The cliff still hadn't healed.
Cracks ran deep beneath the frost-stained stone where Lu Xuan had fought—and devoured—the Soul Ascension envoy. But the cold hadn't returned. The air held heat it didn't deserve.
Not flame.
Just pressure.
Lu Xuan stood in silence, staring at the spot where the envoy had fallen.
He hadn't used his Immortal Demon God Body. Not even Level One.
And still… the fight had ended with devour.
His own body now felt strange—not broken, but rearranged. His soul core pulsed like it had reshaped itself, upgrading beyond intention.
"Late Nascent Soul," Bai Yujing whispered to herself, watching from the ridge above. "He climbed without invocation. Without any spirit fruit, scroll, or external boost."
Su Xue moved closer to him, her seal trembling in her palm. It hadn't behaved this way before.
It wasn't rejecting his aura.
It was listening to it.
That night, Lu Xuan returned to the frost garden annex. The moon was low. The stars seemed closer than usual, crowding the sky like watchers.
He sat cross-legged, his breathing slow.
Inside his mind, echoes played like dreams he didn't remember having.
Dark hallways.
Flame-mirrored walls.
A scroll locked behind twelve soul seals titled Mirrorborn Protocol.
And voices.
Imperial. Cold. Spoken like threats.
"He remembers without permission."
"Seal him before the memory recovers."
Then came a name.
Spoken without weight, but with finality.
"Yanxiu."
Lu Xuan opened his eyes slowly.
The spiritual symbol hovering over his shoulder shifted in shape. Not much. Just enough for its core line to bend inward, like folding into itself.
Su Xue approached cautiously.
"That symbol… it's reacting again."
"It mirrors what I feel," Lu Xuan said. "Even when I don't understand the feeling."
She sat beside him, laying the seal across a parchment etched with resonance threads. The flow trembled again. Just like earlier.
"I'm sealing something that doesn't want to stay sealed," she said softly.
"It's not escaping," Lu Xuan replied.
"It's learning."
In Moonflame Hall, Bai Yujing met with Elder Ruo and three senior historians.
They studied resonance charts, energy ripples from the cliff, and fluctuations in Lu Xuan's aura signature.
"His cultivation has stabilized," one historian reported. "But it carries two layers—one natural, one echo-based."
"Echo-based?" Ruo asked.
"His rise came from soul devour," Bai Yujing confirmed. "But something inside the envoy wasn't just power—it was memory. Memory that now sits inside Lu Xuan like a second heart."
As they spoke, a ripple passed through the outer formation rings. A royal messenger stepped into the chamber, his face hidden by spiritual threads designed to prevent emotional detection.
He carried a flame-sealed orb.
Without speaking, he placed it on the central mirror slab and vanished.
The orb cracked once—then released light.
Inside, Emperor Zhao Rui's voice rang clearly.
"To Bai Yujing and the Elders of Celestial Dawn—
The Twilight Summit begins in Three days.
Attendance is not requested.
It is required."
The voice continued.
"We must review what once was sealed.
Let memory and power no longer war.
Let us gather before myth births war."
Behind the message glowed a single spiritual symbol—spiral-shaped, layered with a faint echo line.
Bai Yujing stepped forward.
Her hand trembled slightly.
"That's Yanxiu's crest," she whispered. "It was erased centuries ago."
The scrollmaster beside her inhaled sharply.
"Why would he summon that symbol?"
"Because history is no longer written," Bai Yujing said.
"It's being remembered."
Elsewhere in the courtyard, Lu Xuan sat in quiet meditation.
His spiritual senses extended beyond the frost garden—he could feel the formations bending faintly near Moonflame Hall.
Not from danger.
From summons.
The soul fragment he absorbed from the envoy flickered gently beneath his ribs. Not speaking. Just waiting. It held emotion. A warning. A glimpse of fear masked by duty.
And again…
The name.
"Yanxiu."
This time, Lu Xuan didn't flinch.
He drew it on the ground—one symbol at a time.
When he finished, the spiritual symbol hovering beside him pulsed in perfect harmony.
The parchment burned softly around its edges—but didn't crumble.
Su Xue watched in awe.
"You're not just echoing the symbol," she said. "You're completing it."
Lu Xuan didn't respond.
He simply placed a small soul stone beside the drawing.
It pulsed once.
Then twice.
Then shattered.
Without violence.
Just recognition.
Back in Moonflame Hall, Bai Yujing held the orb tightly.
"It's not just a summit," she said.
"It's a stage."
Elder Ruo agreed.
"Zhao Rui wants us there—to see. Not to stop.
He believes something is coming."
"Or he believes Lu Xuan has already returned."
The historians shifted uneasily.
"Shall we refuse the summons?" one asked.
"No," Bai said.
"We go. But not as guests.
We go to witness what cannot be sealed again."
In his chamber, Emperor Zhao Rui stood alone.
His advisors had left. His courtiers had slept.
Only the mirror remained.
Inside it: a faint echo of the envoy's final memory.
Lu Xuan standing. Silent. Calm.
Spiritual symbol pulsing.
Breakthrough complete.
Devour successful.
No use of the Immortal Demon God Body.
Zhao whispered:
"Not a storm.
Not a flame.
Just breath—and the world bends."
He turned to the empty throne room and spoke quietly:
"Summon the monks of Silent Flame.
And prepare the Record Stones."
"Why?" asked a voice from the shadows.
"Because what's coming," he said, "is not a boy rising.
It's the return of something older than my reign."