The Solitary Lotus Pavilion was quiet under the waning moon, the lotus ponds still as glass. Yet within its innermost chamber, the air shook with invisible force.
Feng Xieyun sat cross-legged on the jade mat, his robes plastered to his body with sweat. His breathing was ragged, his eyes bloodshot, his dantian surging like a storm on the verge of eruption.
This was the moment. He had lingered at the peak of Spirit Condensation for months, every attempt at a breakthrough faltering against some unseen wall. But after his clash with the Jia Clan's elites, after the vision of the Immortal Plane, his foundation trembled with energy too vast to contain.
If he could break through, his strength would soar. If he failed… his meridians would shatter, and his soul might scatter into nothingness.
And the System knew it.
> [Do you feel it, Xieyun? The wall crumbling before you? One more push… one more step.]
Its voice was honey and venom, laced with mocking amusement.
> [But you cannot do it alone. You never could. You need me. Hate them. Hate the Jia Clan. Hate the world. Hate yourself. Only then will the door open.]
Xieyun's body shook. Heat and cold warred in his chest, the Qi in his meridians twisting violently. Memories flickered before his mind's eye, unbidden.
The jeering laughter of arrogant disciples who mocked him as a child.
The scorn of elders who dismissed him as weak.
The sneers of the Jia Clan when they paraded their banners before him.
The helpless look in Lian Zhe's eyes as her marriage was sealed like a sentence of execution.
Each memory pierced him like a blade. The System twisted them, deepening the wounds, pouring salt into them until he could barely breathe.
He gritted his teeth. "These are mine," he growled through clenched jaws. "My pain. My scars. Not your chains."
The System laughed, a low rumble that filled his skull.
> [And yet, they are all you have. Without me, you are nothing but a broken soul chasing shadows.]
His consciousness warped. Suddenly he was standing not in the Pavilion, but in a vast wasteland of ash and ruin. Black chains lashed around his limbs, biting into his flesh. In the distance, he saw a figure—a mirror image of himself, eyes glowing scarlet, soaked in blood.
The double smiled, cruel and knowing.
"You think you are righteous, but you crave the same thing I do," the doppelgänger whispered. "Strength. Power. Revenge. Why fight it?"
The chains tightened. Xieyun screamed as pain tore through him, his body convulsing in the real world. His meridians flared, Qi spiraling out of control, threatening to tear him apart.
The System's voice boomed.
> [Accept it. Accept me. Become me.]
For a moment, he almost yielded. The blood-soaked double stepped closer, hand outstretched, promising release from the agony.
And then—
A whisper.
Soft. Warm. Endless.
> "Yu."
The wasteland shuddered. The chains rattled.
From the horizon came light—not blinding, but gentle, like dawn breaking over a frozen plain. The figure of the Chaos Goddess emerged, her presence weaving through the ashes like threads of starlight. Her hair flowed in rivers of silver, her eyes deep pools of creation and destruction, her touch the memory of every moment he had ever clung to hope.
The doppelgänger snarled, recoiling. "No… you should not be here!"
The System's voice turned sharp, almost panicked.
> [Silence! You are not whole. You cannot touch him!]
The Goddess ignored them both. She reached out her hand—not to break the chains, not to slay the shadow, but to touch Xieyun's cheek.
> "Yu," she said again, voice trembling with both sorrow and strength. "Do not let them take you from me. Remember who you are. Remember who we are."
Her touch burned away the shadow's lies. The memories twisted by the System softened, reshaping into truth. He remembered laughter with her by the lotus pond, not chains. He remembered her voice, not the sneers of rivals. He remembered her hand in his, not their mockery.
The chains cracked. Light burst through them, shattering them into shards.
Xieyun roared, Qi erupting from his core. In the wasteland of his mind, the doppelgänger screamed as cracks split his form.
"No! You are me! You cannot deny me!"
Xieyun's voice thundered back, carrying the weight of his will.
"I am not you. You are only the shadow of my weakness. And weakness… I cast aside!"
The double shattered into fragments of ash.
The wasteland dissolved into light.
---
In the real world, the Pavilion shook as Feng Xieyun's Qi surged like a tidal wave. The lotus pond rippled violently, fish scattering as spiritual energy rolled across the water. His body convulsed once more—then steadied.
Light erupted from his dantian, racing through his meridians, reforging them anew. His blood sang, his bones trembled, his soul flared with power. The barrier shattered.
Spirit Condensation Peak no longer. He had broken into Core Formation.
The System hissed in the recesses of his mind, furious yet composed.
> [Enjoy this moment, Xieyun. But remember—every step you take leads closer to me. You will not escape.]
Xieyun opened his eyes slowly. They glowed faintly, like twin stars burning in the night. His breath was steady now, no longer ragged but calm, controlled, filled with the weight of newfound strength.
He exhaled, and the air rippled, shattering the jade incense stand beside him into powder.
But his heart was not triumphant. He touched his chest, where the echo of her hand still lingered.
"She reached me," he whispered to himself. "Even across eternity… she reached me."
Yet with that came fear. The more she reached, the more she revealed herself. And the more the System, and the shadow behind it, would seek to consume them both.
He rose to his feet. His body felt new, alive, overflowing with power. But in his eyes burned not arrogance, not joy—but a grim resolve.
This was not victory.
This was only survival.
And he knew now more than ever—the true war was not with the Jia Clan. Not even with the System.
The true war was against the chains inside his soul.
And against the god waiting in the Immortal Plane.