The echoes of battle still clung to the shattered temple, blood soaked into the marble tiles like ink upon parchment. Mo Lianyin stood alone amid the ruin, the final embers of the Heaven-Crushing Pulse fading from his fingertips. The power had been immense—so immense it left his meridians trembling, his spirit core flickering dangerously like a candle about to die.
He dropped to one knee, blood trickling from the corner of his lips.
"You shouldn't have pushed it that far," a soft voice warned.
Lianyin looked up through hazy vision. Zeiwei, the Silent Wanderer, emerged from the drifting mist like a ghost. Her white robes floated around her in a wind that did not exist. She had watched from afar, as she always did—never interfering, only recording.
"You knew," Lianyin said hoarsely. "You knew the Fourth Art would do this to me."
Zeiwei knelt beside him. "The Forbidden Arts were not made for balance. They were born of agony, crafted by desperate men who clawed against fate. Each one takes more than it gives."
He chuckled bitterly. "Then how do I survive the next three?"
She pressed a palm gently against his back, sending a wave of steadying qi through his wounded meridians. "By remembering you are still human, Mo Lianyin. Not a god. Not a weapon. You bleed. You break. Do not forget that."
He bowed his head, her words cutting deeper than any blade.
---
Elsewhere, across the Blackened Sea, the Heavenly Court had awakened.
Atop an obsidian platform floating high above the clouds, five Celestial Seers gathered around the Pillar of Echoes. The orb within shimmered with visions of Mo Lianyin's battle.
"The Heaven-Crushing Pulse has returned," murmured the eldest. "The boy has become a threat."
"We must act," another hissed. "He holds four of the Seven Forbidden Arts. If he finds the others—"
"He will unseal the Tomb of Yanshen," finished the third. "And the past we buried will rise again."
The seers raised their hands in unison, and from the heavens descended a single white feather, crackling with divine fury.
"Let judgment fall."
---
Back in the mortal realm, Mo Lianyin slept fitfully in a cave lit by bluefire crystals. Zeiwei sat across from him, her brush gliding across parchment, recording every scar etched into his soul.
Suddenly, the temperature plummeted. The wind screamed like a mourning widow. A golden rift split the air above the cave, and from it descended a figure cloaked in moonlight.
He was neither man nor beast—an envoy of the Heavens, with no face, only eyes of blinding white. In his hand, the Feather of Judgment.
Lianyin jolted awake, gasping as the pressure crushed the air from his lungs. Zeiwei stood between them, her brush glowing.
"You dare strike him now? He has not finished his path."
The envoy did not speak. He raised the feather.
Mo Lianyin staggered to his feet, blood still wet on his chin.
"If the heavens fear me… then let them tremble."
He raised his hand, and the fourth Forbidden Art reawakened, roaring like thunder across the land.
---
The battle that followed was not of mortal scale. Mountains crumbled. Rivers reversed. Time itself frayed at the edges. Lianyin fought like a demon reborn, burning every drop of spirit qi to keep standing.
He lost.
But the envoy left.
Not victorious, but uncertain.
Because at the edge of death, Mo Lianyin smiled. A smile that promised one thing:
I will rise again.
And in the ashes of defeat, power always grows.