The phantom of the Great Patriarch did not simply vanish; it unraveled into the fundamental particles of the universe, returning to the void that birthed it.
In the wake of that cosmic dissolution, only a single jade token remained. It hovered in the stagnant air, pulsing with a faint, sorrowful rhythm like the last heartbeat of a dead star.
Shen Xuan watched the final motes of his father's soul drift into nothingness.
His face was a mask of terrified beauty, cold and unmoving as glacial ice. He reached out with a hand that felt heavy with the weight of a billion years.
His fingers brushed the cool surface of the slate and pressed it against his forehead.
Boom.
A cataclysmic rush of information surged into his spirit sea.
It was not merely knowledge; it was the collective weeping, the roaring triumphs, the forbidden arts, and the scorched history of the Shen lineage.
It was the burden of an entire civilization compressed into a single thought. With a silent command that rippled through the air, he stowed the token and his father's blackened, blood-drinking spear into a storage ring.
The ring, forged from Void-Crystal, remained pristine, a mocking reminder of an era when such treasures were common as dirt.
Beside him, Xiao Yang and the old man watched the exchange with unblinking eyes. For a fleeting second, the masks of servitude slipped.
Their pupils flared with a raw, primal greed, a hunger so visceral it soured the air like the stench of rotting meat. That spear. That token.
These were not mere artifacts; they were keys to dominion that could incite wars across seventy-two galaxies.
They quickly veiled their avarice, burying it beneath layers of practiced humility, but Shen Xuan had lived in an era where treachery was an art form.
He smelled their intent as clearly as one smells smoke.
"Young Master Shen," the old man began, his voice dripping with a syrupy, oily flattery that made Shen Xuan's skin crawl.
"It appears your divine strength has yet to return from the long winter of your slumber. Why not follow this old servant? Allow us to provide sanctuary. We can help you navigate this desolate world, a husk ruined by the jealousy of those who feared your glorious name."
Xiao Yang's grandfather bowed low, his gaze tracking Shen Xuan's every twitch like a viper watching a wounded bird. He sought to lower the boy's vigilance, treating the descendant of Gods like a fatted calf ready for the slaughter.
Shen Xuan rose to his feet. He looked at them with eyes that held the apathy of the deep ocean.
He saw their meridians, their shallow foundations, their treacherous hearts.
"Lead the way," he said. His voice was a gust of wind from a grave.
He had no choice. To reclaim his throne, he had to leave this graveyard. The restoration of his shattered cultivation was a debt he intended to collect from the universe, and if he had to use these two insects to open the door, he would.
"At once, Young Master!" the old man chirped, exchanging a quick, darkly gleeful glance with his grandson.
They rose, positioning themselves as guides, but their movements were far too calculated.
They were not guardians; they were jailors escorting a prisoner.
As Shen Xuan took his first step, the reality of his sacrifice crashed down upon him. His legs, weakened by the theft of his essence and the crushing weight of a billion years of stasis, buckled.
He stumbled, his frame swaying dangerously like a reed in a hurricane.
The grandfather's eyes sharpened instantly. "Xiao Yang, support the Young Master. Offer him your shoulder. Do not let the noble blood touch the dust."
"Of course, Grandpa." Xiao Yang stepped forward, his smile a masterpiece of feigned sincerity. He draped Shen Xuan's arm over his shoulder, his grip firm.
"Lean on me, Young Master. I will ensure you do not fall."
Shen Xuan remained silent. He allowed the mortal to support him, his hand resting on Xiao Yang's shoulder.
To the ignorant, it looked like a scene of rescue. To the heavens, it was a tragedy; a sun being guided by a candle, a dragon forced to rely on a rat.
As they navigated the jagged, bone-strewn path toward the exit, Xiao Yang spoke. His tone was casual, but the question was a dagger probing for a soft spot.
"Young Master, before the great seal... before the world broke... what level of cultivation had you achieved?"
Shen Xuan gazed at the shattered horizon. "The peak of the Chaos Dao Realm."
His voice was flat, devoid of the pride such a title should carry. In his eyes, it was a failure. He had not reached the Supreme level before the war.
"And... your age at the time?" the old man interjected, his voice tight with anticipation.
"I was twenty-four, perhaps twenty-five," Shen Xuan replied, his mind drifting back to a time when the spiritual energy was thick enough to drink.
A deafening silence slammed into the group.
Both Xiao Yang and his grandfather froze in their tracks.
Their faces contorted, twisting into masks of pure, unadulterated horror. They swallowed hard, the sound echoing loudly in the stillness of the ruins.
The concept violenced their understanding of reality.
"Young Master... that is... a bit exaggerated, isn't it?" Xiao Yang stammered, his grip on Shen Xuan's shoulder trembling uncontrollably.
Shen Xuan turned his cold, golden-purple gaze toward the boy.
"In your era, what realm does a genius of twenty-five years occupy?"
Xiao Yang's voice was small, shaky, stripped of its arrogance.
"For the common masses, reaching the Chaos Essence Realm by twenty-five is considered respectable. A true genius... a dragon among men... might break into the Chaos Vessel Realm. In the peak domains of the Chaos Universe, the most favored children of the Holy Sects might reach the Chaos Divine Transformation Realm.
As for the Chaos Domain Realm... that is a myth. A legend. Only the scions of the Supreme Sects dare to dream of such a feat."
Shen Xuan's worldview shattered.
He looked at Xiao Yang, a boy over a century old who had barely crawled into the Chaos Domain Realm.
He looked at the grandfather, a man of five millennia who had stagnated at the Chaos Lord Realm, a level that was considered merely 'competent' in the Shen Era.
In the Era of the Shen, reaching the Chaos Origin Realm by twenty-five was the bare minimum for a child of a servant sect.
To be a true genius, one had to stand at the threshold of the Chaos Lord Realm before their thirtieth year.
The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. The heavens had not just changed. They had regressed. The Laws were broken. The spiritual energy was thin. The current era was a muddy pond compared to the boundless ocean of his past.
The universe was dying, slowly choking on its own mediocrity.
"The Dao has degraded to this extent?" Shen Xuan whispered, a trace of bitter disappointment and towering arrogance coloring his tone.
"Forget it."
He realized then that he was not just in a new world, but in a primitive one.
He was a tiger who had woken up in a land of house cats.
They walked for a full day, traversing the gore-stained plains where the blood-fog was thinnest.
Eventually, they reached the edge of the Shen Realm. There, a flickering, unstable portal pulsed against the sky like a wound in the fabric of space.
It was the bridge between the graveyard of gods and the modern, regressed Chaos Universe.
Shen Xuan stopped.
He turned back one last time.
His silvery-grey hair whipped in the dead wind.
Behind him lay the ruins of his life. He saw the fallen pillars that once held the sky up. He saw the mountains of sand that were once palaces of jade and gold.
He saw the mute silhouettes of his kin, the billions of unburied bones forever trapped in the dust.
The hollowness in his chest expanded until it consumed him. His father's presence was gone, erased from existence to give him a single chance at life.
"Father... Mother... Sister... Aunt"
The names were a jagged prayer, spoken to a god who was no longer listening. He remembered his mother's scolding warmth, the smell of her tea.
He remembered his sister's competitive laughter as they sparred in the courtyards. He remembered his father, the invincible patriarch, who had become a kneeling corpse for him.
His fist clenched until his knuckles turned white. The last drop of divine Shen blood in his veins burned with a cold, absolute fire.
"The day I return," he promised, his voice a low vibration that made the unstable portal ripple in fear, "I will not just rebuild the Shen. I will blind the heavens with our name. I will make the stars tremble for what they allowed to happen here."
"Young Master, the portal is failing! We must go!" the old man urged, his eyes darting between Shen Xuan and the exit, fear warring with greed in his gaze.
Shen Xuan didn't look at him. He took one final, deep breath of the air that tasted of iron, blood, and his family's sacrifice.
"Father, I will carry your will. I will become the nightmare of your enemies."
He stepped through the portal. He did not look back.
The grandfather and grandson followed, their shadows vanishing into the swirling light.
As the portal closed, sealing the dimension, the Shen Realm groaned. It was a sound of finality. The mountains crumbled into fine silt. The rivers of blood vaporized into a red haze.
The entire world of the Shen fell into a profound, eternal silence, waiting for the day its master would return.
But far beyond this ruined plane, buried deep in the vast, lightless debris of the cosmic void, where no light had touched for eons, a different set of eyes snapped open.
They were ancient, older than the current arrangement of stars, and filled with a terrifying recognition.
"It is time," a voice whispered, echoing through the vacuum of space, causing nearby meteors to disintegrate into dust. "The seed has sprouted. The cycle of Samsara turns again. The action begins."