Chapter 165 – Ashes of Oaths

The world smelled of iron and memory.

Zhao Lianxu stood alone in the ruins of the Forgotten Garden, where once the sages of the First Epoch had carved runes into petals and songbirds whispered truths older than stars. Now, vines curled around crumbled statues, and mist curled like smoke through the half-dead hedges. There was a hush here, not silence—silence could be gentle. This hush was thick, waiting. Watching.

In his hand, Zhao held a single fragment of a broken talisman, its surface etched with half a sigil that still flickered faintly with multiversal light. The artifact retrieved from the Veiled Expanse had not only restored some of the palace's ancient wards—it had also triggered something. A ripple, a memory, perhaps a premonition.

"Father," Zhao said quietly to no one. "You sealed this place for a reason. But it's time now. I need to know."

He stepped forward, through a veil of half-decayed energy. The wards groaned but yielded. Inside the heart of the Forgotten Garden, beneath a twisted cypress tree, a stone dais rose from the earth like a wound.

On it was a sword.

Sheathed in silver scabbard, its hilt shaped like a phoenix with wings outstretched, the sword pulsed in resonance with Zhao's presence. But it was not the weapon that made his breath still—it was the vision the blade offered.

With a surge of spiritual energy, the world around him dissolved into light.

He saw his mother.

Not in the throne room of his childhood, not as a whisper behind veils and silence—but in battle. She stood atop a mountain of obsidian, eyes blazing red, hair wild with the wind of the Demon World. A black scythe hovered at her back, made not of metal but night itself.

She was screaming his name.

And facing her—his father. The Prime Minister of the Multiverse. Regal, composed, draped in white and gold. His hands wove spells of containment, not destruction.

"You were never meant to love her," a voice said beside Zhao, calm and ancient.

He turned to see Master Li—not as the old man from the council—but as he had been in his prime. Hair long and silver, face youthful but grave.

"You were forged from betrayal and defiance," Li said. "You are the nexus of three destinies. Do you still believe your path is yours alone?"

The vision snapped. The light retreated. Zhao gasped as he stumbled backward, blinking the present back into focus.

The sword had not moved. But it was awake.

And so was he.

When Zhao returned to the council chambers that night, his expression had changed.

Gone was the wariness, the hesitation. What remained was fire—focused, cold, patient. Yue Xieren was the first to see it. She watched him with careful eyes as he addressed the gathering.

"There is no longer time for diplomacy alone," Zhao said, voice calm as steel in moonlight. "The leader of the Cult of Returning Void has crossed into the Human Realm. Our scouts from the Jade Lantern Sect confirmed sightings near the Valley of Endless Smoke."

General Huo leaned forward. "That's dangerously close to the Heart of Realms. If they reach the Axis Veins—"

"They'll collapse the veil completely," Yue finished. "And flood every realm with chaos."

Master Li spoke then, tone measured. "We can no longer simply react. We must strike. Proactively. Surgically."

Lin nodded. "Then we'll need more than soldiers. We'll need our elites."

Qiao stepped from the shadows at the edge of the room. "I've already begun selecting the infiltration team. Myself included."

Zhao met his gaze and nodded. "Then you must all prepare. We move in three days."

"But the Heartstone," Yue said quietly. "It's unstable. If they tamper with it, even from a distance—"

"They won't get the chance," Zhao interrupted. "I will go with the infiltration team. And I will end this. Personally."

There was silence, heavy and palpable.

Mei Lin, ever the diplomat, rose from her seat. "If you fall, the alliances may fracture. The balance we've worked for could collapse."

Zhao's eyes locked onto hers. "And if I stay behind, and they succeed, there will be no alliances left to preserve."

Later, as the chambers emptied and strategy maps were rolled up like forgotten prayers, Yue remained behind. She approached Zhao slowly, the flickering brazier casting firelight across her features.

"You saw something in the garden," she said. "Didn't you?"

Zhao turned to her. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then: "My mother. My father. At war. And Master Li, in another life. The sword awakened a buried memory—or perhaps it created one."

"And what did it tell you?" she asked.

"That I am a fracture in the multiverse. A paradox. The very thing the cult wishes to exploit."

Yue stepped closer. "Then let them try. Let them see what a fracture does when it shatters back."

A soft silence followed. Her hand brushed his, not in passion but solidarity. It lingered for just a breath longer than necessary.

That night, Zhao did not sleep.

Instead, he walked the training halls, alone.

He moved through sword forms his father once taught him—elegant, precise, relentless. But it was not his father's style that defined him anymore. He had forged his own path, woven from three legacies that no longer warred within him, but coexisted.

Each strike sang of the Demon Realm's chaos, the Multiverse's order, and the legacy of a sealed god whose spirit still whispered in his bones.

When dawn came, the halls were lit with golden light—and Zhao stood drenched in sweat, breath steady, eyes unblinking.

Three days later, the infiltration team gathered at the edge of the Valley of Endless Smoke.

Qiao wore black-and-green leathers, a twin set of curved daggers at his hips. Lin's blade shimmered faintly with elemental runes, bound by oath to return only once its wielder did. Yue carried a slender staff carved from starwood, its tip crowned with a sapphire heart that pulsed with stormlight.

Zhao arrived last, cloaked in gray.

No sigils. No crown. Just a man.

Together, they stepped into the fog.

The Valley was a wound in the world.

Smoke twisted through trees that pulsed with a sickly bioluminescence. The air buzzed with unnatural heat and cold, cycling between extremes with every step. Time here unraveled—birds flew in reverse, rivers flowed uphill, and memories resurfaced unbidden.

"This place is... wrong," Lin murmured, blade drawn.

"It's not just a battlefield," Qiao said. "It's a bleeding point."

Zhao's voice was calm. "Then let us cauterize it."

They moved with stealth and grace, cutting through cultist patrols with swift efficiency. Each foe fought like a zealot—eyes glazed, mouths chanting verses in a dead tongue. Yue's wards protected them from most of the illusions, but the deeper they went, the more the Valley seemed alive.

And then they reached it.

The Temple of Return.

Half-sunken into the earth, it pulsed with an inner light—dark purple and crimson. At its center stood a man cloaked in silver-gray, long black hair billowing around a face that was impossibly ageless.

The Cult Leader.

"You've come, Fracture," he said, smiling at Zhao. "I've waited across a hundred realities to meet you."

Zhao stepped forward, sword drawn.

"No more waiting," he replied. "This ends now."