Time became a slow, painful river in the tomb.
Ling Xiao didn't leave Shí's side. He slept curled at the base of the stone dais, woke to the Titan's labored breathing—a sound like continents shifting under immense weight—and spent the silent hours watching the stone creep higher up the ancient being's neck.
On the third day after the collapse, the stone reached Shí's jawline. The gold-violet light in his eye had dimmed to a faint ember.
"It is time, child," the Titan's voice was a whisper carried on dust motes. "Come closer."
Ling Xiao scrambled up the dais, his small hands pressing against the cold, petrified shin of the Titan. "There has to be something I can do. Some energy I can give you."
"The only energy that could sustain me now is the raw chaos of creation itself," Shí murmured. "And that would unmake this mountain, this world, and you along with it. Some ends are meant to be." The great eye focused on him with immense effort. "Listen carefully. What I tell you now, you must remember when you are stronger."
Ling Xiao nodded, biting his lip to keep it from trembling.
"You think you are a child touched by chaos. An accident of celestial storms. You are wrong." Shí took a breath that sounded like collapsing caverns. "Chaos is not a force that touches. It is the base state of all things. Order is the temporary shape. The universe tends toward chaos, child. Always. What the ordered races call 'stability' is a localized, temporary rebellion against the inevitable."
The eye seemed to look through him, into some distant truth.
"You...you are not a rebellion. You are part of the inevitable. When order becomes too rigid, too arrogant, the universe stirs. It creates a correction. A focal point. You are that focal point. You are not just chaos-touched. You are chaos speaking back to the universe. A question asked of all this perfect, fragile order."
The words settled into Ling Xiao's bones, heavy and terrifying. He wasn't an accident. He was an answer. A response.
"It is too much weight for a child," Shí said, his voice softening. "I am sorry. But the universe rarely asks permission. Now, for my legacy. I have three gifts. They will hurt. They will change you. But they are the tools you will need."
With a grinding sound, the stone over Shí's chest cracked open—not outward, but inward, revealing a small hollow space that glowed with inner light.
"First, the Chaos Observation Stone."
A smooth, palm-sized stone floated out. It was neither black nor white, but a shifting, swirling gray that seemed to contain both infinite darkness and infinite light. Tiny, impossibly complex patterns danced just beneath its surface, fractals that formed and dissolved in endless cycles.
"It is a piece of the first chaos, before any order existed," Shí explained as the stone settled into Ling Xiao's hands. It was warm, and holding it felt like holding a sleeping heartbeat. "It does not predict. It does not control. It shows the true state of things. When you are lost, when order lies to your eyes, consult the stone. It will show you the chaos beneath. But beware—seeing truth can break a mind unprepared."
The stone pulsed once, and a wave of calm, deep understanding washed through Ling Xiao. For a moment, he saw not just the tomb, but the layers of reality—the stone as vibrating atoms, the air as dancing energy, the Titan as a fading song of ancient power.
"Second," Shí continued, his voice growing weaker, "the Titan Blood Essence."
From the hollow in his chest, a single, glowing drop of liquid light emerged. It was gold at its core, burning violet at its edges, and it contained a miniature, swirling galaxy within. It radiated power so potent the very air around it shimmered and warped.
"This is one drop of what remains of my true blood. It is not for you now. Your mortal frame would vaporize trying to contain it." The drop floated toward Ling Xiao's forehead—not toward his mark, but sinking into the skin of his chest, just over his heart. It burned like a brand for an instant, then faded, leaving only a warmth deep within his bones. "It sleeps. When you reach the Sea Formation realm—when your vessel is strong enough—it will awaken. It will give you strength, and it will call to other Titan relics, if any still exist. Guard this secret with your life."
Ling Xiao placed a hand over his heart, feeling the new warmth nestle beside the cold emptiness left by Jin's death.
"Finally," Shí whispered, the light in his eye flickering dangerously, "the Memory Crystal."
A perfect, multifaceted crystal the size of a walnut emerged. It glowed with soft, steady light, and within its depths, images flickered too fast to comprehend—constellations being drawn, mountains being raised, conversations with beings of pure energy.
"My knowledge. All I am. Or was." The crystal floated to Ling Xiao, coming to rest against his forehead beside the Chaos Stone. "Most is sealed behind barriers that will only break as you grow. To receive it all now would erase you, replace you with me. That is not inheritance; that is possession. Take it. Let it guide you when I cannot."
The crystal touched his skin, and for a heartbeat, Ling Xiao wasn't in the tomb. He was everywhere. He saw the birth of solar systems from Shí's perspective, felt the Titan's joy in creation, his pride in his children, his devastating betrayal, his long, lonely imprisonment. It was a universe of emotion and memory, and then it was gone, locked away behind doors in his mind he couldn't yet open.
Shí's body began to glow, not with contained light, but with light escaping. Cracks of brilliant gold-violet energy spread across his stone prison.
"My spirit energy is spent," the Titan said, each word an effort. "My form returns to the chaos from which it came. Do not mourn stones, child. Mourn songs unsung. Now, stand at the center of the chamber. What comes next will be violent."
Ling Xiao stumbled down from the dais, clutching the Stone and Crystal to his chest. He stood in the middle of the great hall as Shí had instructed.
"It has been... an honor... to be your final teacher," Shí's voice echoed, becoming less a voice and more a thought directly in Ling Xiao's mind. "Remember the weight. Remember the patterns. And when you are strong enough... tell them the Titans are not forgotten."
The cracks became chasms of light.
Then, with a sound like a sigh that had been held for three billion years, Shí dissolved.
Not into dust, but into pure, golden-violet chaotic energy. It filled the chamber—a swirling, beautiful storm of creation and memory and final release. It didn't rage. It flowed, a river of ending, and at its center was Ling Xiao.
The energy didn't attack him. It recognized him. It moved toward him, not as a flood to drown, but as a blanket to embrace.
It entered through his skin, his breath, his mark. It was Shí's last gift—not just objects, but his remaining essence.
The pain was beyond anything Ling Xiao had ever known. It was the pain of being unmade and remade. His meridians, those narrow channels, screamed as ocean-like power forced its way through. His bones vibrated, threatening to shatter. His mind filled with echoes of Titan thoughts, Titan memories, Titan loneliness.
But beneath the pain was something else: a profound, heartbreaking tenderness. Shí's energy wasn't trying to overwrite him. It was reinforcing him. Strengthening the vessel so it could one day hold the Titan's blood. The chaotic power wasn't destroying his mortal foundation—it was rebuilding it with stronger materials.
Somewhere in the maelstrom, a barrier broke.
Mortal Foundation, Early Stage.
The power settled. Not gone, but integrated. Ling Xiao collapsed to his knees, gasping. He was still himself, but more. His senses were sharper—he could feel the individual grains of dust in the air thirty feet away. His body felt stronger, lighter. The chaotic energy within him wasn't a foreign, painful guest anymore; it was part of his spiritual bloodstream, circulating in a slow, powerful rhythm.
The great chamber was dark now. The runes on the walls were dead. On the dais, there was only a statue of featureless stone, its final shape that of a being at rest, one hand outstretched as if offering something.
Shí was gone.
Ling Xiao sat in the silence for a long time, the warmth of the Titan's essence still humming in his veins, a ghostly comfort. He looked at the treasures in his hands. The Memory Crystal had bonded to him, sinking beneath the skin of his forehead to reside just behind his mark, a quiet weight of potential knowledge. Only the Chaos Observation Stone remained in his palm.
As if sensing his gaze, the stone activated.
The swirling gray surface stilled, then cleared, becoming like a window. But it didn't show the tomb. It showed something vast, deep, and wrong.
Ling Xiao saw the planet—not from above, but from within. He saw its molten core, a spinning sphere of incredible energy. But the spin was erratic. Jagged, black fractures—like the ones he drew in the dirt—spidered through the planetary heart. Ordered, artificial structures were embedded in the core itself, glowing with harsh, silver light, sucking energy from it in massive, greedy draws. With each draw, the fractures widened. The very substance of the world was being leeched away, creating instability that would, the stone showed him with cold clarity, result in total planetary collapse.
Time to Critical Failure: 9 months, 14 days, 7 hours.
The vision zoomed in on one of the silver structures. Etched on its surface was a familiar symbol: a seven-pointed star within a circle.
The symbol of the Star-Seer's Alliance.
They weren't just hunting anomalies. They were mining the world's heart to fuel their order. And they were killing the planet in the process.
The vision faded, leaving Ling Xiao holding the dormant stone in a tomb that was now just a cave, staring at the empty space where a Titan had been.
The grief for Shí was suddenly eclipsed by a colder, heavier understanding.
He hadn't just inherited a legacy.
He had inherited a deadline.
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END OF CHAPTER 7