The heavens no longer sang.
Where once the skies of the Divine Realm had shimmered with celestial choirs and drifting constellations, there now loomed silence—a suffocating, still vacuum in which even light dared not trespass. Xian Ren wandered this void, no longer the wrathful god of vengeance, but something fractured. Something fading.
This was the Silent Layers of Heaven, a realm untouched by gods or mortals. Floating rings of petrified stardust hung in gravityless drift, circling dead moons carved from the bones of fallen titans. The air—if it could be called that—was thick with divine residue, shimmering particles of laws long extinguished. One could see laws broken here: gravity that flowed sideways, mountains growing downward from clouds, time trickling like water between cracks in space.
Xian Ren's steps echoed despite the silence. His divine boots, torn and darkened with charred blood, pressed down on a bridge of memory-glass—transparent walkways created by the wills of ancient archons. Beneath the glass stretched endless void, a black sea dotted with drifting fragments of forgotten realms—shattered palaces, drifting thrones, even frozen screams of gods who failed to ascend. Their shapes flickered as if unwilling to die completely.
He walked alone, shoulders trembling. His once-radiant divine robe now hung in strips, fluttering in null-wind. Crimson-black energy pulsed from his chest, trailing jagged threads of corruption behind him like spectral roots. It was the Divine Mana Poison—a venomous curse born of Tian Xu's dying will. It chewed at his soul with every breath.
His eyes—once twin suns of divine gold—now flickered like failing lanterns. He stumbled forward, each step harder to will into existence. Then, it began again.
Another hallucination. "Ren'er… you always chase the stars."
The voice was soft and familiar. It cut through his fractured mind like a balm and a blade.
He turned. She stood beneath a weeping tree of stardust, bathed in moonpetal blossoms. Yue Ling'er, her white robes shimmered with dreamlight, hair flowing like midnight rivers kissed by winter's first snow. Her eyes held that same gentle defiance she always bore when watching him do something foolish.
He reached out. "Ling'er…"
She smiled and tilted her head. Then—like mist—she dissolved.Only silence remained then He fell to his knees.
The glass beneath him didn't crack, but his soul did. Inside his chest, the Soul Core Lotus spun erratically—its petals twitching, unraveling. Once a pristine golden bloom of balanced energy, now it was poisoned at the edges, turning black-veined and thin. The poison was not merely killing him—it was unmaking him.
He gritted his teeth, his voice hoarse. "This… won't stop me."
From within his sleeve, he pulled forth a jade sphere—a Divination Orb. Ancient as the oldest celestial dynasties, gifted to him by a forgotten god long before his ascension. It shimmered with translucent script, capable of tracing echoes across dimensions.
He poured divine energy into it, blood dripping from his fingertips as soulforce wavered.
"Show me… where she is. My Yue Ling'er show me!"
The orb spun, Scripts ignited and Lines of possibility lit the void—interdimensional threads bursting outward like a star reborn.
For a moment, clarity. A vast realm wrapped in red clouds, mana twisting unnaturally, a chained sun and a sealed temple and then—nothing.
The orb shattered. A black wave surged from it, slamming into Xian Ren's chest like a hammer of law. He screamed as the poison in his soul reacted violently, roaring like a starving beast. He convulsed, back arching, hands clawing the empty air.
The wave wasn't just force—it was rejection. The laws of that realm had repelled his very essence.
His body hit the bridge hard then, silence again but inside, the realization struck like thunder. He could no longer leave Heaven.
The Divine Mana Poison had done more than corrode his core. It had corrupted his origin imprint—the divine soul marker that allowed passage through the multiverse. Every world held its own mana architecture, its own rhythm. And now, to them, he was no longer compatible.
Wherever he stepped next—his soul would disintegrate.
He lay on his back, staring into the nothingness above. Stars flickered in the distance. Not real stars, but records of worlds, visible only from this realm. Each orb a realm, each flicker a universe's breath.
She's out there. But if I chase her… I die.
Then silence grew heavier.
Emotion, once suppressed by cultivation and godhood, surged like a flood. Not just grief nor just rage but despair. The despair of an immortal who saw his immortality as a cage rather than salvation.
Then, he heard it again. "Even if your path ends… I will wait beyond it."
Another hallucination? No, It felt different.
He sat up slowly, golden blood trailing from his lips. His muscles spasmed. Every inch of his body cried out. Yet he focused—not outward, but inward.
He let his soul peel open like a scroll, layers of memory drifting upward. Not the violent ones, not the battles. But the quiet ones. Yue Ling'er placing a cloak on his shoulders before his first divine war. Her humming in the gardens of Cloud Mirror Pavilion. Her tear-stricken face when she first whispered she loved him, believing he hadn't heard.
These weren't hallucinations. They were anchors. He pressed both hands to his chest.
"I am not done," he said. "If I cannot go as a god… I will go as something else."
The poison pulsed harder, seeming to fight his will. Shadows curled from his veins, taking shapes—mocking him. Faces of the gods he'd killed. Of Tian Xu laughing as he died but he stood.
A bridge appeared before him—leading to the outer rim of the Silent Layers. Beyond it: the Library of Echoes, where multiverse knowledge had once been archived by the Lawwrights of Heaven.
He didn't know yet how he would reach her. Only that he would. As he walked, reality around him shimmered. The Silent Layers wept—a divine wound cut into the fabric of Heaven. The soul of Xian Ren, once revered as a flawless war god, now flickered with corruption. But his will remained unshaken.
Far above, unknown to him, a single star flickered in response.
A world waiting and a woman—forgotten, sealed, yet dreaming—calling to him through the laws he no longer belonged to.
To be continued…