Chapter 166 – The Temple of Return

The sky above the Temple of Return twisted like a living canvas, torn by unseen fingers. Shadows flickered in unnatural patterns across the half-sunken spires and bone-carved pillars. The wind carried not air, but whispers—faint, fragmented voices caught between worlds.

Zhao Lianxu stood before the cult leader, sword drawn, soul steady.

"You've come, Fracture," the cultist had said.

The name hung in the air like a curse. Or a prophecy.

Zhao studied the man—tall, robed in silken gray, silver etchings coiled around his arms like parasites. His face was strangely beautiful, but not quite right: the symmetry of it was too perfect, his smile a little too wide. And in his eyes—no iris, no pupil—just an endless silver light, like looking into a mirror reflecting nothing.

"I've waited across a hundred realities to meet you," the man continued, voice as smooth as flowing ink.

Zhao did not answer immediately. His team flanked him: Yue Xieren stood to his right, fingers crackling with restrained lightning; Lin was behind, poised and quiet; Qiao, ever watchful, moved in a crescent arc, ready to strike from the shadows.

"What are you?" Zhao finally asked.

The cult leader stepped forward slowly, each movement graceful and practiced.

"I am the convergence of a thousand dreams abandoned by gods," he said. "I am the echo of what your kind refuses to become."

"Cryptic," Zhao replied, leveling his blade. "But meaningless."

The man's smile sharpened. "You don't remember, do you?"

Zhao said nothing.

The cultist nodded as though expecting that. "Ah. Then let me remind you."

The world shifted.

Not physically—but spiritually. The very concept of now unraveled.

Zhao felt it before he saw it: the tug behind his eyes, the cold weight in his bones. Around him, time buckled—and in the blink of a breath, they were no longer at the Temple.

They stood on a floating island of shattered stone, surrounded by infinite stars. Zhao blinked and saw echoes—endless copies of himself stretched across this space. One had white hair and black armor. Another bore twin horns. A third had no eyes and carried a staff that burned with suns.

And standing beside them, always beside them, was the silver-eyed cultist—aged differently, wearing different clothes, but unmistakably the same.

"You've fought me before," the man said softly. "In lives you never lived. In timelines you never claimed."

Zhao's throat tightened. "Why?"

"Because you're the last shard that resists the merge."

The illusion cracked like glass under firelight.

They returned to the Temple, but not as they were. Yue staggered to one knee, bleeding from her nose. Lin's breathing had turned erratic. Qiao crouched with blades out, eyes wide with fury.

"What the hell was that?" Lin spat, gripping his blade.

"Chrono-psychic tethering," Yue rasped. "He showed us possibilities... and tried to anchor us to them."

"He's not just manipulating time," Qiao growled. "He's making us question what's real."

The cult leader's voice echoed through the chamber again, rich and resonant. "Reality is a suggestion. I am simply... persuasive."

Zhao's gaze darkened. He stepped forward, sword pointed at the man's chest.

"You hide behind riddles and illusions. But you're afraid."

"Am I?" The man tilted his head.

"Yes. Because you need me alive. That's why you haven't attacked. You want something."

The silver light in the cultist's eyes flickered—just for a heartbeat.

"Well deduced," he said with amusement. "You are not just a key, Zhao Lianxu. You are the lock. If you die now, the merge fails. The infinite collapses back into itself. But if I open you—"

He raised his hand.

"—then I become everything."

It happened instantly.

Dozens of hooded figures emerged from the temple's edges, robes trailing shadow. Their faces were blank, eyes glowing silver. Cultists—not alive in the true sense, but echoes. Replicas drawn from across timelines.

Lin moved first, his blade slicing through the nearest phantom. It vanished into mist, but two more took its place. Yue raised her staff, shouting a chant that unleashed a pulse of lightning, scattering five with a single blast.

Zhao surged forward toward the cult leader—but was stopped mid-strike by a wall of shifting energy. The cultist raised a single finger and flicked. Zhao flew backward, smashing through a pillar of bone.

Pain exploded in his ribs, but he rolled with it, rising just as Qiao appeared beside him.

"We need to split their attention," Qiao barked. "You go for him. I'll draw the reflections."

Zhao nodded and vanished with a blink-step, reappearing behind the cult leader—only to find the man waiting for him.

"Your power is fractured," the cultist said, catching Zhao's blade between two fingers. "Three bloodlines. Three paths. You haven't unified them. That's why you can't win."

Zhao's eyes blazed.

"Then I'll unify them now."

He dropped the sword.

And ignited.

The power surged out of him like a supernova.

Demonic fire burst from his back—dark and hungry. Multiversal energy coiled along his arms, warping the very laws of reality. And from within, the legacy of the Sword Saint—the time-sealing entity who once split the Demon World in two—shattered free of its bindings.

For the first time, Zhao's bloodlines did not pull against each other. They flowed. They sang. They became one.

The cult leader staggered—not from injury, but from recognition.

"You're... stabilizing," he whispered. "You're becoming the Emperor."

Zhao didn't answer. He moved.

Their battle shattered the inner sanctum.

Blades of condensed time and reality clashed midair, exploding in shockwaves that warped space. Zhao fought with elegance and rage, the tempo of his strikes shifting unpredictably—an echo of countless lifetimes condensed into one.

But the cultist matched him.

"Even if you ascend," he hissed, parrying a strike that could cleave realms, "you are alone."

And in that moment—

He was right.

Yue was down, collapsed beneath the broken dais. Lin had been thrown across the chamber and lay unconscious. Qiao was bleeding heavily, fending off six reflections with diminishing speed.

Zhao faltered.

The cultist saw his hesitation—and struck.

It happened fast.

A beam of raw silver light pierced Zhao's chest.

He gasped as his vision flickered, blood pouring from the wound.

"Do you see?" the cultist whispered, stepping close. "You are powerful. But power is not enough. Belief is."

Zhao fell to one knee.

The cultist raised his hand for the final blow.

Then—

A flash of red and gold.

A scream.

And a blade pierced the cultist's side.

It was Yue.

Her staff shattered, her eyes burning with fury and tears.

"You forgot something," she rasped.

Zhao rose slowly, clutching his bleeding chest.

"She believes in me," he said.

And with one final surge, he plunged his sword through the cultist's heart.

The Temple of Return collapsed.

The remaining reflections vanished like candlelight in the wind. The silver glow in the cult leader's eyes flickered... and died.

He fell without a sound.

Zhao dropped to the ground, breathing ragged, vision swimming.

Yue crawled to his side.

"You did it," she whispered.

Zhao reached out, brushing her bloodied cheek.

"No," he said. "We did."

The aftermath was quiet.

They left the Valley of Endless Smoke with Lin carried on Qiao's back and Yue leaning on Zhao for support. The Temple had vanished completely, leaving only a ring of blackened stone where it once stood.

But the air was different.

The pulse of unraveling timelines had stopped. The multiverse, for now, was still.

Back at the palace, Master Li awaited them. His expression, usually unreadable, softened at the sight of Zhao—wounded, bloodied, alive.

"You've crossed a threshold," Li said solemnly.

Zhao nodded.

"I'm no longer a fracture," he replied.

"I am the Emperor taking form."