The World of Tianxuan – A Fractured Realm
The continent of Tianxuan was once ruled by harmony — before the rise of immortal sects shattered it into fragments.
Now, across the five fractured dominions, power belonged to the cultivators. Empires still existed — shells of what they once were — but their armies bowed to the sects.
The strongest among them, the Celestial Dawn Sect, stood atop Heaven's End Ridge, overlooking the vast eastern provinces of the Zhao Dynasty. They were once guardians of balance.
Now? They were bloated, arrogant, and blind.
And Su Xue had seen how it would all fall.
Night at the Celestial Dawn Sect
The moon hung high, a pale observer in a sky threaded with stars and the faint glow of spirit clouds. Lanterns flickered in the outer disciple courtyard, casting long shadows on cracked stone.
Su Xue stood alone atop a pagoda rooftop, her arms folded as she surveyed the grounds.
She didn't care about Lu Xuan.
Not really.
What she cared about was the world that would burn five centuries from now if he became the Immortal Demon God.
She had traveled through time, not to save a person — but to rewrite destiny.
"I just need to make sure he doesn't fall."
"Then I disappear."
That was the plan.
And yet… the plan was already fraying.
Lu Xuan trained in silence.
His movements were rough but deliberate, sweat soaking through his tattered robes. His hands were cracked. His eyes—empty.
Not defiant. Not angry.
Just cold. Quiet. A mirror of someone who had learned that no one would come to save him.
Su Xue watched. Not with sympathy—but with calculation.
"He doesn't seek help."
"He trusts no one. That might make this… harder."
Still, he hadn't touched the cursed scroll the dark figure left behind.
He'd simply stood there, ignoring it.
Until now.
Their First Night Encounter
Su Xue dropped from the rooftop in a flicker of light, landing softly behind him.
Lu Xuan didn't turn.
"You're following me," he said without emotion.
"You were about to touch something dangerous," Su Xue replied evenly.
"I wasn't."
She paused. "Then you knew it was cursed?"
He didn't answer.
His voice was distant, like cold water over stone. "You're not from here."
That caught her off guard.
Su Xue narrowed her eyes. "What makes you say that?"
Lu Xuan finally turned. His gaze wasn't angry. Just deadened. Tired.
"No one here talks like you. No one here watches like you do."
He was sharper than she expected.
I don't care who you are," Lu Xuan said. "Just don't get in my way."
Su Xue stepped forward, unblinking. "You're on a path that ends in blood and ruin."
He arched an eyebrow. "Whose ruin?"
"Everyone's."
He said nothing.
Then: "If this world's that fragile… maybe it deserves to fall."
The words were ice on her spine.
"The corruption's already in him."
"But maybe… not deep."
"You weren't born a monster," she said quietly. "You were made into one."
He gave her a look of faint disdain. "And you want to unmake me?"
"No," she said. "I want to unmake the future."
Far below the mountain, the Zhao Dynasty stretched from riverlands to desert steppes. A land where emperors ruled from gilded thrones — but kowtowed to the sects behind closed doors.
The mortal world was rotting beneath the surface — held together by the fragile threads of cultivator supremacy, dynastic greed, and ancient forbidden arts stirring beneath the soil.
The Celestial Dawn Sect pretended to rise above it all.
But Su Xue had lived through the end. She had seen the truth.
"It all ends in ash."
Unless she stopped it now.
As Su Xue turned to leave, she gave one last warning.
"Tomorrow, during the trial — don't let them provoke you. Not even once."
Lu Xuan's expression didn't change. "Why?"
"Because someone wants you to fall."
A flicker of something passed through his eyes — doubt? Curiosity?
But then it was gone.
"Let them try," he said quietly.
And turned back to his training.