Chapter 92: Veins of the Earth, Veins of the Heart

The Hollow Star Sanctum no longer whispered.

It roared.

Cracks shimmered through the celestial vault as the Starshard Blade pulsed with awakening memory. Zhao Lianxu stood beneath the swirling firmament, eyes alight with power not wholly his own. With each heartbeat, he could feel the stories of his past lives—warrior and poet, tyrant and martyr—bleeding into his present self, rewriting his thoughts, reshaping his resolve.

Lingxi watched from the Sanctum's edge, her hand over her chest. She could see it in him now—the fragments of souls he carried, how each one stitched into his own like old bones reforged into a new spine. This wasn't just power. It was burden. A soul mosaic so vast that even the stars seemed dim beside it.

"Lianxu," she called, stepping forward, her voice a trembling anchor.

He turned slowly, and for a moment, she wasn't sure he saw her. Not as Lingxi, the woman who defied destiny to love him, but as something further away, more myth than flesh.

Then he blinked. "You're real. Good."

She nodded. "You're losing yourself."

He smiled, weary and soft. "No. I'm becoming everyone I've ever been. I need to be them to win this war."

She touched his arm, grounding him. "Then be them. But don't forget who you are now. Because without you, even the gods will lose their way."

Far across the shattered skies, Tianluan's monstrous legions had begun their descent.

Memory-warped beasts stormed the mortal realm—wolves made from lost lullabies, serpents formed of ancestral regrets. They carried with them screams from centuries long gone, echoing with venomous truths: unspoken love, broken promises, and guilt never atoned.

In the Kingdom of Yunshao, entire cities fell silent as dreams turned into curses. Nightmares once bound in minds now took form in flesh and claw.

But Tianluan himself did not move. Not yet. He waited atop the Spire of Regret, eyes fixed on the northern stars.

"The blade remembers," he muttered. "But does the boy know what to do with memory? Or will it eat him alive, like it did the last?"

Meanwhile, the core of Zhao Lianxu's group prepared for the next journey.

Mei Xueyan meditated atop obsidian columns, her spirit dancing through artifact patterns etched into the world's bones. She was searching for conduits of power, ancient veins buried deep beneath reality's skin. The Starshard Blade could guide Lianxu, yes, but it would consume him if untethered. Her hands glowed with ethereal light, drawing sigils in the air, her whispers calling upon ancient architects of earth and flame.

Yun Kai, ever cryptic, had taken to carving sigils into the air, his dreams translating into protective wards none could decipher. His mutterings hinted at a second gate—a gate of memory—hidden beneath the Ardent Sands. He believed it held answers not only for Zhao but for the entire multiverse.

They would go there next. They had no choice.

But the desert would demand sacrifice. It always did.

The Ardent Sands stretched beyond imagination.

Endless dunes of crimson glass shimmered under a blood-orange sky, remnants of a war that predated time. Here, time did not flow. It spiraled. A step forward could mean a year lost, or a second repeated for eternity.

As they entered, Zhao Lianxu felt the pressure change.

His fingers gripped the Starshard Blade tighter. It was humming now, its voice low and mournful, like a dirge sung across galaxies.

"This is where he died," the blade whispered.

"Who?" Zhao asked aloud.

"The one who sealed the Tianmo World. This is where he gave up his name. Where he gave up... you."

The sand beneath them shifted.

Visions flickered.

A man cloaked in twilight stood atop a black obelisk. Blood dripping from his fingertips. Stars collapsing behind him. And in his arms—a child. Wrapped in darkness. Eyes wide and silent.

Zhao staggered, the image collapsing into dust.

"You okay?" Lingxi asked, steadying him.

"That child... was me. Or part of me. One of the lives I buried."

She nodded. "Then this place is yours. But be careful. The past doesn't just speak here. It bites. And sometimes... it begs."

Night in the Ardent Sands came like the closing of a god's eye.

The stars above were motionless, arranged in constellations no scholar had ever recorded. Each one throbbed with emotion: betrayal, longing, hope. They were memories, crystallized and suspended in sky.

Around their fire, the group spoke little. The silence had weight. Every grain of sand seemed to watch them.

Yun Kai broke the silence. "The Gate of Memory is real. It's not a place. It's a choice. To remember everything. Or forget everything. There is no middle path."

Zhao looked up. "Why would anyone choose to forget?"

"Because some truths burn worse than lies. And some memories are prisons."

On the third night, the ground beneath them split.

From the rift rose a figure cloaked in starless robes. No face. Just shadow.

"Name yourself," it said.

Zhao stepped forward. "Zhao Lianxu. Prince of the Multiverse. Child of Three Bloods."

The figure laughed. A thousand voices in one.

"You are also the Bladeborn. The Betrayer. The Heir of Destruction. Which one enters the gate? Which one bleeds for truth?"

Zhao's grip tightened.

"All of them. Every name. Every scar. Every failure. I carry them all."

The figure paused. Then slowly nodded.

"Then come. But know this: you will see everything. Not just what you forgot. But what was taken from you. What you were never meant to see."

Inside the Gate of Memory was not space.

It was feeling.

Zhao fell through layers of sensation. A mother's lullaby cut short. A father's hand withdrawing. A friend's betrayal. A lover's goodbye. Over and over, until pain became indistinguishable from warmth.

He saw himself.

Kneeling before a sword.

Burning kingdoms.

Saving children.

Kissing Lingxi beneath a dying moon.

Killing her in another life.

Falling. Rising. Breaking. Becoming.

He screamed.

But he did not let go.

At the center of the storm, he saw it.

The truth.

His blood was not just mixed. It was designed.

Three ancient beings had forged his soul as a key—to unlock the prison of memory, to break the chains of fate. Each one had embedded a piece of their will in him. He wasn't meant to rule.

He was meant to choose.

To choose what truths the world would keep.

And what needed to be forgotten.

When he emerged, hours or centuries later, the group stood waiting.

His eyes were different now. Gold and obsidian, flecked with silver.

He looked at Lingxi.

"I saw every life. Every love. Every end. And I choose this one. With you."

She embraced him, though tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Then fight for it. With everything you are."

Above them, the stars shattered.

Tianluan had arrived.

The sky split open like a wound.

And as the world prepared to end, Zhao Lianxu raised the Starshard Blade.

It burned with every memory the world had ever forgotten.

And it was hungry.