The sutra was uttered in the vastness.
A whisper that cut like thunder.
Xie Wuchen stood above the kneeling form of Lan, his arms outstretched, robes fluttering as if caught in the breath of a storm that did not exist. His voice, dark and cold and absolute, echoed through the depths of the spiritual sea.
"From rot, the lotus blooms.
From fracture, the vessel awakens.
From the death of self—transcendence."
The words seared into the fabric of Lan’s being. They were more than chants, they were verdicts even. Every syllable painted pain into the sky. The ocean of his soul responded—boiling, thrashing.
From the black waves, lotuses of shadow blood and crumbled in seconds. Their petals scread as they burned. The horizon twisted.
Lightning split the air in jagged silence, striking the sea and splitting it open in luminous cracks. Each bolt was a mory. Each crack, a fracture in sanity.
Lan knelt on a crumbling slab of nothingness, his breath painful, body bowed. Before him floated his core—round, perfect, filled with dark light and potential.
It glowed like a dead sun.
Then ca the needle.
Long and thin and darker than void, the black needle glead with unnatural stillness. It was forged from condensed spiritual will—Lan’s own—but sharpened into a weapon by Xie Wuchen’s hands.
And now, it hovered above the core.
"Begin," Xie whispered, and the needle pierced down.
Lan scread.
Even in this inner space, where the laws of flesh did not apply, blood erupted from his eyes, ears, and mouth. His spine arched back violently. Bones cracked—it wasn’t physically, but on the level of the soul. His aura spasd, shuddered, and then began to collapse inwards like a dying star.
The core cracked.
A pulse of Qi rippled outward, shredding the nearest lotuses, tossing lightning back into the sky. The ritual had begun in truth.
And now ca the trial.
---
mories ca knocking at first. Then they stord the gates of his mind with jagged claws and fla.
Lan stood in a corridor again—familiar, cold. Stone walls. Golden banners. Solaris colors.
He was young. His knees bled. He’d just fallen trying to follow his older brothers to the training field. They hadn’t even noticed him trailing behind.
But then he saw her.
His mother. She stood at the end of the hallway, smiling softly, her white dress fluttering as if moved by a breeze from another world.
He ran to her. Called her na.
She turned to him—but it wasn’t her face anymore. It was her corpse’s. Burnt. Hollow-eyed. Reeking of ash and perfu.
Lan fell backward, screaming.
The illusion did not wait. It shattered. Another one took its place.
A banquet table. Careful laughter. His brothers, wearing crowns not yet theirs, toasting to a kingdom without him. One leaned close to whisper:
"You were born weak. Stay that way."
Another leaned closer still, and placed a dagger beside his cup.
---
His mind twisted. The sea boiled around him. The core cracked again.
"These are your roots," said Xie Wuchen, watching from the void. "Rip them out, or drown in them."
Lan gasped. His spirit form flickered. His skin now shone faintly with gold veins, but it was dim, unstable. Each mory was a spear. Each truth, poison.
Another illusion surged.
He stood before a mirror—not in the spiritual sea, not in illusion, but in mory. Alone. Years ago. Before awakening. Before cultivation. Before all this.
His reflection looked at him with contempt.
"You are nothing," the reflection said.
"No one will ever follow you."
"You are not her."
"You are not him."
"You are not you."
Lan roared.
The mirror shattered. The sea scread. The sky broke open.
Now ca the next phase.
The ocean of the spiritual sea dried up—not slowly, but like it had never been water at all. The waves pulled back in horror, revealing a black pit beneath the world.
This was more than an abyss...it was truth.
There was no bottom.
Only choice.
Lan’s soul, now stripped, trembling, stepped to the edge. His core floated behind him—cracked, unstable, weeping light. The needle still inside it.
Xie Wuchen hovered above, arms still raised.
"You must leap," he said. "The death of the self is the first step toward heaven. Do it, and rise as more."
Lan looked down. His spirit hesitated. Fear returned—fear of pain? Of failure? No—of what he would leave behind. Who he would beco.
And then—he leapt.
For a mont, there was silence.
His soul ignited as it fell. A phoenix of spirit and will, shedding illusion, mory, weakness. Light flared across the void, searing into unseen eyes. Even Xie recoiled.
But then—
A sound tore through the void like a divine scream. Sothing was descending from above.
The sky opened—and from it ca a golden chain.
Massive. Divine. Each link pulsed with impossible power. It seed like a conjuration, not a technique.
It was the Will of the Heavens.
Lan’s soul form scread as the chain wrapped around it mid-leap, halting his transcendence. It yanked him upwards like a corpse being reeled from the pit.
His body jerked in agony. His form began to tear—spirit from mind, Qi from soul. He clawed at his own skin, trying to hold himself together.
"It sees your defiance," Xie said grimly. "It will not let you go so easily."
Lan convulsed. His golden veins split, leaking black mist. The core shattered fully behind him, releasing a terrible, holy wail.
Still the chain pulled.
The Heavens did not care for struggle. Only order. And Lan—Lan was not ant to rise.
"You must choose," Xie shouted now, his calm fracturing for the first ti. "You can ascend—and beco its puppet—or—"
He pointed at the chain.
"Tear it apart."
Lan’s vision blurred. His spirit was coming undone. He saw faces in the dark—his mother, dying. Iris, broken. Seraphine, kneeling in prayer. Venom, covered in ash and blood. The Fourth Guard, standing watch.
Lan’s fists clenched. Blood poured from his knuckles. His soul roared with agony—but deep within the roar was sothing else.
Laughter.
One so devoid of joy. Just will.
Of defiance.
’You are not the Heavens.’
’You are not her.’
’You are not him.’
’But you are you.’
His arm moved.
It shook.
But it moved.
With hands torn and fingers broken, Lan reached toward the chain.
The golden light scorched him. But still he reached.
Still he grasped.
Still—
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