Within the silent, comatose body of Ye Fan's Dao Clone, a spark flickered. For months, it had been a still, dark pool, its connection to the main soul stretched thin and muted by distance and the cataclysmic shock of Chu Ling's violation. But now, that connection screamed to life.
The main soul was returning. And it was roaring.
The clone's eyes snapped open. It did not gasp. It did not move. It simply lay there, on the cold floor of the sparse room, as three years of compressed experiences, learnings, and power flooded into it from a world where time flowed differently. The clone's cultivation, once a mirror of Ye Fan's Core Formation stage, now surged, its meridians burning as they struggled to contain the influx of energy from a soul that had battled through a secret realm for what felt like a lifetime.
Outside, in the real world, only a single month had passed.
---
At the edge of the Luo Region, in a forgotten valley shrouded in mist, the air tore open. It wasn't a violent rift, but a graceful unraveling of space itself, a sigh of release after long confinement.
One by one, they stepped through.
First was Ye Fan. The boy who had entered was gone. In his place stood a young man, his frame filled out with hardened muscle earned in countless life-or-death battles. His eyes, once bright with defiant spirit, now held the deep, calculating calm of a seasoned hunter who had stared into the abyss and learned to navigate its currents. His aura, once a blazing fire, was now a contained inferno, humming at the very peak of the Core Formation realm, a hair's breadth from Nascent Soul. The mysterious ring on his finger glowed with a satisfied light, and the jade pendant against his chest felt warm, a constant, reassuring presence.
Behind him came his companions—a brotherhood forged in the crucible of the secret realm. There was the hulking Lei Gang, his body crackling with newfound lightning power. The sly and clever Feng Zhi, his fingers twirling a spatial dagger that hadn't existed a month ago. And the serene healer, Lin Xian'er, her aura pulsing with gentle, potent life energy that could knit bone and spirit alike.
And with them, the heroines. The ones the Ancestor's spies had been unable to find, because they had been utterly isolated in a pocket dimension outside of time.
Bai Wei, the proud young mistress of the Bai Clan, now moved with the lethal grace of a master of a lost sword art, her beauty sharpened into a weapon. Elder Sister Lian,no longer just a senior disciple, but a priestess of an ancient moonlit tradition, her eyes holding the wisdom of forgotten cycles. And the mysterious Luo Ying,who had been a mere rumor before, now tangible, her body humming with a rare spatial affinity that made the air around her waver.
They stood together for a moment, breathing the air of their homeland, their auras a symphony of immense, hard-won power. They were no longer disciples; they were veterans of a hidden war.
"We're back," Lei Gang grunted, cracking his neck with a sound like thunder.
"And the world feels… different," Lin Xian'er murmured, her sensitive spirit feeling the subtle, wrong thrum in the ley lines—the effect of the Ancestor's Destiny-Severing Array.
Ye Fan said nothing. His enhanced spiritual sense was already stretching out, seeking the familiar threads of his home, his mother… Chu Ling.
The connection to his Dao Clone slammed into his mind like a tidal wave.
The image of Chu Ling, on her knees, branded. The golden character on her back. The silver script on her hip. The boy with green eyes, giggling. The feeling of absolute, utter violation. The silent, comatose scream of his own clone.
Ye Fan's knees buckled. He fell to one knee, clutching his head as a agony far worse than any physical wound tore through him. A raw, animalistic sound of pure anguish and rage was ripped from his throat, echoing through the valley.
"Brother Ye!" "Ye Fan!"
His friends rushed to his side, but he shoved them away, his body trembling with barely contained power. His eyes, when he looked up, were no longer calm. They were the eyes of a beast, burning with a hatred so profound it seemed to scorch the air around him.
"Ling'er…" he choked out, the name a prayer and a curse.
The memories from the clone kept coming, a relentless horror show. His mother, Su Wan, dressed as a bride, a collar around her neck. Her being declared Overlord. The public humiliation of the Su Matriarch. The news of a child—a tyrant born of that monstrous union. The dissolution of the sects, the rise of the "Eternal Dynasty."
The world had not just changed. It had been stolen, defiled, and remade in the image of a monster while he was away.
The beautiful master's voice, usually so calm, was sharp with alarm in his mind. 'Fan'er! Your Dao Heart! Stabilize it! This is exactly what the enemy wants! This rage will consume you!'
But the rage was a fire that could not be quenched. It was a foundation upon which a new, darker Ye Fan was being built.
He slowly rose to his feet. The grief and shock were being forged in the furnace of his fury into something cold, hard, and lethal.
"We must return to our families," Bai Wei said, her voice tight with her own worry. "We must see what remains."
"My clan…" Elder Sister Lian whispered, her face pale.
"We scatter. Now," Ye Fan said, his voice a low, dangerous rasp that brooked no argument. "Gather intelligence. Learn everything. Mourn what is lost. But do not act rashly. This enemy… he is not like any we have faced. He plays a different game."
He looked at each of them, his gaze burning into theirs. "We meet again in one month's time at the Sky-Splitting Canyon. Speak of this to no one. Trust no one."
There was a grim, determined nod from each of them. The joy of their return was ashes in their mouths. They had left as talented youths seeking fortune. They returned as warriors to find a war already lost on the home front.
Without another word, they parted ways, their figures blurring as they shot towards their respective homes, their hearts heavy with dread.
Ye Fan stood alone for a moment longer, his fists clenched so tight that blood dripped from where his nails pierced his palms. He looked in the direction of the Black Dragon Citadel, now the heart of a cancerous empire.
"Lu Tian," he whispered the name. It was no longer just the name of an enemy. It was a symbol of everything he would destroy. A promise of vengeance that would shake the heavens.
The hero had returned. But the boy was gone, replaced by a storm contained within a mortal vessel. And the storm was beginning to gather.