The sect courtyard lay in uneasy silence.
Disciples huddled in groups, their voices soft, as if afraid Heaven itself still lingered above to strike down blasphemers. The storm had passed, but the scent of ozone still filled the air. The jade tiles were cracked, pillars burned, and the grand plaza, once the pride of the sect, was now a battlefield marked by legend.
And at the center of it all was Li Xian.
He walked out slowly, his robe torn and stained with blood, his arm draped around Su Yao. To the eyes of the sect, they did not look like survivors. They looked like conquerors. The crimson fire still flickered in his gaze, while a silver flame glowed faintly in hers. Where they stood, the world itself seemed smaller.
"Impossible," someone whispered.
"He survived Heaven's wrath."
"No, he defied it."
The disciples' voices mixed into trembling threads of awe, fear, and desire. Already, hearts were swaying, and loyalty was coming undone.
Elder Han, with his scorched beard, stepped forward, his face tense. "Li Xian," he said, his voice shaking with a mix of respect and dread. "Heaven's tribulation was not meant for disciples of our sect. What… what have you become?"
Li Xian's lips curled, but it was not a smile—it was a storm-cloud, dangerous and unreadable. "I became what Heaven feared I would be. A man it could not chain."
His words rolled through the courtyard like thunder. Some disciples gasped, others lowered their heads, and some clenched their fists in jealousy. Already, the seeds of worship and rebellion were being planted.
Su Yao leaned against him, her strength not yet fully restored. To the crowd, she was no longer the quiet disciple of jade flame; she seemed transformed, a woman who had burned beside him in defiance of Heaven. Eyes filled with admiration, envy, and hunger followed her every move. But Li Xian's arm around her waist was a declaration, a warning: She is untouchable.
At the far edge of the courtyard, Sect Master Ling's eyes narrowed. For the first time in decades, uncertainty flickered across his face. A disciple surviving Heaven's wrath was unheard of. A disciple binding himself to another woman in the storm's heart? Unforgivable. Or unstoppable.
Already, rival sects would hear of this. Already, rumors would spread. Already, the balance of the cultivation world was trembling.
Yet, Li Xian looked at none of them. He scanned the crowd as if weighing their fear and hunger, then focused only on Su Yao. His crimson gaze softened, the storm in him quieting for a moment.
He whispered, low enough for her ears alone.
"Let them whisper. Let them doubt. From this day forward, we are no longer beneath Heaven—we are above it."
Her lips formed the faintest smile, her jade eyes sparkling with fire.
And though the sect still whispered, though betrayal festered in shadows, and though storms brewed far beyond the mountains—at that moment, the courtyard felt smaller than the bond between them.
The bond that had defied Heaven itself.