The sky above the Immortal Realm was ripped in half and twisted into a shape that should not exist, and Yun Zhen floated there with blood running down his arm while he watched the Chaos Rift pull entire pieces of the heavens into its hungry core. The sound it made wasn't a roar, not thunder, not wind, but a grinding scream that seemed to come from every direction, and he muttered under his breath as he steadied himself in the air.
"Everything is collapsing faster than I expected, and I can feel the realm crying apart under this damn Rift," he said while wiping blood away from the corner of his mouth, "and I should have noticed the weakness earlier."
The pressure hit him again, a wave that shook his bones and made the immortal palace behind him crumble like sand. Every time the Rift expanded, the sky around it folded in on itself and the energy burned the air into gray ash.
He raised his hand and cut the air with a blade of pure immortal power, and the strike crossed a thousand li in a single breath, but the Rift swallowed the attack without slowing. Yun Zhen clicked his tongue and rolled his shoulders as if fighting something that can eat worlds was nothing too surprising.
"You eat everything you touch, and you don't even slow down," he complained, and he pushed himself forward again.
The Rift pulsed, and the shockwave hit him hard enough to fling his body across broken sky. He slammed into what used to be a floating immortal formation platform and left a deep crater in its surface. Dust rose around him, and he pushed himself out while coughing.
His body should not have been bleeding. His flesh should not have been torn. He was an immortal whose skin could block mountains, yet the Chaos Rift had marked him everywhere.
He glanced down at his hands and muttered, "I shouldn't be this damaged from one strike, and this thing is growing faster than the last recorded Rift."
Pieces of the immortal cities around him drifted into the void, entire palaces falling apart and dissolving into dust. Flames made of spirit energy burned across the horizon, and sky rivers broke and poured down like waterfalls of shattered starlight.
Yun Zhen floated over the ruin with a tired breath. He raised a hand again and closed his fingers, and the space around him bent. A seal of golden light formed under his feet. Another formed above his head. Dozens more spread around him.
He pressed his palms together, and the seals locked. The golden chains shot toward the Rift and wrapped around it, pulling from all sides, but the Rift only trembled a little and then expanded again with a violent lurch that tore the chains apart.
Yun Zhen hissed through his teeth while shielding his eyes from the backlash.
"You even broke the Heaven-Seal Chains, and those can lock a Great Void Beast," he muttered while shaking off the dust on his shoulder.
A broken laugh escaped him, tired and strained.
"I knew it was a mistake to deal with a Rift alone, and I still came anyway."
He looked around him for a moment, as if hoping someone else might have survived the collapse, but the silence answered him. There were no voices left. No other immortals had lasted long enough to fight beside him. They had all fallen before he arrived.
His jaw tightened as he spoke into the empty air.
"I told them to retreat, but they tried to block the first wave and every one of them died, and I ended up the only idiot standing."
A part of him knew he wasn't supposed to care. He was a peak immortal whose presence could shake realms, but the battlefield looked like a graveyard for gods. This wasn't a fight with armies or sects. It was a cosmic disaster, a crack in reality that wanted to erase everything.
The Rift pulsed again. Lightning with no color flashed out and shattered another cluster of floating islands. Yun Zhen steadied himself as he stared straight into its swirling center.
He whispered, "You don't stop until the world is gone, and if you reach the Mortal Realm then even the next generation of cultivators will never have the chance to rise."
His chest tightened. Not with fear. With something close to anger.
He knew what had to be done.
The answer was the forbidden technique sealed in the depths of his memory, a technique he swore never to use unless everything was lost. A technique that would burn his soul, not just his body.
He lifted his hand again, but his fingers trembled. Not from weakness. From memory.
Images flickered across his mind.
Women with flawless faces in white robes, women with curves that could weaken the knees of kings, women with immortal beauty who touched him, kissed him, warmed his bed. But none of it had meaning. None of it lasted longer than a night. None of them had reached his heart.
He remembered their voices—soft, breathy, seductive—but he had never allowed himself to sink into their affection because he always had training to finish or a battle waiting for him or a new technique to master.
He remembered the Grand Elders calling him their hope. The young immortals calling him their shield. The realm calling him their sword.
He clenched his hand tighter.
"They treated me like a symbol, and I let myself become one," he muttered, "and every time someone pulled me into their arms, I walked away because I had another duty waiting."
A bitter smile pulled at his lips.
"Strength first, then responsibility, and before I noticed it I had lived centuries without joy."
He drew a long breath and looked at the Rift again.
"I guess this is my last job."
He lifted both hands and spread his arms wide as the wind ripped around him. The forbidden technique's first lines burned into the air, appearing as black symbols that rotated around his body. The power made the sky shake and even the Chaos Rift reacted as if it sensed danger.
His bones cracked. His skin split. Immortal blood spilled from every line across his body.
But Yun Zhen didn't stop.
He pulled more power out of himself, more than any immortal should ever force out. He felt his soul tearing at the edges, but he pushed forward.
"This will hold you back long enough for the next generation to rise, and that's the only thing that matters," he said through clenched teeth, his voice shaking with strain.
The symbols spun faster, and the Rift stretched as if being chained from the inside.
He groaned while forcing the final part of the technique into place. His voice broke slightly, but he kept going.
"I always lived for the world, and maybe that was stupid, but I don't regret the fights I won, and I don't regret dragging myself out of bed for battles nobody else wanted, and I don't regret standing alone when everyone else ran."
The forbidden technique activated.
Golden and black light exploded across the sky. The Rift shrieked, shaking the entire realm. The energy tore Yun Zhen's immortal body apart piece by piece.
His right arm vanished. His left shoulder crumbled into ash. The skin on his chest peeled away like dust. His vision dimmed as the world bent around him.
But the Rift shrunk.
For the first time, the Chaos Rift pulled inward instead of outward. It collapsed violently in on itself until only a narrow wound remained in the sky.
Yun Zhen laughed weakly when he saw it.
"So that's it. A lifetime of fighting and I still ended up a man who died alone in the sky," he whispered.
His legs dissolved, then his torso. His senses started fading.
Just as his consciousness began to slip, a woman's voice flowed into his ears, soft and ancient, like she had watched him for longer than he could imagine.
"Not yet, Yun Zhen, you do not end here," she whispered.
Yun Zhen's eyes widened a little. He couldn't speak back, but he felt her presence, a warm hand reaching toward his fading soul.
She stepped out of the light, but her face stayed hidden. Only her silhouette shone bright enough to hold the last pieces of him together.
"You carried the burden of worlds, and you carried it alone, and that life was nothing but weight," her voice said gently, "and I will not let that be your last memory."
His soul cracked again, and he muttered softly even though half his voice was gone.
"I lived as a weapon, and that was all they wanted."
"You deserve more," she answered, her tone soft and firm at the same time, "and this time, you will not carry chains."
His thoughts scattered, but one last regret remained. He whispered through fading breath, "If I have another chance… I want a life that belongs to me, and I want to touch the world like a man instead of a tool, and I want to choose what I want, not what someone needs."
Her light wrapped around his final fragment.
"Then live again," she whispered, "and live for yourself."
His soul fell into the descending light. The immortal sky vanished behind him. The Chaos Rift shut fully.
And Yun Zhen's last thought before everything went dark was a simple promise:
"This time… I live for myself."
His soul dropped toward the Mortal Realm while the ruins of immortals faded behind him, and the next heartbeat he felt belonged to a weak mortal body waiting below.
End Of Chapter 1