The world did not fade when my consciousness did… it paused. I fell into a bottomless void where sound and time ceased to exist. There was no pain, no lingering warmth of blood, no frantic thudding of my pulse against my ribs. I didn’t feel myself breathing. I plunged deeper into the dark until, without warning, the darkness tore open into a blinding, absolute white.It was not light. There was no source to the brightness. It was simply a boundless plane of white casting no shadow. No sky above, no earth beneath my boots, no horizon to anchor my vision.I tried to plant my feet, but there was no ground, yet I did not sink. I was simply floating between somewhere and nowhere. I turned. Nothing changed. Every direction looked exactly the same. Forward. Backward. Above. Below. Everything was identical.Then, the pressure hit.It did not crush my bones or bruise my flesh. It struck directly at my core. My very soul of existence. It was an ancient, suffocating weight. The terrifying s

Fear in an imperial court doesn’t shout. It whispers.By the following morning, those whispers had transformed into a suffocating fog that hung over every courtyard and stone corridor in the palace.The rumors have infected the entire palace. The rumors Qing had reported the night before were no longer confined to the back alleys of the capital.The Crown Princess was missing. His Majesty was attacked by an unknown force. And now, the ghost of the Long Clan had returned from the shadows. In the minds of the court officials and palace guards, the narrative wrote itself. Who else could bypass the imperial grand array without triggering a single alarm? Who else could vanish the Crown Princess into thin air and leave the Emperor a trembling, spiritless shell? Only the angry ghost of a destroyed clan could do that. To the terrified court, Chen’s return was the only logical explanation.But unlike everyone, the emperor doesn’t seem affected. Wei Jue would have found a way to clear up t

Night fell over the Imperial Capital quietly amidst the new chaos stirring. I sat near the edge of the pavilion, way past midnight nursing a cup of tea that had long since turned cold as different thoughts rocked my mind. Chen and Wei were still out there. Maybe still in Long clan or somewhere else. They haven't sent us any signal like they said they would. The only proof that they were still alive was the turmoil we saw last night and the rumors spreading. I rested my head on the pavilion pillar, darkness swallowing up the moonlight when movement caught my eye.It was faint, almost imperceptible but I caught it and I knew that figure. Shuyin stepped into the courtyard. She had discarded her official court attire, the shimmering silver-embroidered robes of Lingyin-Jun, replacing them with dark, unadorned clothing.She stood at the edge of the courtyard roof, perfectly still, waiting. She didn't move until a dense cloud passed across the heavens, swallowing the moonlight whole.The

The procession into the Great Dragon Hall was agonizingly slow and heavy.Palace guards lined both sides of the golden carpet, their knees shaking. Ministers, high officials, military commanders, and Taishis were already standing inside, their faces pale as death. The entire atmosphere in the grand hall felt less like a royal audience and more like Judgement Day.Everyone took their assigned seats along the elevated tiers. The Coalition stood at the front, silent and unyielding like monuments of iron and stone.Finally, the Emperor arrived.Or rather, the figure sitting behind the translucent golden curtain did. He sat upon the grand dragon throne, veiled in shadow, exactly as he had for the past several days.Protocol was observed with chilling precision. Everyone bowed. The Coalition offered formal greetings. The Emperor's voice drifted out from behind the veil, smooth and measured, returning the pleasantries.Everything appeared completely normal.Until the Patriarch of the Lan Cla

I replayed the last few hours in my head. Every movement. Every decision.Malphas was an ancient, terrifying strategist who had manipulated the empire from behind a seal for centuries. Han Jun was one of the brilliant scholars of his generation, cold, calculated, and obsessive.Would two masterminds like them really throw a few hundred disposable wraiths directly at the highest concentration of supreme cultivators in the entire empire just to escape? They knew the Coalition of Seven was here. They knew Han Ruo was here. They knew these wraiths stood zero chance of defeating us.And even more strangely… Han Jun had already escaped in dark smoke. The wraith display wasn't necessary. Why send them here?It can't be merely to harvest souls… If Malphas wanted souls to fuel his core, the capital city was filled with millions of helpless, uncultivated citizens just beyond the palace walls. It would have been a feast. Why waste these creatures against peak sword saints and array masters?