The sun hadn't fully risen, but the frost gate already bore a shadow.
Su Xue stood in silence, her fingers tracing the cold stone. A single message was carved faintly into its arch—neat, deliberate, unshaken.
"If I must be myth… then let me walk there alone."
There were no goodbyes.
No request for escort.
Just the echo of Lu Xuan's choice.
She pressed her seal against the gate's core. It pulsed once, then stilled.
"He didn't deactivate the formation," she murmured.
"He walked through it like the mountain bowed to him."
Inside Celestial Dawn's east hall, Bai Yujing met with four elders. The flame orb sent from Emperor Zhao Rui rested in the center, still glowing—its invitation to the Twilight Summit etched with layered spiritual symbols that made the air hum around it.
Elder Mian studied the patterns, brow furrowed.
"It's not just a call for unity," he said.
"The symbols suggest... convergence."
"Or containment," Bai Yujing replied, narrowing her eyes.
"These are memory-linked echoes. He's trying to reconstruct something."
"And Lu Xuan's already on his way," Ruo added. "Alone."
The room fell quiet.
Not in peace.
In worry.
Far south in the imperial capital, Emperor Zhao Rui knelt inside the ancestral vault.
Flame mirrors surrounded him—twelve in total, each carrying shards of spirit from emperors long dead.
Before him flickered a single sealed flame: that of Zhao Tianyan, the imperial sealmaster who first branded the memory spike used against Yanxiu.
"I summon you, not as heir," Zhao Rui whispered.
"But as purifier. The myth returns. Yanxiu breathes through another."
Tianyan's voice shimmered inside the vault.
"I sealed him once. I will seal him again."
"Not just him," Zhao said.
"The sect that nurtured him. Celestial Dawn must not survive the eclipse."
A spiritual trap began forming beneath the summit plains.
Not poison.
Not sword.
But memory collapse.
A pulse designed to erase chosen souls from fate itself.
On the summit path, Lu Xuan walked quietly.
No weapons drawn.
No formation activated.
His qi rolled gently through him—now Late Nascent Soul Stage, but tempered, refined. Behind him, the frost gate faded into mist. Ahead lay ridges that once held history and now prepared to rewrite it.
The spiritual symbol hovered behind his shoulder—calm now, no longer flaring.
It pulsed once.
Then shifted.
Not into attack.
Into remembrance.
Lu Xuan saw fragments again: the envoy's last breath, the scrolls of Mirrorborn Protocol, the name Yanxiu etched into a mirror with blood.
And behind that—three symbols split into flame.
"He tried to rewrite fate," Lu Xuan whispered.
"And the world branded him instead."
Back in Celestial Dawn, Su Xue climbed the western tower.
She was quiet. The seal resting beneath her sleeve didn't tremble this time—it dragged against her skin, like it no longer knew what to protect.
She activated a soul trace map. Lu Xuan's aura left a trail through the north exit, past the silver marsh, curving toward the ridge of gathering stars.
"Even the mountain follows him now," she said.
"He's walking into a trap," Bai Yujing said, joining her.
"You can feel it too?"
Bai nodded slowly.
"The symbols in Zhao Rui's message—there was one we weren't meant to read."
Su Xue's eyes narrowed.
"Yanxiu's crest."
"No," Bai whispered.
"Yanxiu's wound."
At the summit grounds, preparations began.
Courtiers laid out ceremonial stones. Sealmasters activated wind markers. Soul monks placed mirrored tablets designed to capture emotional fluctuations during negotiation.
Above it all, a thin line of red spiritual mist curled through the sky.
None of the monks could see it.
But one old guardian muttered:
"Blood shouldn't flow before words are spoken."
Emperor Zhao Rui arrived late.
Robes lined with obsidian threads. Hands hidden beneath light-scribed gloves that pulsed with imperial resonance.
He didn't look triumphant.
He looked certain.
The scrollmaster at his side asked:
"Shall we greet Bai Yujing formally?"
Zhao shook his head.
"We greet no one until the trap breathes."
He turned toward the mirrored plains.
"The sect must collapse in silence.
Not as martyrs.
As forgotten."
Lu Xuan stepped onto the outer ring hours later.
The air shifted around him.
Not wind.
Memory.
The spiritual symbol flared.
Then stabilized.
A monk approached—tall, robed, face hidden.
"State your origin," the monk said.
Lu Xuan didn't pause.
"Celestial Dawn."
"Lineage?"
"None that fits your seal."
"Purpose?"
He looked past the monk—toward the flame pillars.
Toward the emperor.
Toward what waited beneath the summit ground.
"To see who dies when myth walks without permission."
Back in Celestial Dawn, Bai Yujing sat with a scroll.
She read the symbol inside the emperor's orb once more—now etched deeper. The patterns had changed.
Not calls for unity.
But echoes of sealing marks.
"He's activating a soul fold," she said.
"To remove the sect from memory."
Su Xue stood sharply.
"We go now.
No delegation.
No ceremony."
"And if he's ready for war?"
Su Xue's seal flared.
For the first time—it didn't resist.
"Then we show him what he tried to forget."