Chapter Twenty-Two: The Starlight That Thinks

Beneath the Immortal Tomb's third layer, where logic breathed before prophecy and stars wept without light, the echo began to think.

The tomb pulsed with thought—not light, not sound, but shifting will echoing through starlight formations.

The echo hovered in the void of the Immortal Tomb, surrounded by drifting sigils that shimmered in wisdom-fold rhythm. No soul. No breath. It was a mind born not from life, but from deduction folded upon itself — the residue of Zi Wei's final calculations, tainted by paths long left unwalked.

"Target: Fang Yuan," it intoned.

Gu worms spiraled into formation—not fate-path Gu, but wisdom-path mirage worms, woven from false insight and mirrored causes.

With a single, silent command, it summoned a forbidden move — last conceived beneath Star Constellation's dying will.

Threadless Fate Array.

A web of unseen lines unfolded across the void — not true threads of destiny, but phantom echoes of what could not be. Possibilities filtered through illusion, fed by belief rather than fate.

In one vision, Fang Yuan sacrificed his clones to ascend.

In another, he knelt before Heaven's Will.

In a third, he betrayed even himself.

Each thread shimmered — then vanished.

"Certainty: none. Resonance: complete," the echo whispered.

This was not foresight. It was deception spun into prophecy.

By mapping what should never exist, it misled the world into shaping them.

Somewhere above, within the distant void, a broken star trembled — fooled by a vision that had no root.

Far below, in Fang Yuan's aperture, he stirred.

He had felt a movement—not of will, but of echoes trying to become real.

He smiled faintly.

"Even Heaven listens to lies," he murmured.