Chapter sixteen: The Eye That Watches
⚠️ Previously on Rebirth of the Celestial Tyrant:
After defeating the First Celestial General and breaking free from divine judgment at the Stellar Tribunal, Jiang Chen becomes a candidate for the Empty Throne—a role that could reshape the entire heavens. But the gods above are not pleased, and something even older has begun to stir...
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🔹 Scene 1: The Sky Blinks
The sun had barely risen, but the winds had already shifted.
Not with storm, nor scent—but with awareness.
Jiang Chen stood on the edge of the Crimson Bamboo Plateau, gazing at a seemingly clear sky. But above the scattered clouds, something blinked. A speck—too steady to be a star, too fast to be a bird.
It blinked twice.
And vanished.
He narrowed his eyes. That was no natural phenomenon.
> "It's watching," Jiang Chen muttered.
> "What is?" asked Lin Yue, approaching with Xiao Bai behind her.
> "The sky," he replied. "But not all of it. Just... one part."
The Sovereign Flame within him pulsed erratically. Not with fear—but with alertness. The kind only prey feels when a predator draws near.
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🔹 Scene 2: The Flame Rebels
That night, Jiang Chen meditated beside the Obsidian Lotus Spring.
The Sovereign Flame flickered more violently than ever before. It didn't obey his will. It burned brighter, hotter, deeper, tearing through his meridians with emotions foreign even to him—grief, rage, awe... and remembrance.
He coughed blood. Symbols appeared in his mind—old ones, predating modern cultivation. Forbidden scripts that hadn't been spoken aloud in millennia.
Then, his vision split.
He saw not just himself, but another bearer of flame—a woman cloaked in star-forged armor, facing down celestial armies atop a floating citadel.
She turned toward him.
And spoke.
> "You woke me."
He gasped—and awoke.
But the world around him had changed.
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🔹 Scene 3: The Golden Eye
Above the village of Starfall Reach, cultivators reported divine illness. Qi deviation. Dreams filled with mirrors and an unblinking eye.
Animals refused to sleep. Crops died overnight. Some mortals vanished without a sound, their footprints leading into the sky.
Jiang Chen ascended to the peak of Skywatch Spire, where he felt the strongest pressure.
And then he saw it.
A golden, lidless eye, high in the atmosphere. Massive. Silent. Watching.
Not the kind of divine eye associated with punishment or judgment—but the curious, patient gaze of something ancient. Something waiting.
> "It's not the Tribunal," he whispered. "It's older."
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🔹 Scene 4: Dreams of the First Flamebearer
That night, Jiang Chen dreamt again. But this time, it wasn't a memory.
It was her.
The flamebearer. The woman from the vision.
She stood in a burning library, surrounded by scrolls written in blood and smoke.
> "My name was YANLIAN," she said. "And I was the First Tyrant of the Void."
She extended her hand. In it was a flame identical to his own—but blacker, colder, smarter.
> "The flame is not a tool," she continued. "It's a prison key."
He tried to ask more—but the vision dissolved.
When he awoke, an ancient sigil had been burned into the earth beside him. A map. Leading to the Ashen Tomb Peaks.
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🔹 Scene 5: Ruins of the Flame Court
The Ashen Tomb Peaks were a forbidden zone—where time twisted and the dead whispered.
Jiang Chen traveled alone, telling no one.
He faced spatial fractures, qi reversals, and even fought against reflections of himself—older, younger, alternate.
At the heart of the ruin, he discovered a tombstone with three names:
YANLIAN – First Tyrant of the Void
REK'SHAAR – The Flame That Killed Heaven
JIANG CHEN – The Third Flamebearer
The last name pulsed with light.
Beside it lay a scroll, bound in scales and sealed with blood.
When he opened it, his flame howled.
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🔹 Scene 6: The Prophecy of Flame
The scroll read:
> Three shall rise bearing the Sovereign Flame.
Each shall break a law of Heaven.
Each shall call the Eye.
On the third summoning, the Eye will descend.
And the world will be unmade… or reborn.
The scroll also revealed what the flame truly was—not a divine gift, but a cosmic rebellion.
A sentient entity, split into three across the ages, waiting for the right bearers to awaken it fully.
And Jiang Chen was the final vessel.
> "Then I will carry you," Jiang Chen said aloud. "And I will choose what we become."
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🔹 Scene 7: Return and Poison
He returned to the mortal realm to find chaos.
The Sky Throne had begun its retaliation.
Celestial storms raged across low-tier sects. Immortal beasts vanished. Portals collapsed.
Worse—Lin Yue had fallen unconscious.
She bore a mark upon her brow—a swirling spiral resembling the Eye.
> "It touched her," Xiao Bai whispered. "She spoke... in her sleep. In a voice not hers."
Jiang Chen held her tightly.
The flame in him surged so violently that it began to scorch the room, but he did not care.
> "You can watch all you want," he growled to the sky. "But if you lay a finger on what I love... I will not just burn you."
> "I will erase your existence."