Chapter 168 – The Descent into the Gate

Beneath the twilight skies of the fractured East, where the air shimmered with tension and spectral echoes of long-forgotten powers, Zhao Lianxu stood at the precipice of what should never have been: the Abyssal Gate.

It pulsed in unnerving silence, a towering arch of impossibility suspended over the ruins of mortal comprehension. The gate defied nature—it was neither forged of stone nor woven from spirit. It shimmered like obsidian soaked in starlight, rimmed with living sigils that bled and reformed in an endless, silent chant, whispering in a language only shadows understood. Time warped near it. Grass grew in reverse. Light bent like curved arrows. Even thoughts fought to remain coherent in its presence.

Yue Xieren stood beside him, expression unreadable. Her hand rested loosely on the hilt of her blade, knuckles white with tension. Qiao was quiet for once, her jaw locked, her eyes hard, as though sensing how close they stood to the edge of something ancient and sacred. Lin remained behind them, his wounds wrapped in talisman-woven silk, clutching a satchel of nullifying crystals—each one designed to counter forces that were never meant to be named, much less encountered.

Zhao turned to them, his voice low but resolute. "We go in. But only once. The Gate remembers paths, not people. If we try to return, the road will not be the one we came by."

Lin gave a short nod, half in fear, half in resolve. "Then forward it is. No turning back."

A flicker of movement in the shadows made Yue draw her blade an inch. A cloaked figure stepped out from behind the twisted remnants of an ancient elm—an old woman, her face obscured by layers of translucent veils. Her voice cracked like dried leaves in the wind.

"You walk willingly into the Womb of the Abyss," she said. "Foolishness, even for gods."

Zhao didn't flinch. "Who are you?"

"A Witness," she replied. "I have seen a thousand enter and a thousand forgotten. The Gate does not consume. It remakes."

He stepped forward. "Then let it try."

The Gate responded. It opened like a breath trapped in ice, a silent scream tearing through the veil of reality. A ripple passed through the air—faint but shattering. The four of them stepped through.

The descent was not a fall.

It was unraveling.

Zhao felt himself peel apart, atom by atom, thought by thought, memory by memory. As though the very weight of his identity was too dense to pass through unscathed. Memories flickered like dying stars. He was Zhao Lianxu—but he was also someone else. A soldier in a mechanized war, a beggar clinging to coins beneath a sky where the stars had perished, a father watching a child vanish into vapor.

And then, it snapped back.

Cold air, thick like wet ash. A ground that throbbed like a heart underfoot. He stood on something solid, though solidity was now a fragile term.

They were inside.

The Abyssal Realm was neither dead nor alive. It pulsed with an ancient awareness, its terrain shaped by memory, grief, and forgotten dreams. Towers of bone spiraled into darkness. Rivers of molten light flowed sideways, across inverted cliffs where gravity laughed.

No stars. No sky. Only void.

"This isn't a world," Yue whispered, eyes wide with awe and horror. "It's... thought. Solidified will."

Zhao nodded slowly. "The Gate wasn't just a prison. It was a dream crafted by those who feared it. And dreams… carry their creators' truths."

"We need to find the Core," he added. "The point where the Gate's essence touches the True Void."

Qiao scowled. "Why? Isn't sealing this place enough? Why go deeper?"

"Because something is calling from within," Zhao said, his voice heavy. "And if I don't answer it, it will answer us instead."

They walked for what felt like weeks. Days didn't pass in the Abyss; they unraveled. One step stretched a moment into a lifetime. Another step folded the same second over and over. Lin grew paler with every stride, his breath shallow, the nullifying crystals in his satchel beginning to crack like eggshells under cosmic pressure.

On the twelfth subjective day, they found it.

A throne.

Not made of stone. Not made of metal.

Made of Self.

It rose from a field of frozen screams—figures made not of flesh, but of pure emotion petrified into statues, frozen mid-cry. The throne pulsed with the rhythm of a heart that did not beat, surrounded by silence that felt louder than thunder.

Upon it sat a reflection.

Zhao.

Or rather, the version of him that had once stood at this threshold and refused to enter.

The Emperor of Time.

He stood slowly as they approached. His armor shimmered with trapped galaxies. His sword blazed with the heat of seconds dying.

"You return, after an eternity of denial," he said.

Zhao narrowed his gaze. "You are not me."

The reflection smiled. "No. I am what you could have become. And perhaps, what you must become."

Yue stepped between them. "He has chosen a different path."

The Emperor shook his head. "All paths converge here. The Abyss is not evil. It is truth made unbearable. And he, above all, was born to carry it."

The ground cracked. Shadows rose.

Dozens. Then hundreds.

Each one bore the face of Zhao Lianxu. A child full of wonder. A tyrant drunk on power. A saint bleeding for strangers. A killer cold and precise.

"To claim the Gate," the Emperor said, "you must defeat yourself. All that you were. All that you are. And all you dare not become."

Qiao muttered, "I hate prophetic riddles."

Zhao stepped forward. "I've lived lives I never chose. Carried burdens too heavy to name. I don't need to be perfect. I just need to be enough."

He drew his sword.

And the battle began.

Each shadow was more than memory. They were regret given form. They struck with rage, guilt, sorrow, envy—every emotion he had ever buried.

The child stabbed at hope.

The tyrant bathed the world in flame.

The saint whispered forgiveness until Zhao's blade faltered.

He bled. He screamed. He fell.

But he rose again.

Not because he was strongest.

Because he remembered why he fought.

He wasn't just a prince. Or a weapon. Or an heir to three impossible legacies.

He was a man.

He would choose.

And that made all the difference.

With one final cry, he cut through the last shade—the version of himself who had watched Yue die in an alternate timeline.

The world paused.

The throne dissolved.

The Gate accepted him.

They emerged weeks later, changed in ways no eye could see but all hearts could feel.

Zhao bore no visible scars. But behind his eyes burned a light tempered by paradox, sharpened by acceptance.

Yue walked closer to him now. Not just in trust—but in shared burden.

Qiao teased him again, but her gaze lingered longer, heavier.

Lin bowed—not as a follower, but as someone who now believed.

The Abyss had not taken them.

It had crowned him.

But peace was an illusion.

In the farthest reaches of the cosmos, beyond even the dreaming void, a hand reached through the veil.

The true enemy had awakened.

And Zhao Lianxu—Emperor, warrior, man—was ready.