Chapter Forty-Five: Where Gu Cannot Follow

In a realm without sky, the air smelled of forgotten oaths.

The clone walked, but his feet left no trace. The world bent not as terrain, but as meaning — every step folding old legends into new questions.

No Gu accompanied him. None could.

He had entered a Gu-less zone, not one of suppression, but of absence. A realm built from unmanifested myth — a place before the first path, before cultivation.

And yet, he was not alone.

A child sat on a broken throne of unnamed wood.

Their eyes were shut, yet opened in every reflection.

"You step where the first Ren Zu refused," the child said.

The clone did not bow.

"I remember nothing. That is why I am permitted."

"Do you wish to become myth?" the child asked.

"No. I wish to be what cannot be remembered."

The child smiled.

"Then you will be tested."

"You will walk three realms: one of memory, one of dream, and one of unspoken truth."

The throne cracked. The world fell inward.

The clone stepped forward.

Elsewhere, in Fang Yuan's aperture, the amber jar holding the thread-bound Gu shattered.

The Sovereign opened his eyes.

"He's gone beyond me now."

"Not forward. Not back. But beside."

He summoned a myth-path Gu, old and sealed since the Reckless Savage War.

"Then I must follow."