Chapter 136 – Clash of the Forgotten

The Chronobeast roared.

A ripple tore through the air, not of sound, but of causality—and suddenly, Chen was back in the burning halls of the Ember Throne, blades pressed against his throat, blood soaking his hands.

He blinked—and it was gone.

"No more illusions!" Chen shouted, launching forward with a burst of Soulflame Unison, its heat singing with divine resonance. The Spiral Relic spun in his grip like a blade of glass and time, slashing through probability itself.

The Chronobeast countered with a claw made of forgotten regrets, each swipe rewriting the battlefield. Its armor pulsed with phantom echoes of Chen's lost futures: one where Ye Yue had died, one where Lanmei had turned against him, one where he never awakened at all.

But this Chen was no ghost.

Ye Yue hurled a wave of divine light forward, her Mirror of Truth catching one of the beast's reflections—and shattering it. The sound was a scream of averted destiny.

Lanmei blurred across the battlefield, twin blades glowing violet as she tore into the beast's flank. It howled—shifting—and for a heartbeat she fought a version of herself twisted by despair.

"I see you," Lanmei whispered, cutting her other self down. "But I choose this path."

Sarina dropped spell markers across collapsing platforms, drawing lines of paradox stabilization to hold the spire's essence from folding inward.

"Hold steady!" she called. "The Obsidian Sky is unraveling!"

"Let it!" Mei shouted, chaining a burning spear of memory into the Chronobeast's chest. The beast recoiled, its form flickering between a thousand deaths it never died.

Chen surged forward through the smoke and screams of what-could-have-been, Spiral Relic flaring with a white-blue pulse.

"You're not just made of time," he growled, "You're made of fear."

He drove the blade forward.

The Chronobeast clashed with him head-on. For a blink, all froze—the spire, the ruins, even the storm winds halted.

Then came the shatter.

Soulflame met Timetwisted Flesh. Spiral Truth unraveled Deception.

A shockwave exploded outward, flinging debris and memory across the Obsidian Sky. Chen's body burned with radiant force, but he held fast—one arm locked with the beast's collapsing jaw, his other plunged deep into its core.

Ye Yue and Lanmei channeled their divine link to Chen in unison, their essences flowing into him—amplifying the Soulflame until it roared like a second sun.

"NOW!" Sarina cried.

Chen let go.

The Spiral Relic detonated within the beast's core, not destroying it—but undoing it. Piece by piece, the Chronobeast was erased from all timelines it had ever touched, fading into nothing.

Silence fell.

The spire cracked—crumbled—and vanished into mist.

Chen collapsed to one knee, panting. Ye Yue rushed to him. Lanmei knelt at his side. Mei stood behind them, bloodied but smiling.

Sarina looked up, voice quiet. "They'll feel that. Every court."

Chen nodded. "Let them."

From the impossible battlefield of forgotten time, the God of Yang and his bonded rose again.

One victory in the war of divinity—but the path ahead had only grown more dangerous.