Chapter 21: Homecoming and Inquisition
The world snapped back into focus with the sound of screaming ice and tearing reality. Ayush tumbled onto the frozen tundra, the shock of solid, stable ground a jarring relief. Behind them, the shimmering tear of the Frostfang Labyrinth convulsed once, twice, and then collapsed inward with a sound like a dying star, leaving only a scar of warped, glassy air that slowly faded.
Silence, broken only by the howling northern wind and the ragged gasps of the survivors.
They had made it out. Barely. The Sun Moon team had been the first through the disintegrating portal, their retreat a panicked scramble. Shrek's team followed in a desperate, disorderly rush, with Ayush half-dragged by Wang Dong and Bei Bei as the realm dissolved at their heels.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then, the sound of retching broke the stillness. One of the Sun Moon students was on his knees, vomiting from spatial disorientation and terror.
Lin Xi was already on his feet, his armor scuffed and sparking. He turned on the Shrek team, his face a mask of fury and accusation. His multi-lens scope spirit materialized, its focus whirring as it locked onto Ayush, who was being helped to his feet by Wang Dong.
"You," Lin Xi spat, his voice trembling with rage. "You did this. My scanners recorded it all. Your unique energy signature acted as a catalyst. You interacted with the spatial matrix in a way that triggered a recursive cascade! You destroyed a priceless historical artifact and nearly killed us all!"
Teacher Fan Yu stepped forward, his own aura flaring. "That is a serious and unsubstantiated accusation, Lin Xi. The realm was unstable long before we entered. Your own data confirmed that."
"Our data confirmed an anomaly centered on him!" Lin Xi shot back, pointing at Ayush. "I am filing an immediate formal complaint with the Shrek Academy administration and the Continental Soul Master Association. He is a walking dimensional hazard. He should be sealed and studied, not sent on field missions!"
Wang Dong moved before anyone could stop him, stepping directly into the line of fire, his wings flaring with protective, furious light. "You shut your mouth! He saved your worthless hides in there! If he hadn't navigated the chaos, you'd be floating in pieces between dimensions!"
"He caused the chaos!" Lin Xi screamed back, the professional facade gone. "I have the spectral records! The spatial entity formed in direct response to his spiritual resonance! He's not a soul master; he's a calamity!"
The argument raged in the freezing wind until the escort teams from both sides, sensing the catastrophic conclusion of the mission, arrived to forcibly separate them. The return journey to Shrek was conducted in two heavily guarded, separate convoys, the atmosphere thicker than the northern glaciers.
Ayush spent the trip in silence, meditating. Not to cultivate, but to assess the damage.
Physically, he was drained but intact. His new body had weathered the spatial storm better than anyone else's.
Mentally, he was exhausted. The act of confronting the Spatial Predator, of channeling the Black Book's aura and Gu Yuena's authority, had stretched his spirit to its limits.
Politically, he was in peril. Lin Xi's data, while missing the divine context, was dangerously accurate. He had been the trigger. Tang San's trap had guaranteed it.
"The little mortal with the glass eyes sees true, in his limited way," Gu Yuena observed, her presence a cool balm in his spiritual sea. She had withdrawn after the confrontation, her fragmentary consciousness weakened by the exertion. "You are a calamity. But you are our calamity. A storm directed at the house of the god-king."
MISSION ASSESSMENT: SURVIVAL.
ASSIMILATION PROGRESS: [MARTIAL UNIVERSE] PRINCIPLES AT 41%. SUN MOON 'MECHANIZED LAW BINDING' PRINCIPLES INTEGRATED.
NEW WARNING: HOSTILE DIVINE ATTENTION ESCALATED TO CATEGORY 3 (ACTIVE ERADICATION PROTOCOL DETECTED).
RECOMMENDATION: PREPARE FOR LEGAL AND SOCIAL SANCTIONS. MAINTAIN COVER. ACCELERATE POWER GROWTH.
The "active eradication protocol" was what chilled him most. Tang San was done with subtlety.
Back at Shrek, the inquisition began immediately. Ayush was not taken to the medical wing, but to a secure conference chamber in the Administration Hall. Present were Headmaster Yan Shaozhe, Teacher Mu En, the formidable Elder Xuan, Teacher Zhou Yi, and a stone-faced representative from the Shrek Enforcement Division. A spirit-recording crystal played Lin Xi's damning data: graphs showing Ayush's energy signature spiking in perfect correlation with every spatial catastrophe inside the labyrinth.
"Young Huo Yuhao," Yan Shaozhe began, his voice heavy. "The Sun Moon Empire is demanding reparations for the loss of the Frostfang Labyrinth and calling for an international review of your… condition. The data is compelling. Can you explain?"
This was the moment. He had rehearsed it with Gu Yuena and the Black Book's predictive models.
Ayush took a deep breath, letting the image of the exhausted, traumatized survivor show. "Headmaster, Teachers… I don't fully understand it myself. The Vault of Shattered Earth changed me. It left me… sensitive. To spatial distortions, to the wounds in the world. Inside the labyrinth, I could feel those wounds tearing open. It was agony. I tried to… to steer our group away from the worst of it. I think my very presence, carrying the energy of one 'wound,' resonated with that other 'wound' of the labyrinth. It wasn't deliberate. It was a… a tragic compatibility."
He looked down at his hands. "The entity that formed… it felt like the labyrinth's pain given form. It came for me because I was the loudest echo of its own suffering. I didn't know how to stop it except to try and show it that I wasn't its enemy. I don't know what I did. I just wanted it to stop."
It was a masterstroke. He admitted to being the catalyst, but framed it as a passive, tragic affliction, not an active power. He played the victim of his own mutation, a boy cursed with a dangerous empathy for broken places.
Elder Xuan grunted, his eyes sharp. "You 'showed' it? With what?"
"With my spirit," Ayush said, looking up, letting his Spirit Eyes glow with their familiar gold. "And with the power of the Heavenly Dream Iceworm. He is a creature of spirit and dream. We tried to project peace. To calm the storm." He let his shoulders slump. "It didn't work. It just made everything worse. I'm… I'm sorry."
The room was silent. His story was plausible, poignant, and perfectly aligned with the known "facts" of his symbiosis with a mysterious million-year spiritual beast.
Zhou Yi, who had seen his determination and heard his earlier warnings, was the first to break. "He tried to tell us the realm was a trap. He warned of the instability. This isn't malice; it's a burden."
"A burden that destroys priceless relics and threatens international incidents," the Enforcement representative said coldly.
"A burden that also saved his team and the Sun Moon team multiple times during the initial instability," Fan Yu countered. "My mission logs confirm his navigational warnings prevented at least four fatal incidents."
The debate swirled around him. He was a weapon, a victim, a liability, a savior.
In the end, Shrek's instinct to protect its own won out—for now. Headmaster Yan Shaozhe declared a verdict: "Huo Yuhao will be placed under continued observation and restricted from missions involving unstable spatial or dimensional phenomena until his condition is fully understood and controlled. Shrek Academy will formally reject the Sun Moon Empire's accusations as speculative and reframe the incident as a mutually tragic exploration of an unpredictably volatile secret realm. Our priority is the well-being and development of our student."
It was a temporary shield. But as Ayush was dismissed, he felt the weight of the gazes on him. The trust of the academy was now conditional, fragile.
Wang Dong was waiting for him outside. Without a word, he pulled Ayush into a fierce, silent hug. When he let go, his eyes were red-rimmed. "They don't understand," he said, his voice thick. "They see a problem. They don't see you."
In that moment, Ayush felt the guilt like a physical blow. Wang Dong's faith was absolute, and it was built on a foundation of lies.
"What if they're right, Wang Dong?" he whispered, the words tasting like ash. "What if I am just a calamity?"
Wang Dong grabbed his shoulders, his grip tight. "Then we'll be a calamity together. You and me. The Golden Road to whatever comes next."
The bond was still there, but a crack had formed, and Ayush had just poured his deception into it, widening it into a chasm he might never be able to cross.
That night, alone in his dorm, the true message from the divine arrived.
It wasn't a vision or a voice. It was a compulsion.
As Ayush meditated, a scene burned itself into his mind with the force of a divine decree. He saw a place: the grand stage of the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament, the most prestigious event for young soul masters across the land. He saw himself standing across from a specific opponent—a brilliant, cruel prodigy from the Sun Moon Empire, armed with forbidden, soul-devouring spirit tools. He saw the fight, the provocation, the mortal danger. And he saw the moment of choice: to die, or to break a sacred, fundamental law of the Douluo Continent in front of tens of thousands of witnesses and the watching gods.
The vision was not a prediction. It was a command. A scripted scenario where every path led to his condemnation.
Tang San was no longer trying to kill him in secret. He was crafting a stage where Ayush would have to publicly unveil his heresy—using Dou Qi, or Gu Yuena's dragon power, or the Black Book's authority—to survive, thereby giving the God King the perfect, lawful pretext to descend and erase the "anomalous, plane-threatening entity" in the name of cosmic order.
The trap was no longer in a hidden labyrinth. It was on the brightest stage in the mortal world.
And the bait was his own life.
Ayush opened his eyes, the phantom roar of a tournament crowd fading in his ears. He looked at the Black Book's interface, at the progress bar for the Martial Universe. 41%. So close to a new realm, a new set of powers.
He looked inward, to the slumbering form of Gu Yuena, to the anxious Iceworm, to the wise, grim Electrolux.
He had survived a fall into starlight and a predator made of space.
Now, he had to learn how to dance in a spotlight designed to burn him alive.
The game had entered its final, public act.
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Preparation for the Continental Tournament begins. Ayush must now openly cultivate and master his public powers to compete, while secretly racing to unlock the Martial Universe realm before the showdown. Wang Dong, determined to fight at his side, pushes their fusion training to new heights, unknowingly helping Ayush integrate his diverse powers. Gu Yuena begins teaching him a more aggressive application of her authority—not just to Unweave, but to Command elemental forces, starting with gravity. Meanwhile, Tang San's influence subtly manipulates the tournament brackets, ensuring Ayush's path crosses with the chosen "executioner"—a Sun Moon prodigy named Ming Ye, who wields a terrifying spirit tool that can sever soul from body. The stage is set for a duel where Ayush must either die a mortal death or live as a divine target.