The Library of Echoes had begun to fold itself into silence once more.
Lanterns dimmed to faint embers. Tomes returned to their resting places, fluttering through the air like the wings of spirit-birds. Reality itself pulsed slowly, as if the space between thoughts and memories had grown heavy with judgment. The multiversal orbs—once glowing in patterns of chaotic harmony—now slowed in their rotation. The entire structure felt... still.
But Xian Ren remained unmoved, standing just within the threshold of the grand exit. His hand, clenched at his side, began to shimmer with pale, silver light—etched in runes not native to Heaven, but drawn from the forbidden Void Scripture he had long sealed in his soul.
He turned back toward the starlight throne.
Goddess Ming Hua had settled once again into her seat, her posture regal, timeless. Her face was a mask of resigned divinity, the kind of expression only those who had watched empires die and gods fall could wear. Her golden eyes flickered—disappointment, perhaps, or pity.
She did not flinch when he raised his hand.
"Soul Lock Sigil: Boundary of the Thousand Chains."
The words echoed like iron bells across the chamber. Instantly, tendrils of translucent light burst from the air itself, wrapping around the throne in symmetrical precision. They glowed with ethereal restraint—neither binding flesh nor crushing bone, but locking the soul within. Runes resembling living serpents etched themselves into the space, coiling across her body in slow spirals.
Ming Hua did not scream. She exhaled—slow, weary. "So this... is the choice you make?"
Xian Ren's voice was low. "I do not have time for morality. I only have time for her."
His hand glowed once more as he stepped forward, pulling from his own spirit a shard of sapphire light. It danced like a memory between his fingers before he pressed it against her forehead. The sigils flared. Ming Hua's eyes widened—not in pain, but in realization.
"Memory thread access… forbidden outside the Wheel of Reincarnation. You would defy even this?"
"I will defy everything," he answered.
In an instant, the Library vanished.
Xian Ren stood in a sea of fog and mirror-glass. Around him, floating panels shimmered like stardust—each one a stolen memory, refracted through the soul of a goddess who had seen countless realms.
One by one, the panels aligned, and through them poured a single vision—
A world collapsing in slow motion. The realm of Veylanth.
It was unlike Heaven—less divine majesty, more primal grandeur. Towering spires of dark-blue stone jutted from cracked landmasses drifting in floating sky-continents. Rivers flowed upside down. Trees glowed with violet mana and whispered to each other in the voices of the dead. Magic here wasn't elegant—it was desperate, wild, unstable. The sky was a deep amethyst, and black lightning cracked through the clouds like a punishment from the stars.
Xian Ren floated among the visions, watching them unfold. A thousand cities, some teetering on ruin, others buried in the sand of dying deserts. Giant beast-kings roamed shattered valleys. Great cultivators meditated on mountaintops that were no longer attached to the earth. And beneath it all—a pulse.
He followed it instinctively.
At the heart of Veylanth, deep beneath the largest floating landmass, there was a crystalline tomb wrapped in concentric rings of soul-sealing runes. Suspended in the very center—motionless, radiant, and impossibly still—was her Yue Ling'er.
She was not conscious. Her soul flickered like a trapped flame. Around her, six rotating seals etched in unknown script rotated slowly. Chains of dimensional mana wrapped her like a cocoon. Her presence kept the realm in fragile balance—its destruction delayed only by her constant sacrifice.
The vision trembled.
Xian Ren tried to reach for her—but his hand passed through the image like smoke. He clenched his fist and turned.
Another memory panel opened. This one held options but not promises—only consequences.
In a new vision chamber, a marble table formed beneath Xian Ren's feet. Upon it were two floating glyphs, flickering red and blue.
A soft, voice—not Ming Hua's, but the Library's own—whispered.
"Two paths lie ahead. Neither leads to peace."
First glyph: A fiery red sigil shaped like a shattered star.
Beneath it: Destroy Veylanth. Sever her soul's anchor. Retrieve her into Heaven.
Cost: One realm and eight billion lives and Collapse of a timeline.
Second glyph: A soft blue spiral, glowing gently.
Beneath it: Fragment yourself. Reforge your soul in a native cycle. Rebirth into Veylanth.
Cost: Your divinity, your memory and your name.
Xian Ren's breath grew shallow. He closed his eyes.
He could already feel the consequences of each path. In the red path—power remained, and his soul would be saved. In the blue—he would fall into the unknown, possibly never returning. It was suicide… dressed in hope.
The image of Yue Ling'er in that crystalline tomb returned again—her soft smile, the memory of her fingertips brushing his cheek, her voice whispering old stories at night when war was far away.
She was everything he had and now she was already dying.
The decision drove him into motion. The dream-vision faded, and Xian Ren found himself walking a corridor lined with mirrors made of glowing crystal. This was the Hall of Echoes, an ancient corridor buried beneath the Library's memory core.
In each reflection, he saw himself—but not now. These were past versions of him.
One, when he took the oath of the Sky Flame Sect. Another, when he broke the spine of the Bone Emperor during the Battle of Nine Suns. A third—when he first kissed Yue Ling'er under the rain of comet flowers. Dozens of selves, all watching him walk.
Each time he passed one, a whisper echoed through the hall.
"You gave up a heaven to love her."
"You denied eternity to walk beside her."
"Will you burn yourself again?"
His steps faltered—but never stopped.
At the end of the hall stood a door formed from translucent gold. It bore no handle nor lock. Only a question.
Carved in ancient tongue: "What is a god without memory?"
Xian Ren answered, not with words, but with soul. He placed his hand on the door. His voice was low. "Still her husband."
Then door vanished.
To be continued…