Ash still clung to Tianming's cloak as he stepped from the ruined chamber. The air shimmered with residual power—an echo of the Forsaken Blade's awakening. Each footstep felt heavier now, not from weariness, but from the burden of something vast stirring within him.
The Temple's outer sanctum lay ahead, and with it, the gate that would lead him beyond this forgotten realm. But he was no longer the boy who had crawled in through the shadows. His aura pulsed—untamed, sovereign, and terrifying.
A sound—soft and low—reverberated across the fractured tiles.
Clink. Clink.
Not footsteps. Not steel.
Breath held, Tianming turned. A wisp of golden energy rose from the ground behind him. It hovered—then took shape.
A girl. Eyes hollow, wrapped in ancient armor stained by time. Her presence was more echo than life. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"You… carry the Blade."
Tianming nodded silently, his hand instinctively tightening around the hilt that now responded like a living limb.
The apparition lifted her hand slowly, pointing not at him, but upward—through the ceiling, the sky, into the very heavens.
"They see you now."
Tianming frowned. "Who?"
"The Watchers Above. The Immortal Clans. The ones who swore that blade would never rise again."
A wind howled suddenly, despite the temple's sealed walls. The world was shifting. The seals that once held the heavens in place… had cracked.
Then, from the broken altar behind him, another tremor rippled through the stone.
This time, it wasn't a vision. Something was coming.
---
(To be continued…)