Chapter 118: The Oath Rewritten

The second sun lingered above the sky like an eye that refused to blink, casting a ghostly blue pall across the broken heavens and fractured cities. It wept no warmth—only cold, sterile light, as if the cosmos mourned what the Realms were becoming. Below, the capital of the Heavenly Accord moved in rhythms that no longer felt alive. Every motion—from the hammering of blacksmiths to the chants of the Skyward monks—carried a tension, a finality.

Zhao Lianxu stood within the Sanctuary of Forgotten Flames. The room was circular, carved into the bones of the mountain beneath the Skyward Bastion. No torches burned—only the remnants of an ancient, flickering fire suspended in the air, hovering over a basin of translucent stone. It was said that this flame was the first ever lit in the Accord, before even the dynasties were named. It burned with memory, not heat.

"They fear you now," said Yanmei, leaning against the stone archway behind him. Her arms were crossed, her dark hair braided back in a war braid that glittered with obsidian pins.

"They should," Zhao replied without turning. "Fear is the first step to change."

"Not always the right one."

He turned to her then. In the flame's blue light, his face looked carved from shadow. "If they still hoped for peace, I might have led them there. But they don't. The Realms don't believe in peace anymore—they believe in survival, and they only know how to survive by killing what they don't understand."

Yanmei's gaze didn't waver. "Then make them understand. Don't become the tyrant they already believe you are."

Zhao stepped forward, his voice quiet but firm. "I'm not a tyrant. I'm a reckoning."

In the city below, word of Zhao's gathering had spread like wildfire. Some whispered of a rebellion—others of salvation. In the back alleys and hidden shrines, priests and beggars debated his prophecy. In royal halls and war rooms, nobles counted their guards twice.

Among them, Yelan moved like a shadow in water. The underground library beneath the Spire was no longer enough. She needed what lay deeper.

She entered the Catacombs of Memory—a place sealed for centuries beneath the Accord's old temple district. Only a few dared even speak of it. It was where oaths had first been carved into the bones of the world. Where the gods themselves, some claimed, had once kneeled to the Pact.

Lin Soryu followed, ever loyal, ever wary. "You're sure this is worth it?"

Yelan lit a narrow torch carved with ancient runes, and the shadows recoiled. "We have one chance to unmake the pact without tearing reality apart. But I need the original sigils. The true ones. The versions written before the Accord twisted them."

Lin looked uneasy. "And what do you plan to do with them once you find them?"

She didn't answer.

Back in the Bastion, Zhao Lianxu stood before the High Council of Realms for what would likely be the last time. The chamber echoed with silence. A circle of thrones, once occupied by gods, demons, mortals, and monsters alike, now sat in decay. Half-empty. Cracked.

"Why summon us again?" asked High Chancellor Mordek. His voice was iron dipped in disdain. "You already shattered the Accord's harmony. The sky itself bleeds. What more do you seek?"

Zhao looked at the thrones. At the beings who once ruled reality with elegant tyranny.

"You think the Accord was harmony? It was silence. Fear pretending to be order."

He raised his arm and the memory flame appeared in his palm—a shard stolen from the sanctuary.

"This is the truth of our oaths. Not words etched in law. But flames etched in soul. You bent the Realms around your will, but never lit the fire within them. I will."

Gasps. One of the council members—a Seraph with wings of silver—stood. "You would burn the very structure that binds us together!"

"No," Zhao replied. "I would rewrite it."

The stars flickered again. This time, they didn't form runes or patterns—they danced, danced in frantic pulses. The Weavers in the Hall of Broken Stars whispered among themselves.

Master Jinhai stood at the edge of the chamber, clutching his staff tighter.

"He's doing it," one Weaver said. "He's pulling on the original threads."

Another hissed. "He is unraveling too quickly."

Jinhai stepped forward. "Then help him. Guide his hand before it snaps the Loom."

The Weavers, reluctant, shimmered and vanished. Sent out, for the first time in ages, to shape fate rather than simply observe it.

Yanmei found Zhao Lianxu in the courtyard beneath the Bastion, where once flowers had bloomed. Now only pale grass grew, bent always toward the second sun.

"You should rest," she said.

"I can't."

He was watching a group of children drawing constellations in chalk on the stones.

"Do you know what they're doing?" he asked.

"Pretending the sky still listens."

He smiled, bitter. "Let's make sure it does."

In the final hour before the Invocation, Zhao stood at the pinnacle of the Bastion with a blade of glassfire in one hand and the flame of memory in the other. Yanmei stood beside him. Yelan approached from the shadows, carrying a scroll sealed in bone.

"These are the original sigils," she said. "They will hurt to speak."

Zhao nodded. "Good. Truth should never be easy."

Thunder cracked above. The second sun split open like an eye blinking into death. Light poured forth, drenching the world in surreal clarity.

"Let all who live bear witness," Zhao said. "Let this not be the breaking of our world—but the breaking of our lies."

He carved the sigils in the air, one by one. Reality screamed.

The Bastion shook.

The sky bled light.

Some fell to their knees.

Others screamed.

But none turned away.

And when the final sigil burned into the wind, the world stopped. For one moment—brief, pure, eternal—everything was still.

The Pact was no more.

Not shattered.

Rewritten.

A silence settled—not empty, but full. The kind that came before new songs.

Yanmei reached for his hand.

Zhao Lianxu, breath ragged, eyes burning, whispered, "Now let's see if they're ready to listen."