The Scarlet Cloud Pavilion was still reeling from the descent of the Watchers. But beneath the surface—far below the foundation stones, beneath chambers of meditation and forgotten vaults—something older stirred.

  Li Fan stood before an ancient stone slab, half-buried beneath a meditation hall that had collapsed during the divine assault. His steps were guided by a whisper—not a voice, but a sensation, like the trembling of air before lightning.

  Yue Xian stood behind him, wary.

  “You sure about this?” she asked.

  “This place wasn’t built by the Pavilion. No records mention it.”

  “That’s exactly why it matters,” Li Fan replied.

  He placed his hand on the stone. It pulsed.

  And then… it opened.

  A staircase spiraled downward into darkness lined with glowing glyphs of crimson, silver, and shadow.

  The staircase ended in a vast underground cathedral, filled with floating lanterns made of soul-light. In the center stood a massive obsidian statue—a figure without a face, holding a cracked crown and a broken blade.

  Around it were nine stone pillars, each with a name long since erased, and a single phrase carved across the wall in three ancient scripts:

  “One Crownless Shall Rise.” “The Flame Will Choose Again.” “He Who Endures Shall Inherit the Blade.”

  Li Fan’s breath caught. This place wasn’t just a ruin. It was a sanctum.

  Yue Xian whispered, “These... were the others. The ones who bore the same flame.”

  As Li Fan approached the faceless statue, the soul-lanterns pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.

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  Then one of them drifted forward and shattered in midair, releasing a memory fragment.

  He saw…

  A figure clad in a cloak of stars, standing before a tribunal of gods. His voice thundered across the cosmos:

  “You made the heavens perfect. That is why they must break.”

  “A world without choice… is a cage.”

  He raised a blade burning with flame and void.

  The original Godslayer.

  “I do not fight for mortals.

  I fight for the right to fall.

  And the right… to rise.”

  The memory faded, and the broken blade in the statue’s hand glowed faintly. A single shard detached from it, floating into Li Fan’s hand.

  It burned—but it didn’t harm.

  “The Inheritance…” Yue Xian said, eyes wide. “You’ve claimed a piece of it.”

  The shard etched itself into Li Fan’s right arm like molten ink. His soul trembled. His Nascent Soul flickered—and transformed.

  What had been a faint image of himself now stood with a broken crown above its head, and flame pouring from its eyes. His Soul Flame had changed—no longer a mere internal force, but something older. Something defiant.

  Then a new voice echoed in his mind, deeper and slower than any human:

  “You are not the first. But you may be the last.”

  “To complete the Crownless Path… you must seek the Deep Gate.”

  “Where the gods buried their regrets… and sealed the truth.”

  The ground trembled.

  Something ancient had awoken in the earth.

  Far above, hidden in the starlight beyond mortal vision, the Ninth Watcher stood on the peak of a divine platform.

  She whispered:

  “The Blade remembers. The Inheritance has chosen.”

  “The Tribunal will not be pleased.”

  Behind her, the stars began to move.

  Not like lights.

  But like eyes.

  Watching.