The Heart Loom Array surged to life.
Across the Hollow Empire, ancient symbols rose from the ground, spinning into formation—one thousand and eight soul-threads interlinked into a web that encompassed the capital. Light and memory pulsed in rhythm, sealing the sky.
From the commoners to cultivators, every soul within the bounds of the array felt a tremor in their hearts.
Their fates… were no longer hidden.
---
Yu Meixing's hands trembled slightly as she maintained the central array core. "The Soul-Thread Resistance is increasing. It's trying to undo the bindings."
Liu Shen stood beside her, his robes torn from battle, yet his aura growing colder, sharper. "That means the heavens are reacting. Good."
He looked toward the sky, now darkened by storm clouds not of nature—but of divine interference.
They were coming.
---
Kuren stood bloodied, his armor melting from divine corrosion, but the Inquisitor was worse. Half his mask had shattered, revealing a pale face with no mouth, no eyes—only a smooth blank surface where humanity had once been.
"You… were once mortal," Kuren said, flame licking his wounds. "What did they do to you?"
The Inquisitor's body contorted unnaturally. "We are not fallen. We are chosen."
"Then I pity you," Kuren whispered—and stabbed his blade through the Inquisitor's chest.
A burst of silence. The air imploded.
---
The Inquisitor's body dissolved into motes of silver law. But before they could escape into the heavens, Liu Shen raised his hand and formed a seal.
The motes were trapped, pulled into a red jade vessel.
"Why did you seal him?" Meixing asked.
"Because his soul remembers," Liu Shen said. "And the heavens never erase—they overwrite."
He turned to her. "I need his memories. I need proof."
---
At the edge of the sky, golden thunder boomed.
A tear appeared in the firmament.
Through it descended a procession: twelve figures cloaked in light, each holding a sigil of authority—heavenly adjudicators. They did not walk. They judged.
Their voices echoed across creation:
"Liu Shen, bearer of the Demon Crown.
You have defiled a seal of divine memory.
You have awakened a soul exiled by decree.
You have summoned flames long extinguished.
By mandate of the stars, you are to be erased."
---
People across the capital fell to their knees.
Not by choice, but from the weight of divine presence.
Even seasoned cultivators struggled to breathe.
But in the eye of the storm, Liu Shen stood alone.
He smiled.
"You always declare, but never ask why I rose again."
He stepped forward.
"I was erased once."
His demonic aura flared—no longer restrained, but liberated by defiance.
"This time, I erase you."
---
The twelve adjudicators raised their sigils in unison.
The ground beneath Liu Shen collapsed into a void of pure order—a judgment realm. Time froze. Sound ceased. The laws of cultivation unraveled.
But within that space, Liu Shen's demonic core thrived.
Because what the heavens called order… he called chains.
And chains break.
---
With a roar, he unleashed his soul: half demonic flame, half Abyssal shadow.
It struck the judgment realm like a comet.
Reality bent.
One sigil cracked.
Then another.
---
The adjudicators recoiled, shields of law flickering.
"He has merged Abyssal Source with Sovereign Will—this shouldn't be possible!"
"It's not! His soul was fragmented—how did it stabilize?!"
---
From behind, Yu Meixing whispered, "Because he remembers everything now. You tried to seal his past…"
"…but it's his truth."
---
One by one, the adjudicators began to falter under Liu Shen's wrath.
As the last one raised their hand in a desperate strike, Liu Shen appeared behind them, whispering:
"Mandates die. But my will doesn't."
And with a snap of his fingers, the final sigil shattered.
---
The skies cleared.
The seal on the Hollow Empire's fate unraveled.
And for the first time in ten thousand years, the heavens tasted fear.