The glyph at the manual's heart spiraled once and bloomed.
And from within that blooming light, a figure emerged.
At first, Kai thought he recognized the figure from somewhere.
"You…" he croaked, voice cracked from the pressure of the Crucible. "You're the old man… from the manual's realm."
The man smiled faintly. It was the kind of smile that barely touched the lips but softened everything around it.
"No," the man said gently. "That was merely an avatar—a fragment of my will, placed within the Celestial Eclipse Manual to guide you in your cultivation."
He stepped forward, his footsteps soundless against the gleaming floor.
"I am no projection. I am Mo Xuan."
Kai's breath caught.
The name echoed in the chamber like thunder pressed into silk.
"The Mo Xuan?" he whispered. "Founder of Obsidian Peak Sect… creator of the Manual?"
Mo Xuan nodded once, serene and unshaken.
"The same. Though I have not used that name in a very long time."
Kai stared at him, the truth slowly sinking in. The one whose techniques he had studied. The one whose legacy had shaped his journey. The one whose name had nearly faded into myth.
Mo Xuan stood before him now.
He emerged as stillness incarnate—a presence that did not demand reverence, yet evoked it. His robes were a blend of dusk-gray and starlit silver, the patterns on his sleeves ever-shifting like the sky in twilight. His long black hair was tied back, unadorned, and his face—calm, unburdened, unchanged.
He stood within the Crucible, untouched by its heat or hunger.
Kai's lips moved, but no sound came.
"You're not dead yet," Mo Xuan said quietly. "But you are close enough."
Kai gasped in air that wasn't truly air, felt the sting of his own dwindling Qi, and managed a whisper.
"Why… are you here?"
Mo Xuan knelt beside him, his voice gentle and distant—like water speaking to stone.
"The one thing I swore never to do again… was interfere in mortal affairs."
He placed a hand near Kai's chest and Kai felt a faint pulse of energy—not healing,but pause.
A momentary stillness in the Crucible's pull.
Mo Xuan did not look at him immediately. His eyes traced the golden dome of the crucible as if remembering it from some earlier age.
"Long ago," he began, "I climbed the path of cultivation along with Ren Wuji . We were brothers in spirit once. He had strength, but little guidance. Passion, but little control. I did my best to temper him, but… in time, he stopped listening. You know the tale. How he burned sects. How he shattered lives. And how, when no one else could stop him… I did."
Kai remembered Ren Wuji's confession—of chains forged by a friend.
"I sealed him inside the Void Realm. Not out of hatred," Mo Xuan said, "but necessity."
His voice dropped.
"And then I looked at the world."
He rose, his back straight, hands clasped loosely behind him.
"I saw what it had become. Petty. Ambitious. Righteous only when convenient. Even the sect I founded—my Obsidian Peak Sect—had become hollow. The very same elders I had once hand-picked had committed unsavory terrible things."
Kai's voice rasped. "So you… left."
Mo Xuan nodded.
"I swore never to interfere with the mortal world again. I ascended, shedding my mortal ties. I buried my presence in the depths of the heavens. I wandered in the Immortal Realms practicing cultivation in peace."
He looked down at Kai.
"Until the Celestial Eclipse Manual returned to me."
The Crucible's light flickered slightly, as though recoiling from the weight of his words.
Kai struggled to sit upright. "Returned…?"
Mo Xuan's gaze softened.
"The manual was mine to begin with. A living artifact of balance, forged from the fusion of opposing truths: light and dark, stillness and flow, order and emotion."
He turned away again.
"I created it to guide Jiang Xue once. She was the first I deemed worthy."
Kai's breath caught.
"She advanced with it," Mo Xuan continued, "faster than I expected. Faster than even she expected. She was… luminous. She made the technique her own, repurposed it. Transformed it into something uniquely hers. In the end, she touched the edge of immortality."
Kai lowered his head. "And then she died."
"Yes."
Mo Xuan's voice was barely audible.
"And the manual returned to me."
He gestured gently toward the book now hovering beside them—still radiating the cool, steady glow of eclipsed light.
"Artifacts like this," he said, "are tied to their creator's intent. They return to their origin when their bond is severed."
Kai watched him with quiet pain. "You already knew what happened."
"I suspected," Mo Xuan replied. "But I wanted… verification."
His hand tightened behind his back.
"So I descended. Not to intervene. Just to observe. I visited the Obsidian Peak Sect spiritually. I saw the rot and the corruption. I saw what had become of the elders. Of the disciples. Of everything we once built."
He turned to face Kai again.
"And I realized that if I did nothing, everything I left behind would decay."
Kai whispered, "But you swore never to interfere."
"I did," Mo Xuan said. "So I honored it."
He lifted the manual in one hand, and the air around it shifted.
"I took the Celestial Eclipse Manual and repurposed it. I wove into it a living search—a slow, subtle resonance that would seek one thing, a kind heart. Someone with strength, yes. But more importantly, someone with compassion. A soul that would choose balance."
His gaze met Kai's.
"It found you."
The words hung in the crucible like the final note of a poem.
Kai stared at the book, light glimmering across his vision.
Mo Xuan stepped closer.
"You are being refined," he said quietly. "But refinement does not mean erasure. It means transmutation. You can still break free."
Kai's hand trembled.
"I don't know how."
"You do," Mo Xuan said. "Because you already began."
He pointed to the Celestial Eclipse manual—the glyph in the book flared faintly.
"This manual holds more than just technique. It holds potential. Given time, it could raise you to immortality. But it is still only a tool. The breakthrough must come from you."
Kai closed his eyes.
He saw Yin Shuang's face.
Meng Yao's tears.
Han Long's final smile.
He clenched his fists.
"I… I don't want to become a pill."
Mo Xuan's lips curved upward, just slightly.
"Then don't."
Mo Xuan began to blur—his form growing translucent, fading.
"My time is short," he said. "I came through the bond. But I cannot stay. You must do the rest."
Kai tried to reach for him.
"Wait—what do I do?!"