Chapter 179: Shadows Beneath the Spiral Sun

The sun that had begun to rise over the fractured skies of the Multiversal Heaven Domain was unlike any before it. It burned with a pale, spectral hue, not born of fire, but of pure rebirth essence—the kind birthed only through cataclysmic sacrifice. Its rays stretched thin across the sky like fingers of forgotten gods, touching the wreckage of what once was and daring them to awaken anew. It did not simply warm the ruins; it beckoned them, teased their shattered memories, whispered that perhaps, in the marrow of ruin, something else might yet be born.

Zhao Lianxu watched the sunrise in silence from the edge of the Hollow Terrace, a floating relic in the outer crust of the collapsed Nexus Realm. Ruins of celestial bridges drifted nearby, tethered to nothing, dancing to the tune of gravitational echoes left behind by divine spells. His cloak flapped gently in the spectral wind, heavy with dust and blood that no cleansing magic dared erase. His eyes shimmered with a deeper weariness than even war could impose, burdened by truths too heavy for even gods to bear.

It was not just what had been lost.

It was what remained.

The words of Moqian still echoed in his mind. "The Spiral is waking."

That phrase, uttered like prophecy or curse, had unsettled something deep in his core. Zhao Lianxu had faced gods, demons, time-devouring beasts, and the embodiment of oblivion itself. But this—the Black Spiral—was something he knew only from myth. Not myth as told to children, but whispered to Emperors in their dying breaths. It was the kind of truth that carved itself into the bones of creation and slumbered there, waiting for the arrogance of mortals to loosen its bonds.

Behind him, Xiyan approached once again, this time joined by two figures who had been absent since the climactic battle: Yanmei, the soul-warden of the Requiem Glade, and Lord Arcanthus, last survivor of the Chrono-Templars. They walked with the careful stillness of those who had seen too much. Each step was a negotiation between past wounds and present duty.

"We need to talk," Xiyan said without ceremony. Her tone held no softness today—only urgency. "About the Spiral. About what's stirring beneath the collapse."

Zhao turned to face them. He inclined his head to Yanmei first, who bowed with grim reverence. She was pale, more so than usual, her silver eyes dimmed, her soul threads frayed from strain. The Requiem Glade had suffered heavy losses, its ethereal protectors consumed by the spatial flames unleashed during the final sealing.

Arcanthus, taller than the others and swathed in robes that shimmered like frozen time, gave no bow. His expression was colder, calculating, like someone constantly parsing every possible future in search of the least disastrous.

"The Spiral isn't waking," he said, voice as sharp as a blade pulled from the void. "It has already begun to turn."

Lianxu frowned. "You knew of this."

"We all did," Yanmei whispered. "It was our oath to forget."

Those words chilled the air. He stepped back, jaw tightening. "Explain. Now."

Arcanthus crossed his arms. "At the dawn of the Multiverse, before the first Realms crystallized and before order was born, there was a Spiral—a recursive, devouring entity, neither alive nor dead. It was not a being, but a motion. A hunger. When the ancient gods forged the Heavenly Order, they spun that motion into stasis using seven temporal anchors and buried it under what is now the Nexus."

"And it has remained dormant?"

"Until now," Yanmei said. Her voice trembled. "But when you broke the last of the Demon Sovereign's seals, the temporal anchors were compromised. The balance is unraveling."

Zhao Lianxu felt the floor beneath him hum in resonance. A subtle thrum, like a heartbeat growing stronger in the deep.

He had sacrificed everything to seal the Tianmo God. But in doing so, had he unwittingly released something older? Something worse?

He turned to Xiyan. "Why did you not tell me?"

"Because I made the same oath," she admitted. "But I also believe in you. And belief is not always the same as honesty."

For a long moment, silence. A fragile stillness that a single truth might shatter.

Then Lianxu turned toward the Hollow Terrace's edge again, watching as the pale sun rose higher. Its light cast long shadows that did not match the forms that made them. Some curled in directions that defied physics, others trembled as though aware.

"Then tell me this," he said slowly. "What does the Spiral want?"

Yanmei closed her eyes. "To undo. Not to rule, not to kill. To reverse the weave of fate, until the Multiverse is a blank slate. It is the antithesis of memory."

Arcanthus added, "It's not evil. It simply is. A force outside duality. And now it is turning once more."

Lianxu exhaled through clenched teeth. "We have no army left. The Five Spirit Sects are gone. The Demon Realms are in chaos. The Heavenly Order is leaderless. Our allies are scattered and exhausted."

"Then we must become something new," said Xiyan. "Not rulers. Not soldiers. Stewards. Shepherds of what remains."

He looked at her, weary but inspired. "And you believe we can gather what's left? That we can still forge something from the embers?"

"I believe you can." Her voice was low but fierce. "Because you've already done it once."

Moments later, a messenger hawk—silver-plumed and limping—arrived with a soul-bound parchment. As Zhao unsealed it, its contents burned into his mind:

"The First Spiral Gate has begun to pulse. Coordinates unstable. Fissures appearing in the Asphodel Sector. Casualties reported. No survivors."

The First Gate.

A location Lianxu had once dismissed as nothing more than superstition. A dead zone among countless dead zones. Yet here it was, pulsing.

He looked back at the three before him. "Summon every surviving Realmgate Master. I want transport routes reopened. The Council of Reforged Realms must be active within three days. We may not have more than that."

Yanmei nodded. Arcanthus vanished in a blink of reverse time. Xiyan stayed.

"You do know this might be the last war," she said.

He met her gaze. "Then let it be the first true one. Not for conquest. For preservation. For legacy. For everything we still remember."

Thunder rumbled low in the distance. But no storm approached.

It was the sound of the Spiral's first breath in ten billion years. A sound like memory folding in on itself.

And Zhao Lianxu knew then:

The war to come would not be one of swords or spells.

It would be a war against forgetting.