Shen Xuan stood amidst the rhythmic, silver pulse of the river, his posture as immovable as an ancient monolith. He leaned slightly forward, his fingers, cold as the mountain spring, hooking beneath Ying Shuang's chin. He tilted her face upward, forcing her to meet a gaze that held the weight of dying stars.
"Do you think… your physique… the Yin-Yang Dao Embryo, is a currency you can use to buy my remembrance?"
His voice was a glacial whisper, devoid of cruelty yet stripped of all warmth. It was the tone a god might use to address a blade of grass. The moment the words left his lips, Ying Shuang froze. The water of the Spirit Mountain Range swirled around her waist, but the chill she felt was internal, a crystallization of her very soul.
"So… you knew," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You recognized it instantly. Is that why I am still breathing? Because you saw a top-fifty physique in the Chaos? Because you saw the ultimate vessel for dual cultivation?"
There were no tears. Her blue eyes were wide, filled with a hollow loneliness that seemed to stretch back through generations of her fallen lineage.
"Saved you because of a gift of the Heavenly Dao?" Shen Xuan's eyes flared with a brief, playful spark of indigo.
"You overvalue the toys of this universe, Ying Shuang. To the ants, the Dao Embryo is a treasure. To me, it is merely a flawed script written by a mediocre heaven."
He leaned closer, his breath a faint mist against her pale cheek.
"Why do you believe that surrendering your essence can tether my thoughts to your ghost? Is it love that drives you to such desperation, or the primal lust of a drowning soul reaching for a pillar of fire?"
The river brushed against her, numbing her skin, yet she didn't flinch. She tightened her fists beneath the water's surface, her knuckles white.
"Can't I simply fall in love with you at first sight?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Does it have to be a calculation?"
"Love at first sight requires an anchor—a deed of profound significance," Shen Xuan replied with a detached finality. "I have done nothing for you but clear the path of a few nuisances. I have provided you with a temporary reprieve, not a reason for devotion."
"Then I have one request," she pleaded, her eyes searching the void-gray depths of his pupils for even a shred of humanity. "Accept me. Not as a transaction, but as a shadow. Let me prove I am worthy of standing in your light."
"Then you have already turned your 'love' into a bargain," he said, his voice dropping to a low, resonant frequency. "The moment you ask for acceptance in exchange for your heart, you have lost the very thing you claim to offer."
She lowered her gaze, watching the moon's fractured reflection dance upon the ripples. The silence between them grew heavy, punctuated only by the distant roar of the waterfall.
"It is late," Shen Xuan said, his gaze shifting to the zenith of the sky. He reached out, his movements efficient and distant, washing the blood-stained silk of her sleeve in the current before wrapping it around her shivering shoulders.
He turned to leave the water, but a pair of slender arms suddenly locked around his waist. Ying Shuang pressed her forehead against the small of his back, her body trembling with a mixture of exhaustion and stubbornness. Although Shen Xuan occupied the body of a youth not yet fifteen, his stature was already nearly 1.8 meters, his frame carrying an aura of absolute authority.
"Give me a chance," she muffled against his robes. "I will become the blade you need. I will be the soil for your seeds. Just... do not cast me aside."
Shen Xuan stood perfectly still. His hand rose to peel her away, but a voice erupted in his sea of consciousness.
"Young Master, why do you insist on being a block of wood?" Xuan Ling'er's voice was a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "The Yin-Yang Dao Embryo is a masterpiece of harmony. It would accelerate your recovery by centuries. And more importantly... the girl is genuine. Her thread of fate has already knotted itself around yours."
"Ling'er, innate physiques are crutches for the weak," Shen Xuan countered internally, his mental voice cold. "They provide a ceiling that I intend to shatter. Why would I bind myself to a fleeting gift of the Dao?"
"Master... you act as if you've forgotten the history of the Five Clans," Ling'er sighed. "The supreme bloodlines didn't ignore physiques; they conquered them. Besides, I am not the one telling you to take a wife. Those were Madam's words."
Shen Xuan's mental form flickered. "My mother? She would never encourage such flirtation."
"She knew the weight you would carry," Ling'er replied, her tone softening. "She told me once: 'If Xuan'er is to rebuild the Eternal Shen, he cannot walk the void alone. He will need anchors. He will need hearts that beat only for him.'"
Shen Xuan felt a brief, sharp pang of memory—his mother's face, usually stern but softening when she looked at his father.
"And your fiancée," Ling'er added, twisting the knife. "Do you truly think she has waited a billion years in the silence? Even if she survived the collapse, the currents of time erode the strongest vows. You are a ghost, Young Master. You need something living."
A beautiful, haughty face flashed in Shen Xuan's mind, causing his breath to hitch for a microsecond. He closed his eyes, centering himself.
"I have no time for the entanglements of the heart, Ling'er."
"You don't need time. You need a wife who will wait while you burn the heavens down," Ling'er retorted. "Look at her. She's fainted again."
Shen Xuan exited his consciousness and felt the weight of Ying Shuang sagging against him. The mental and physical toll of the night had finally broken her. She was a Saint whose altar had been toppled, clutching at a god who refused to answer.
With a sigh that carried the weight of eons, he turned and gathered her into his arms. He used the river's energy to cleanse the remaining traces of blood from them both, his movements clinical. He dried her silk inner robes with a flicker of his palm's heat before handing her over to Ling'er's spiritual form to be dressed properly.
Inside the Hut
Shen Xuan sat by the window, the moonlight carving his features into a mask of pale jade. Ying Shuang lay on the wooden cot, her breathing finally evening out into a deep, restorative slumber.
On his lap, the silver wolf, Wang Lei, finally stirred. The beast opened its golden eyes, blinking up at its master.
"Little guy," Shen Xuan said, his voice a low thrum. "How have you fallen to such a state? A mutated Frost-Space bloodline should have allowed you to outrun any pursuer."
Wang Lei let out a low, mournful whimper, rubbing his head against Shen Xuan's abdomen.
"Master... the world has become a cage," the wolf telepathed, its voice cracked with centuries of grief. "They sent seven Dao Origin Realm executioners to hunt me. I fought through the Cosmic Void, I bled across the Domain Universes. I even tried to escape beyond the Chaos, but the 'Boundary Watchers' drove me back."
The wolf's fur bristled.
"I only survived because of your Aunt, Long Shiyue. she found me drifting in a shattered galaxy and hid me within her own soul-world for a hundred million years. But... she was heavily wounded. She stayed behind to draw the hunters away so I could descend to this lower plane."
Shen Xuan's eyes turned into pools of absolute zero. The temperature in the room plummeted. Long Shiyue. His aunt had been the one who taught him the first strokes of the sword. She was the one who had shielded him from his father's wrath more times than he could count.
"Is she...?"
"I do not know," Wang Lei whispered. "But the Heavenly Mark... it makes survival a miracle."
"What is this Mark?" Shen Xuan asked, his voice vibrating with a terrifying intent.
"It is the Grand Cage, Master," Wang Lei explained.
"The universe is no longer a free expanse. It is a layered prison. Each world has a Heavenly Chaos Eye. These feed into galaxy-level formations, then universe-level nodes, and finally into the seventy-two Quasi-Sovereign formations that govern the seventy-two domains of the Chaos. Once you are 'Marked,' your soul signature is broadcasted to the entire network. There is nowhere to hide. Even the void is wired with the will of the Dao Court of Eternity."
Shen Xuan stared out the window. He looked at the stars and saw not light, but the glint of iron bars. The universe had been systematized. It had been tamed by the victors.
"And the war?" Shen Xuan asked, his gaze returning to the wolf. "Who led the charge against the Shen? How did the five supreme clans fall in a single era?"
Wang Lei's body began to tremble. His eyes filled with a primal, soul-shaking terror.
"Master... the war... it was not a battle of armies," Wang Lei stammered, his mental voice breaking. "It was an erasure. They didn't just kill us; they tried to delete the very concept of the Supreme Clans from the River of Time. I saw... I saw the heavens turn into a mouth, and it simply... swallowed the stars."
He hesitated, his gaze darting toward the sleeping Ying Shuang.
"I... I can tell you who held the banner, Master. But the one who sat on the throne... I cannot speak the name. My soul would detonate before the first syllable formed."
Shen Xuan placed a hand on the wolf's head, his touch firm. "Then speak of what you can. I will find the rest myself."
Wang Lei took a shuddering breath. "It began when the 'Accord of the Seventy-Two' was signed. They claimed the Supreme Clans were hoarding the Origin Qi of the Chaos, preventing new gods from rising. They turned the people against us. They called us 'The Ancient Parasites'."
As the wolf continued his tale of betrayal and cosmic genocide, Ying Shuang's eyelids flickered. She lay perfectly still, her heart racing as she listened to a history that surpassed any myth found in the Luoshui World. She realized then that the boy she had kissed was not just a genius.
He was the last survivor of a war that had ended a Golden Age.
Shen Xuan's gaze remained fixed on the horizon, his hand rhythmically stroking the wolf's silver fur. He knew she was awake. He knew she was listening. But he did not care.
To a Sovereign, the secrets of the past were not burdens to be hidden, but a decree that the world was about to be paid in blood.
"The Dao Court of Eternity," Shen Xuan whispered, the name tasting of iron. "I hope they have enjoyed their era. Because it is about to end."