We marched at dusk.
Not with an army.
Not with banners.
With seven women —
one living, six returned —
and one man who had spent seven lifetimes learning how to let go.
The path to the Celestial Spire was not guarded by soldiers.
It was guarded by illusion.
A valley that looped endlessly.
A bridge that vanished underfoot.
A sky that whispered lies in the voices of the dead.
But the Six walked ahead.
Each step they took burned the illusion away.
The warrior woman shattered the looping valley with a single strike of her broken sword — not cutting stone, but time.
The blind alchemist dissolved the bridge's illusion with a drop of Ash That Whispers — the same poison I'd used on a servant's tea.
The girl with lightning eyes walked barefoot over the void, leaving glowing footprints like stars.
They were not just ghosts.
They were truth incarnate.
And the world could not deny them.
Halfway to the Spire, the Azure Sect struck.
Not with cultivators.
With Fatebinders — elite enforcers whose very presence warped destiny.
Hundreds descended from the sky, robes golden, eyes hollow, chanting the Hymn of Obedience.
The air thickened.
The ground trembled.
Even the Six faltered.
Because the Hymn didn't attack the body.
It attacked the will.
"You are nothing.
You are erased.
You will return to silence."
The warrior woman fell to her knees.
The alchemist clutched her ears, blood from her nose.
The girl screamed — not in pain, but in memory.
I stepped forward.
But before I could act —
Murong Yan moved.
He walked past me.
Past the Six.
Past the illusion, the fear, the fate.
And he stopped in the center of the battlefield.
The Fatebinders turned to him.
One laughed.
"Keeper. You are still bound to us. Lay down your sword."
Murong Yan didn't speak.
He raised his hand.
And with the edge of his blade —
he cut his own fate thread.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
A golden strand, thin as spider silk, stretched from his chest to the sky — connecting him to the Celestial Spire, to the system, to the lie.
He severed it.
The moment the thread broke —
his cultivation base shattered.
Level after level collapsed — like a tower of glass.
His Qi vanished.
His Void Eye dimmed.
His body trembled.
But he didn't fall.
He stood.
And for the first time in his life —
he was free.
"You want a soul?" he said, voice quiet, final.
"Take mine.
It's all you'll get."
He looked at me.
"But she walks free."
Then, softer:
"Always."
The Hymn of Obedience shattered.
The Fatebinders screamed — not in anger, but in terror.
Because a man who cuts his own fate thread is not just rebellious.
He is infectious.
The Six rose.
The warrior woman smiled.
The alchemist wiped her blood.
The girl reached for the sky.
And together —
they marched.
At the base of the Spire, the final gate stood —
a wall of solidified light, inscribed with the names of every "heretic" ever erased.
Mei Lianhua turned to me.
"This is where we end."
She placed a hand on my shoulder.
"The Spire will not let the living plant the Root.
Only the dead can breach its heart."
She smiled.
"Good thing we're already ghosts."
One by one, the Six stepped forward.
They didn't say goodbye.
They didn't weep.
They walked into the gate —
and burned.
Not with fire.
With memory.
Their essences ignited — not to destroy, but to unlock.
The gate cracked.
The names on it faded.
And for the first time in 3,000 years —
the heart of the Spire was exposed.
A single chamber.
A black pillar.
And at its core —
a beating heart made of golden threads.
The Engine of the Lie.
Mei Lianhua was the last.
She turned to me.
"You were never the weakest of us."
She pressed the Root of the First Rebellion into my palm.
"You were the only one who remembered how to feel."
She smiled.
"Now go.
And make them remember too."
Then she stepped into the gate.
And the world shook.
I stood at the threshold.
The Root pulsed in my hand — cold, alive, hungry.
Behind me, Murong Yan knelt — weak, mortal, but still watching me.
Still choosing me.
I didn't look back.
I stepped into the Spire.
And the door sealed behind me.
Author Note:
They say love is the strongest force.
But sometimes, the bravest thing you can do
is walk into the dark
without looking back.
— Gopalakrishna