The mirror's glow slowly dimmed, but Lin Hai stood frozen, breath heavy, body drenched in sweat. The vision, the flame, the chains—what did it all mean?
Suddenly, the grand doors of the Main Hall groaned open.
A wave of pressure swept through the room, ancient and suffocating. Even the air felt heavier.
From the corridor beyond, Sect Leader Yuan Xian stepped into the hall—his robes torn, his face pale, and his body shaking uncontrollably. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples as if he had returned from a battlefield between worlds.
Moments ago, deep within the forbidden zone of the Celestial Chains, he had received a voice—not one that spoke in words, but one that hummed in existence itself. A being who had once watched over the heavens. That voice had told him:
> "The mirror will awaken for the one meant to inherit what was lost. The path begins when flame meets chain."
And now, here he stood… and before him…
Lin Hai.
The trembling boy, his hand still raised to the mirror, eyes wide and uncertain.
Yuan Xian staggered forward.
Behind him, far in the celestial cavern, the chains—those ancient binding chains capable of restraining even celestial body beings—began to rattle again. Their ends shimmered with a strange light and then slowly relocked themselves, as if sealing the path they had just revealed.
The connection was gone.
Sealed.
The timing was too perfect. Too coincidental.
Yuan Xian's lips twitched. He wanted to laugh, to release the madness rising inside him from what he had just witnessed—the truth of betrayal, of the 53 missing celestial beings, of the suppressed glory of the Celestial Sect, once rulers of the universe.
But just as he let out a faint, cracked chuckle—BOOM.
A massive spiritual pressure struck him like a hammer. An invisible force weighed down on his shoulders, like the presence of the ancient being he had just met was still watching, still testing him.
No one else in the sect would feel this pressure. Their cultivation was too low. Their eyes were too blind.
But Yuan Xian… he understood.
This wasn't the time to break, nor to lose control.
He straightened, forcing his trembling body to still. Slowly, his eyes turned toward Lin Hai again. The boy was breathing hard, sweat pouring down his face… and he was trembling just like Yuan Xian had been moments ago.
Their eyes met.
One was a boy cast aside by fate.
The other, a leader burdened with a crumbling legacy.
And yet, in this moment… they were the same.
Yuan Xian's heart pounded.
> "Is it truly him? The one the mirror acknowledged? The one the ancient being spoke of? Could this discarded child… truly be the spark that lights our ashes?"
His gaze deepened.
The chains had moved.
The mirror had awakened.
And Lin Hai—untrained, unrecognized, unwanted—had triggered it all.
The hall was silent, yet filled with the whispers of destiny.
The embers had been lit.
And now, the forgotten power of the Celestial Sect had begun to stir.