The night bled upward instead of down.
Ash fell like reverse snow, rising toward the stars that no longer shone. By the time Wu An's army reached Ling An's outer gate, the city had already turned inside out.
Where there had once been streets, there were veins. Red channels pulsed underfoot, carrying not water but light. Temple bells tolled without hands; the sound came from beneath the earth, deep and slow, like a heart learning to beat again after death.
"Mother of mercy," General Sun whispered.
Shen Yue only tightened her grip on the sword. "There's no mercy left here."
Wu An said nothing. The thing inside him was awake, breathing through his lungs, tasting the incense-rot of the air as if it were wine.
The palace gate had grown teeth. Bronze lions that once guarded the arch now fused together, their jaws unhinged, their manes rippling like waves of molten metal. Within each open mouth a different hymn was being sung — words that bent the ear, tones that gnawed at the bones. Soldiers fell to their knees, blood trickling from nostrils, muttering prayers they could not remember learning.
Wu An passed through untouched. The gate recognized him.
Inside the square, thousands of lotus blossoms floated in the air — petals black, centers burning with a pale, cold fire. Where each touched the ground, a human shape began to rise: first translucent, then flesh, then wrong. Faces that slid like oil, eyes that opened along their arms, ribs that breathed.
Shen Yue shouted, "Archers!"
The arrows vanished mid-flight, swallowed by invisible throats. The spectres answered with silence — and from that silence came madness. Men began to laugh. One ripped off his armor and wept, insisting his mother called from the stones. Another crawled toward a mirror in the fountain and drowned himself in reflection.
Wu An walked through them, step after deliberate step. Every breath he took made the creatures pause, as if scenting a kindred rot.
At the heart of Ling An, the Lotus Hall glowed crimson. The pillars writhed with carved dragons trying to escape their stone. At the far end stood Wu Jin and Wu Shuang.
She had become something more symbol than woman. Her skin shimmered with calligraphy that shifted like living scripture — Daoist talismans rewritten in an alphabet that predated Heaven. Each word pulsed with its own heartbeat, as if language itself were her armor.
Beside her, Wu Jin's eyes were black to the sclera. When he spoke, his voice echoed from multiple mouths — not his own, but those of the stone lions outside.
"Brother," he said. "Do you see now why Father failed? Why every dynasty rots? The world prays to balance, yet all creation tilts toward decay. We only hastened the turn."
Wu Shuang lifted her hand.
Behind her, the throne split apart, revealing a pit lined with mirrors of obsidian. In their surfaces rippled scenes of impossible places — oceans of ink, skies where constellations spun like lantern wheels, temples walking on their own legs. Something vast breathed beneath them, each exhale bending the pillars.
"The First Weapon," she whispered. "Not forged by men, but dreamt by the Void to remember itself."
From the pit rose chains woven of human spines, each vertebra engraved with the names of extinct gods. Between the chains hung a blade — not metal, but condensed night, its edge whispering prayers backward.
When it moved, reality flinched. The air filled with petals that cut like razors. Ministers turned to salt statues. Even Wu Jin dropped to one knee, smiling through the blood running from his ears.
Wu An felt the thing inside him stretch toward the weapon like a lover returning home.
Take it, it murmured. Together we unmake the lie.
He hesitated — fear and hunger one heartbeat apart.
Wu Shuang stepped closer, the floating sigils orbiting her like planets. "Brother, the gods you serve were dead before your birth. The Northern and Southern kingdoms are puppets carved from their corpses. We will burn their strings, then ascend. The Great Zhou waits to be devoured."
Wu An's voice cracked. "You'll end everything."
Her smile was almost tender. "Ending is a form of cleansing."
She pressed a finger to the blade. The mirrors screamed. Through them poured shapes that defied count — towers made of flesh, rivers that ran upward, stars that blinked like eyes opening in sequence. The city convulsed; Ling An's rooftops lifted into the air, inverted, and rained back down as molten bronze. Every prayer in the empire was answered at once — with hunger.
Wu An drew his sword, though he knew it was a gesture meant for mortals. The thing within him laughed, a sound like chains dragged across glass.
He struck. His blade met hers.
Light died.
For an instant, there was only the sound of a bell being struck inside his skull — a bell too large for the world to contain.
When sight returned, the hall was gone. Only a crater remained, glowing with blood-red mist. Wu Shuang and Wu Jin stood at its edge, untouched, eyes filled with something that wasn't triumph — expectation.
"The Lotus opens," she said. "North and South will follow."
They vanished into the smoke.
Shen Yue found him kneeling amid the ruin, the ground still pulsing beneath his hands. "My lord," she gasped, "riders from the south — the Southern Kingdom crosses the Hei River! The Lord Protector's banners burn! He can't hold another week!"
Wu An rose slowly. The blood in his veins pulsed in counter-rhythm to his heart — the thing inside him humming like a forge.
"Two wars," he whispered. "One of flesh, one of gods."
He looked to the north where lightning crawled in the clouds — the frontier screaming. Then south, where fire marched like dawn. Between them, he felt the city breathe through him, whispering with a thousand new mouths. Fear and awe twisted together until they were indistinguishable.
He smiled, just barely.
"Then the age of men is over," he said. "Let's see if what replaces us can still bleed."