The white world shuddered.
Cracks spread across the endless sky like fractures in glass.
The golden-cored duplicate took two steps back, his calm expression finally breaking.
"...Impossible."
"No one can interfere with the Trial."
Another crack appeared.
Then another.
A cold wind swept through the empty world.
It carried no spiritual energy.
No elemental force.
No killing intent.
It carried only...
absence.
Everything it touched lost its color.
The brilliant golden core floating between Kai and his duplicate dimmed.
Even the white world itself began fading into gray.
Kai narrowed his eyes.
"Who spoke?"
No answer came.
Instead, the ancient voice echoed once more.
"The child without a beginning..."
"...still walks."
The duplicate clenched his fists.
"Be silent!"
His aura exploded.
Golden light erupted across the endless world, swallowing the grayness for a brief moment.
The pressure alone could have crushed an ordinary cultivator into dust.
Yet the gray mist continued advancing.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
As though nothing in existence could stop it.
The duplicate glared at Kai.
"You don't understand."
"If that thing awakens..."
"Everything ends."
Kai remained silent.
He had heard fear before.
From monsters.
From ancient spirits.
From the giant beneath the battlefield.
But never like this.
This wasn't fear of death.
It was fear of something beyond death.
The duplicate raised his hand.
The floating golden core shot toward Kai.
"Take it!"
"You must become complete before it finds you!"
The core stopped inches from Kai's chest.
Warm.
Comforting.
Perfect.
A whisper filled his ears.
"You won't be alone anymore."
"No more struggling."
"No more impossible paths."
For a heartbeat...
Kai remembered his childhood.
A weak boy.
Mocked because he possessed no talent.
Watching others awaken brilliant cultivation cores while he stood in silence.
The dream he buried long ago resurfaced.
Just this once...
He could have everything he had ever wanted.
Power.
Recognition.
A future.
Then another memory appeared.
Not from his childhood.
From much later.
The old wanderer who had first spoken to him after he became Coreless.
The old man's words echoed clearly.
"A man who abandons his path to escape suffering will spend eternity searching for another."
Kai slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again...
They were calm.
He gently pushed the golden core away.
"I wanted power."
"I still do."
"But not borrowed power."
"Not a destiny someone else chose for me."
"I'll walk my own path."
The duplicate froze.
"You fool..."
"You would throw away perfection?"
Kai nodded.
"I'd rather remain incomplete than become someone I'm not."
The instant those words left his mouth—
The golden core shattered.
Not cracked.
Not damaged.
It simply dissolved into countless motes of light.
The duplicate staggered backward as if struck by an invisible force.
"No..."
"This isn't possible..."
"My existence..."
His body began becoming transparent.
"I was your possibility..."
"You erased me..."
Kai watched quietly.
"I didn't erase you."
"I accepted who I am."
The duplicate smiled bitterly.
"...Perhaps..."
"...that's why I could never become you."
His body scattered into golden particles.
The white world fell silent.
Then...
Darkness.
Not ordinary darkness.
A darkness with depth.
It gathered before Kai, slowly taking the shape of a figure.
Unlike the duplicate...
This being had no face.
No body.
Only a silhouette woven from endless black mist.
Around it floated countless broken names.
Each appeared for an instant before crumbling into dust.
King.
Saint.
God.
Emperor.
Sinner.
Savior.
Every title disappeared.
Leaving only emptiness.
The figure spoke.
"I have forgotten my name."
Its voice sounded like thousands speaking together.
Kai instinctively stepped back.
"...Who are you?"
The figure tilted its head.
"I no longer remember."
"I surrendered my name before the first world was born."
"I surrendered my destiny."
"I surrendered my end."
Kai felt the Coreless Heart beating faster than ever before.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
The figure slowly lifted one hand.
A single silver thread emerged from Kai's chest.
The Coreless Heart.
It stretched toward the ancient being but stopped midway.
"You carry the final fragment."
Kai frowned.
"What fragment?"
The being answered,
"The path that was never completed."
Before Kai could ask another question, the entire Trial shook violently.
Outside, the battlefield erupted into chaos.
One after another, the towering rune pillars began collapsing.
The sky split open.
A colossal eye—larger than mountains—opened beyond the crack in reality.
Its gaze swept across the battlefield.
Every cultivator it looked upon instantly knelt, unable to resist the crushing pressure.
Even the ancient spirits trembled.
Lyra dropped to one knee, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
She forced herself to look toward Kai.
"Wake up..."
"Please..."
Inside the Trial, the nameless figure looked upward.
Its mist-like body trembled slightly.
"So..."
"It has found you."
Kai's heart sank.
"Who?"
For the first time, emotion appeared in the ancient being's voice.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Regret.
It whispered a single title.
"The First Ascendant."
The moment those words echoed through the Trial...
The colossal eye outside slowly turned...
...and looked directly at Kai.