— Years Ago, the Final Night of the Su Clan —
The sky bled crimson over the Celestial Grove, where the Su Clan resided — once a place of prayer and celestial balance. Tonight, that balance was shattered.
The divine bells rang not in celebration, but in warning.
A deep rumble echoed through the valley, and in the distance, a figure stepped out of a tear in the heavens — a man draped in shadows, his body radiating corrupted divinity. His eyes glowed red, like coals from a dying sun. In his hand, an unnamed black blade hummed with a voice that was not of this world.
The Demon God had descended.
Su Xue's Past Memory: Fragmented, Frozen in Fear
In her small hands, Su Xue clutched her mother's robes, hiding behind a pillar wrapped in divine sigils. She was no older than six. Her mother, Lady Minglan, stood tall and composed, even as the temple trembled under the force of battle.
Outside, her father's voice roared like thunder, commanding the Skyfire Battalion. The clan's strongest warriors had gathered — men and women of the Soul Ascension Realm, who had once fought beside immortals. But against this one figure, they were but flickering lanterns in a storm.
Do not look, child," Lady Minglan whispered, her voice both loving and firm. "Close your eyes when the black fire comes."
But Su Xue did look.
And what she saw scarred her soul.
The Demon God—Lu Xuan of the past—landed amidst her kin with silent steps. He did not roar. He did not sneer. He walked like a man harvesting wheat.
With a flick of his wrist, a dozen elders erupted in fountains of blood, their souls ripped screaming from their bodies and devoured into the void.
Su Yantian, her father, charged with his blade drawn, wrapped in golden flames. A dragon's image flared behind him, representing the Celestial Bloodline of the Su Clan.
They clashed — and in a moment, it was over.
The Demon God reached forward and grasped Su Yantian's head, crushing it like brittle jade. His soul cried out, distorted by the Demon God's Eye, then disappeared entirely — consumed, erased from the cycle of reincarnation.
"No..." Minglan trembled. "You monster!"
The black blade pierced her abdomen. She stumbled back, blood pooling beneath her feet, yet she did not fall. Even in agony, she whispered a final incantation, reaching out toward her daughter.
"Sleep, little one... sleep through the sorrow."
And with her last breath, she sealed Su Xue in a Time Chrysalis, a sacred technique that would protect the child through centuries.
Su Xue watched, unable to scream, as her mother was thrown into the sacrificial pyre that once served as the clan's altar to the heavens.
The Demon God stared at the floating chrysalis. He could see her inside it — and yet, he smiled faintly... and turned away.
"Let the future judge me."
Then the heavens cracked again, and he vanished into the dark.
Present Day — Su Xue's Mind, Torn Open
She woke in the night with a scream.
The pain was real — not physical, but soul-deep. It was as if her memories had been pulled from a tomb and shoved into her chest. Her breathing hitched. Her hands trembled.
"You killed them..."
She looked out at the moonlit courtyard of the Celestial Dawn Sect, and in her mind's eye, the blood still dripped from the altar.
Lu Xuan.
He wore the same face.
The same eyes — only now filled with silence rather than wrath.
But it was him.
She now knew.
Lu Xuan — The Other Side of Memory
At that same hour, Lu Xuan stood beneath the moon, unmoving. His gaze was distant, locked onto the stars above.
He had not slept for days.
Fragments had returned to him. Not visions of glory. Not victories. But screams. Blood. Regret.
The Su Clan.
The girl in the chrysalis.
"I let her live," he whispered to himself. "Did that make me merciful?"
He hated that memory most — not for what he had done, but for the way part of him had felt nothing.
There had been no hatred. No justice. No divine cause.
Only hunger.
He clenched his fists, qi trembling. "That wasn't me. That wasn't me."
But he knew it was.
A life once lived could never be erased — only endured.
Confrontation at the Cliffside
The sky had not yet surrendered to dawn. Pale mist clung to the mountain ridges, curling like lost spirits around the jagged cliffs. A sharp breeze whistled past, carrying the scent of pine and cold stone.
Lu Xuan stood alone at the edge of the precipice, his black robe rustling lightly in the wind. The sea of clouds below stretched endlessly, like a chasm between heaven and hell. His gaze pierced the horizon, but he was not looking at the world — he was looking inward, at the abyss carved deep within his soul.
His hands, once soaked in blood, were now still. But the memories of that night — the screams, the fire, the look on Lady Minglan's face — returned in fragments, jagged and merciless.
He did not turn when he heard her approach.
Su Xue's steps were slow, deliberate, but not hesitant. Her white robes glowed faintly in the moonlight, the silver threads woven into her sleeves dancing like frost. Her presence was calm — too calm. Like the stillness before a blade falls.
You remember now, don't you?" Her voice was quiet, but each word cut clean through the air.
Lu Xuan closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly. He didn't have to ask what she meant.
"Yes."
She took a breath, her fists clenching at her sides. Her spiritual aura pulsed, unstable — not from lack of control, but from restraint barely holding back the storm inside her.
"You murdered my family," she said. "My mother. My father. You razed everything they built — the elders, the children, the clan's sacred lands. You didn't just kill them. You annihilated their legacy."
"I did." His voice was neither proud nor defensive. It was flat. Hollow. "As the Demon God, I destroyed the Su Clan."
Su Xue's lip trembled — not from weakness, but from fury too cold to scream.
"I was a child," she whispered. "I watched you crush my father's skull in your hand like it was nothing. I heard my mother scream as you pierced her heart."
Lu Xuan finally turned to face her. His face was pale in the moonlight, eyes shadowed but steady.
"I spared you," he said, as if trying to find solace in that one act.
Her eyes flashed — not with gratitude, but venom. "You left me alive so I would suffer. So I'd grow up knowing what you took."
Silence stretched between them. The cliff wind grew stronger, howling through the rocks like a mourning song.
"You think this life absolves you?" she hissed. "You think looking remorseful makes you less of a monster?"
"No," Lu Xuan replied. "I don't ask for forgiveness."
"Good," Su Xue snapped, stepping closer, her qi crackling now. "Because I will never give it."
Their spiritual pressure clashed subtly, like two blades unsheathed under silk. The tension was not explosive — it was suffocating. A quiet war of memories, of truths too bitter to forget.
"I don't care what fate says," she continued, eyes gleaming with unshed tears and fury. "I don't care if the heavens want us bound, or if your Demon God blood cries out for destiny. I will stop you, Lu Xuan. Even if I must die to do it."
Lu Xuan's gaze didn't waver. In his eyes, pain swam beneath steel — not denial, not rage, but a kind of weary clarity.
"Then I won't stop you."
Su Xue flinched slightly, as if that answer hurt more than defiance.
"I won't run from it," he said, voice quieter now. "If you're the one who must end me… then I won't resist."
Her breath caught. For the briefest moment, pain and confusion passed through her.
And then she stepped back.
The clouds shifted. The first thread of dawn lit the sky in hues of burning orange.
"We were never allies," she said coldly, turning away. "You were just the shadow I hadn't remembered yet."
Lu Xuan watched her retreating figure disappear into the fog.
"I wish I had killed you then," he muttered under his breath, not in anger — but in cruel mercy.
Behind him, the mist swallowed the cliffs, and the past bled further into the present.
To be continued.....