The divine flame rekindled, illuminating the throne built from the bones of old gods.
He had succeeded. Rising once more from the mortal world's despair, he had recaptured his lost authority, inch by inch. Shattered laws wailed and reformed at his feet, weaving into new divine robes. The hymns of the three realms converged into a golden deluge, flooding into his battered divine spark, repairing all past wounds and deficits.
He sat upon the throne, gazing down upon the vast star charts and countless worlds in their cycles of creation and destruction.
Yet, the more resplendent the divine hall became, the more piercing the coldness deep within his soul. Retaking his godhood had not filled an ambition, but a bottomless pit named "the past." With every breath, what he inhaled and exhaled was no longer power, but nihilism.
When he closed his eyes, the towering radiance of his ascension would fade, and another scene emerged with unbearable clarity—the city's neon lights, a pool of blood, and a blood-stained police badge.
"Brother... run..."
His sister Li Xiaoyue's final words echoed within his divine soul more clearly than any sacred chant, making him tremble more violently than the curses of the dying old gods.
He had run far enough. Far enough to shed his mortal coil, far enough to shatter his nemesis, far enough to once again, become a god.
But he felt he had never truly escaped that moment.
"Your Majesty." A divine general knelt in the shadows. "The order of the three realms is initially taking shape. However, the 'Abyss of the Fallen Gods' is stirring. The remnants of the old gods seem to be conducting some kind of ritual, calling upon an ancient existence..."
Li Fan's gaze pierced through the divine hall, settling upon that forbidden abyss where generations of deities were buried. What he felt was not threat, but a cold resonance.
He dismissed the general with a wave.
In the empty hall, he walked upon the star-strewn floor. He could see the torrents of faith, and he could also see that beneath that radiance, an extremely minute portion was being subtly siphoned away by an invisible, profound system.
Like a form of... interest.
A cold term, belonging to another system, abruptly pierced his divine consciousness.
And at precisely this moment, within the core of his divine soul—the wound most intimately tied to the memory of his sister's death, the one most resistant to healing—there came a faint yet distinct throb.
As if an invisible lock there,
Click.
Had been turned for the first rotation.
Li Fan halted his steps, looking out into the boundless void. In his eyes, which had just rekindled their divine fire and should have been able to perceive all things, there surfaced, for the first time, a trace of something even he couldn't fully comprehend...
Weariness.