Chapter 67: Embers of the Unseen Realm

The night sky stretched endlessly above the remnants of the Ember Citadel, now a fully thriving beacon of the reborn multiverse. The stars had never glimmered so fiercely, unburdened by dark moons or the dread of the Abyss. But peace, no matter how profound, is never permanent. It is a seed sown in scarred soil, needing constant tending lest the weeds of ambition, vengeance, or forgotten pain grow wild.

Zhao Lianxu stood before a quiet pond beneath the Citadel's west gardens, watching lotus blossoms bloom across the water's surface. They pulsed faintly with spiritual light—seeds of the Worldroot Tree planted by Meiyin's hand. The water whispered memories. Faces. Screams. Promises.

He had not drawn his blade in five years.

Yet, the hilt still rested at his side as if it shared his breath.

Footsteps rustled behind him, soft and hesitant. He turned without urgency.

A young girl no older than fourteen stood there, clutching a bundle of scrolls, her eyes glowing faintly gold—an unusual trait.

"You're Zhao Lianxu," she said, not as a question, but as an unshakable truth.

He inclined his head. "And you are?"

"My name is Nianyu. I'm from the Crescent Realm," she said, her voice trembling despite her courage. "I was told to find you... because something has awakened beneath our stars. Something that calls itself the Eclipsed Flame."

Zhao's expression did not shift, but inside, his soul trembled.

The Eclipsed Flame was not a name he'd heard in centuries—not since the ancient records of the Heaven Order described it as a remnant of an elemental consciousness cast out from the original fires of creation. It had no form, no loyalty, only hunger. It was said to have devoured the Great Sun of the eastern sky eons ago.

"Who told you to find me?" he asked gently.

"A dream," she said. "A woman with phoenix wings. Her eyes were blue fire. She said you would understand."

Meiyin.

Zhao's heart twisted. He had not seen Meiyin since she disappeared into the Elemental Vortex three years ago in search of a higher flame—a mythical evolution of her fire soul. Many believed her dead. Zhao did not. The dream confirmed it. But if she was reaching out now, it meant something worse than death had stirred.

Within hours, Zhao stood before the High Council of the Citadel. Xian, now High Matron of the Obsidian Accord, sat to his right, her expression tight with suppressed concern. On his left was Elder Shun, a mortal born with the rare Sight of the Seers, whose visions often walked the line between blessing and curse.

"This Eclipsed Flame," Xian said, her voice low and sure, "should not exist. The records were clear: it was sealed beneath the Twin Suns by the First Architect."

"Yet the girl speaks of its presence," Zhao replied. "And Meiyin... she's alive. She reached out."

"A dream is not certainty," Elder Shun muttered. "And dreams do not bring war."

"They do when they carry prophecy," Xian countered.

Zhao stepped forward, his presence commanding yet unthreatening. "If this thing has awakened, we cannot ignore it. I will go to the Crescent Realm. Alone."

"You're not that man anymore, Zhao," Xian said, her voice a soft protest. "You don't have to carry everything."

"No," he agreed. "But I must carry this."

He turned to Nianyu, who stood at the far end of the chamber. "Tell me everything you saw."

Their journey began the next dawn. Zhao and Nianyu flew through ancient ley-lines, traveling across hidden pathways carved in the space between worlds. The Crescent Realm emerged from mist like a forgotten dream—a world bathed in perpetual twilight where fireflies shimmered brighter than suns.

What Zhao found disturbed him deeply.

Forests blackened yet continued to grow.

Rivers whispered in languages lost to all sentience.

And in the distance, suspended in the sky like a wound: a dark sun with a pale halo, pulsing in rhythm with something unseen.

"That appeared two weeks ago," Nianyu whispered, pointing to the sun. "It changes color every night. And each time it does... another village vanishes."

Zhao knelt beside a mound of dirt. Burial markers.

Too many.

"Show me where the flame burns," he said.

At the base of the Seraphic Range lay the Hollow Crater—once a sacred mountain now reduced to a crater of glass and ash. As they approached, Zhao felt it—the resonance of an ancient flame that defied elemental laws. It did not burn outward. It burned inward, consuming the essence of whatever entered.

He unhooked the blade from his back, its edge shimmering faintly.

"Stay here," he told Nianyu. "If anything happens—run."

"I won't leave you," she said.

"Then stay behind me."

He descended into the crater.

At its heart stood a figure—neither man nor beast. Cloaked in molten smoke, with a core of pulsating crimson light, it turned as Zhao approached.

"You are the Scion of the Phoenix," it said in a voice like shattering glass. "We have waited long for your rebirth."

"I am not reborn," Zhao said. "I endured."

"Then endure this."

And it attacked.

The battle was like none Zhao had fought. This was not combat—it was annihilation. Every swing of his blade was met by unmaking, the edges of his sword reduced with each contact. His elemental defenses crumbled under heat that turned memories to dust.

But Zhao did not falter.

He reached into himself—into the root of the five elements within his soul, into the dark power he had once rejected, and the light he had almost forgotten. He called to every part of his bloodline: the Prime Minister's logic, his mother's infernal will, the spatial flames of the sealed cultivator who once bent time.

He opened his soul.

And he burned.

Not like fire.

Like transcendence.

The creature faltered.

"You were not meant to resist."

Zhao stepped forward. His skin cracked with glowing threads. His eyes shone with mirrored galaxies.

"Then perhaps you were not meant to exist."

And he struck.

The blade, long dulled, became light.

The crater, long empty, became whole.

The sun above cracked.

When Zhao awoke, he was in Nianyu's arms. The crater was green once more. Trees grew where none had stood. The black sun had vanished, replaced by stars that sang.

"You were dead," she whispered. "I felt your heart stop."

"Then I must've borrowed a moment from a future I have yet to see," he replied with a faint smile.

They returned to the Citadel weeks later.

And with them came new stories.

In time, the Citadel would write of the Eclipsed Flame.

They would record that darkness is not the end, but the space between two awakenings.

And that peace is not a destination.

But a journey.