Not from wounds, but from indecision. As the throne passed from hand to hand, as new voices shaped the Realms, something stirred in the quiet margins of the Library. Not all pages wished to be written by many. Not all powers yielded to plurality.
In the deep shelves, hidden beyond the last memory of a forgotten god, a page uncurled itself. It had never been touched, never seen. It bore no title. Only a name:
Eidolon.
He awoke not as a man, but as a concept. A remnant of a singular path, one that had once dominated all cycles. A belief that the universe required one will, one vision, one ruler.
Lin Sheng felt the tremor ripple through the Library's infinite corridors. The pages around him curled slightly, like leaves shivering in cold wind.
Fei'er appeared beside him. "Do you feel that?"
"Yes," he said. "The Library is… uncertain."
Mira arrived next. "A fragment of the Old Doctrine. Something that survived Sovereignfall."
Jin Rui, his hammer slung over his back, nodded grimly. "Not everyone wants a shared throne."
From the center of the Library, a scream tore through the ink.
The throne shook.
And Eidolon stepped into view.
He was tall, not in height, but in presence. He wore no robes, no armor—only simplicity. Yet reality bent around him as though he were gravity.
"Your cycle is flawed," he said calmly. "Ink is not meant to bend. It is meant to engrave."
Lin Sheng stood his ground. "We created a world where no one rules alone. That was the point."
"And thus you invited chaos," Eidolon replied. "Cycles require certainty. Vision. Not consensus."
He reached for the throne. The ink resisted. It screamed.
Fei'er raised her spear. "We won't let you rewrite what we've built."
But Eidolon did not attack. He rewrote.
With a gesture, entire sections of the Library shifted. Pages that had recorded shared victories now showed solitary conquests. Names were erased. Feats reassigned. The timeline bent.
Jin Rui struck, but his blow was swallowed by probability.
Mira summoned paradox. Eidolon walked through it untouched.
The throne flickered.
Lin Sheng reached for the Book of All Possibilities, but it was locked. Eidolon held the key now—a key forged from the fear of disorder.
"Why do you resist?" Eidolon asked. "Even your power came from structure. From a system. From a Sovereign's failure."
Lin Sheng took a breath. "Yes. I came from Earth. I used a system. I became strong. But I chose to break the mold that made me."
Eidolon raised a hand. "And in doing so, you broke reality."
The Library cracked. Not just structurally, but conceptually. Some realms began to splinter. Emberborn Sect's teachings were distorted. The Realm of Ashlight flickered between life and death.
Mira fell to one knee. "He's… undoing everything."
Jin Rui roared, slamming Principle into the floor. "We need a new Accord. One that doesn't rely on the throne."
Fei'er's eyes widened. "Not a throne. A chorus."
She began to sing—not melody, but truth. Her voice etched itself into the pages directly. Mira joined her, chanting paradox in rhythm. Jin Rui followed, grounding the beat with declarations of possibility.
Lin Sheng added his voice—not as a ruler, but as one of many. A cultivator who had seen too much control and chose the unknown.
Together, they inscribed a new principle:
—Truth spoken in harmony cannot be rewritten.
The ink responded. The throne shattered—not in defeat, but in transformation. Its fragments became pens, scattered across the Realms.
Eidolon stumbled.
"You would undo order for the sake of freedom?" he whispered.
"No," Lin Sheng said, "we would let people write their own pages."
And with that, Eidolon faded—not destroyed, but relegated to a footnote.
The Library healed.
The Realms expanded.
And a new law was etched above the gates of Ascension:
Write not to control—but to connect.
To be continued in Chapter Twenty-Eight – "Legacy in Every Line"