Chapter 10 World Begins to Bleed
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Some say the gods never bleed.
That their wounds are not wounds, only stories.
That pain is beneath them.
That forgetting is their shield.
But that was before Yun Che remembered himself.
And now, something far greater was bleeding.
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The sky cracked.
Not visibly.
Not to most.
But to those who could feel the truth behind silence—it was unmistakable.
A sound. A pulse. A pressure.
And then a tear…
Right through the divine veil that once hid what should never return.
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Jasmine stood barefoot in a field of broken scrolls.
Her eyes were sharp again.
Her posture—once hesitant—was beginning to remember strength.
"He's close," she murmured. "Too close."
"How do you know?" Lyra asked, hand still glowing faintly.
"Because I feel pain," Jasmine whispered. "Old pain. The kind I sealed away."
"And he's the only one who ever made me feel it."
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Above them, the celestial sky pulsed again.
This time, visibly.
The moon—once bleeding—now burned.
Its light turned red-orange, then deeper.
And through the clouds, thousands of scrolls fell, each a divine command.
Each one containing the same decree.
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* CELESTIAL ORDER*
* Name: Yun Che
*Status: Erased, now Resurfacing
*Order: Unmake
* Witness: Lyra, the Oracle Fragment
*Order: Kill
*Witness Echo: Jasmine, Star God Remnant
*Order: Seal or Destroy
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In Yun Che's hand, one of the scrolls fell—midair—into his fingers.
He didn't even have to open it.
He could feel it writhe.
As if even the command itself was afraid of him.
"So they want me gone again," Yun Che said.
Aestra tilted her head, her voice like rusted silk.
"The decree doesn't fear you. It fears what comes after you."
"And what is that?"
"The collapse of the story itself."
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Yun Che crushed the scroll.
It didn't tear—it ceased to exist.
The moment it did, a wind howled through every divine archive across the heavens.
A mortal just defied a command from the Celestial Thread.
The scribes panicked.
The archivists wept.
The Warden stood silent, still, watching a myth write itself out of sequence.
And from the broken realm between order and oblivion—the world began to bleed.
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—Somewhere Else—
Lyra screamed.
Not from pain.
From recognition.
Visions poured into her head—fragments not her own.
Yun Che laughing beside a girl with sunset-colored eyes.
A shattered moon over a divine battlefield.
A kiss made of starlight and sorrow.
A child that never got born.
A future that never happened.
She stumbled. Jasmine caught her.
"What did you see?" the Star God asked.
Lyra opened her eyes.
They burned red.
"I saw his memory."
"And I saw the world rejecting it."
"But I won't."
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At that moment, in the deep abyss of forgotten truths—
Yun Che raised his hand.
The air bent.
Not with power.
With memory.
He was no longer a shadow.
No longer a fragment.
He was becoming real again.
And the world hated it.
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"You've reached the third layer," Aestra whispered in awe.
"You're forming presence. Soon… you'll be undeniable."
Yun Che turned to her.
"Then we begin."
"Begin what?"
He looked up at the burning moon.
"War."
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Far above, the White Warden watched in silence.
The gods had grown fat on prophecy and peace.
But he saw the coming storm.
"The Thread won't survive him," he murmured.
"And if he reaches his Seventh Truth—"
"—he will no longer need to be remembered to exist."
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[Myth Unlocked: Third Truth]
Name of the Third Truth: "Presence Beyond Narrative"
Yun Che is no longer a myth in hiding. Any who see him now… remember. Even if the world tries to erase it. His presence anchors memory in defiance of fate.
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And so, under the bleeding sky, as the scrolls of heaven burned in defiance, a forgotten name became unforgettable once more.
"The world began to bleed," Aestra said.
"But it has not yet screamed."
"That will come."
"And when it does," Yun Che whispered,
"I will be the last voice they hear."
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