The illusions shattered at last. Not because Tianming's will was unbreakable, but because the seed of "refusal" in his chest sprouted in the darkest moment. He remembered the final gaze of the Great Sage before the hand of Tathāgata—not despair, but a supreme yearning for freedom. He snapped his eyes open. The Ruyi Jingu Bang roared like a dragon, shattering the twisted phantoms around him into fragments.
The Crane Immortal's expression flickered with surprise, then he vanished in a flash amidst the storm of feathers, leaving only a cold, echoing laughter that rolled through the valley.
"The road is long. We will meet at a higher place."
Tianming sank to one knee amid the ruins, the staff propping him up. Sweat streamed down his face, sizzling as it hit the heated rock. He had won the battle, yet he felt utterly defeated. He had failed to save the Fourth Sister, and the Immortal had seen through the weakness buried deep in his soul. The valley returned to its deathly silence. Only the massive alchemy furnace still smoked faintly, as if mocking his impotence.
"To break the pattern, a staff alone is not enough."
A voice, aged and smooth, came from behind. Tianming did not turn; he already knew who it was. Yuan Shoucheng—the fortuneteller who should not have appeared here—sat upon a flat stone, idly twirling a set of ancient bronze coins. His usual inscrutable smile suggested that the entirety of the world's unfolding events was already written in his divinations.
"What are you here for?" Tianming muttered in his mind. He knew Yuan could hear him.
"To give you a gift," Yuan said, tossing three coins in a perfect arc. They landed neatly on the ground before Tianming, forming a dangerously ominous trigram. "Heaven's will is never easy to question, and human sorrow is never simple to express. The place you must go now is neither the Heavenly Court nor Ling Mountain. You are going to the forgotten corners of history. Only there will you find the sword capable of severing your chains."
He rose, dusting his robes, and pointed toward the horizon. Beyond the gray clouds, a crimson fissure split the sky, exuding a raw, untamed energy. It was the road once trampled by the Great Sage, deliberately erased by the gods, the last refuge of the demons.
"Go. Seek the survivors, hear the truths that were sealed away. There is no merit, no enlightenment on this journey—only endless slaughter and pain. Are you ready?"
Tianming slowly rose. He picked up the three coins, feeling their warm weight in his palm, a grounding reminder of reality. He did not look at Yuan Shoucheng, nor at the distant, unreachable Heavenly Palace. He slung the Ruyi Jingu Bang over his shoulder and stepped toward the crimson fissure. In the moonlight, his silhouette was slender, almost fragile—but radiated absolute determination. From this moment, he was no one's pawn; he would be the one to overturn the board.
The withered grass along the path shivered in the cold wind. He passed a ruined temple; its statues missing heads, bodies cracked. He did not pause, not even to glance. To him, these relics of a bygone era had lost all meaning. The path he walked had never been trodden before—a thorn-strewn road that would redefine "freedom" in a world rotten to its core.
When he finally vanished into the mist, Yuan Shoucheng remained seated on the stone, watching Tianming's departure. The smile faded, replaced by a profound, almost sorrowful concern.
"The variable has been sown," he murmured, "but can this world truly bear a will that refuses to be constrained?"
With a sigh, his figure dissolved into the cold moonlight, as if he had never been there at all.
The wind swept through Fallen Immortal Valley once more, carrying away the last white feather. Tianming's journey had only just begun. And this first volume—the ink spilled across the epic of blood, tears, and upheaval—was but the smallest footnote in a saga yet to unfold. Ahead lay deeper darkness, and at the end of that abyss, the faintest, yet eternal, light.