Lu Chen knew he couldn't play the mysterious stranger for long. To forge the Heavenly Needle and prepare for the catastrophe, he needed Yue Xiao's absolute devotion and the full cooperation of the Frozen Moon Palace. He decided to gamble everything on the truth.
The blizzard had settled into a soft, crystalline fall. Yue Xiao stood over Lu Chen, her blue eyes filled with a mixture of suspicion and a strange, soul-deep familiarity. The silver in her hair pulsed with the rhythm of the stars.
"You speak of nightmares," she said, her voice like cracking ice. "You destroyed a curse I didn't even know I carried. Who are you to know my fate better than I do?"
Lu Chen struggled to sit up, his blackened finger throbbing with the remnant of Fang Yuan's void energy. He looked directly into her eyes—not with the gaze of a nineteen-year-old disciple, but with the weary, haunted eyes of a man who had watched the world burn.
"In the world that was supposed to be," Lu Chen began, his voice raspy, "you and I were the last ones standing on the ramparts of the Sword Pavilion. You called me 'Chen' then. And you died freezing the blood in the Patriarch's veins for three seconds—just so I could have a chance to strike."
Yue Xiao recoiled, her hand flying to her throat. "That's impossible... I've never met you."
"I am a ghost of a future that hasn't happened yet, Xiao," he whispered. He began to recount details only she could know: the secret scar on her left shoulder from a childhood accident, the hidden mantra of the Frozen Moon Palace's forbidden third floor, and the exact words she whispered into his ear before she turned into ice in the year 2029.
As he spoke, the disbelief in her eyes melted into a terrifying realization. The "World Will" within her resonated with his words. She felt the echo of a love that had lasted a lifetime in another world.
"He is coming," Lu Chen pointed at the burning timer in the sky. "He isn't just a man; he is an apex predator from another dimension. I've come back to turn you into more than just a sacrifice. I'm going to make you his ending."
Yue Xiao knelt beside him, no longer a distant goddess but a girl terrified by the scale of the shadows. She took his blackened hand in hers, and for the first time in two lives, their Qi harmonized without resistance.