"Heaven Refining Demon Venerable," Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's voice cut through the haze, cold and absolute. "You have lost."
Blood mist drifted where the Heaven Refining Demon Venerable's arms had been moments ago, the air thick with the scent of iron and ruin. A vast hole gaped in his chest, its edges crackling with the last sparks of an explosion that could have torn the heavens apart.
Fang Yuan's face was a ruin of dust and blood—cold, unreadable, his fury hidden behind the stillness of calculation.
He did not look at Star Constellation. His gaze slid past her, fixing on the figure emerging from the fading storm of light.
Giant Sun Immortal Venerable staggered beside Fang Yuan, disbelief warping his expression. His golden radiance flickered like a candle before a storm.
He thought they had won.
After endless battles, countless traps, and immeasurable sacrifice—they had razed Heavenly Court to dust. The Qi Harvest Fruit had been destroyed by Fang Yuan's own hand.
Or so they believed.
But Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had played them.
Because there had never been one Qi Harvest Fruit. There were two.
The first fruit was bait—visible, predictable, deliberately exposed. The second… it was hidden, unknown even to heaven itself.
When Fang Yuan's final blow shattered the first fruit, he believed they had achieved victory. But that destruction had instead fueled the second core—accelerating the revival of the ancient monster that now stirred within the storm.
The moment Star Constellation whispered that word—"Master"— they thought they had been played.
But... as Fang Yuan pressed his attack on Star Constellation, a storm of light suddenly appeared and made a move. It was not a complex technique, but a simple, primordial application of Qi.
The space around Fang Yuan compacted, and his body became the epicenter of an invisible cataclysm.
His limbs burst apart in a spray of bone and viscera, the violent compression ruthlessly suppressing his venerable power in an instant.
And from the fading storm of light, an old man stepped forth.
His body was ancient yet unbent, muscle and spirit still forged from the dawn of creation. Robes of white and silver clung to him like fragments of starlight; his hair flowed in pale strands, molten as moonlight.
His eyes opened — twin emerald suns, deep as the first forests that ever touched the world.
They swept across the ruin before him — the shattered spires of Heavenly Court, the gardens turned to fields of bone and ash — and stopped upon his disciple.
"Xing Su."
The name left his lips like wind through an empty age, brittle and cold, carrying both confusion and a grief too old for words.
"What… is the meaning of this?"
Star Constellation lowered her gaze. "Master, the world drowns in chaos. Demons roam unchecked. I need your strength once more."
Then, she turned her gaze towards two demon venerables.
"Heaven Refining Demon Venerable," Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's voice cut through the haze, cold and absolute. "You have lost."
Silence fell — a silence that seemed to weigh upon heaven itself.
The old man — Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable, first ancestor of humanity, pillar of the Gu World — raised his head and gazed at the two demon venerables. In those eyes, light gathered and burned.
"You did this?"
The question cracked the air.
Then—
"DIE."
Heaven shuddered. The earth wept. Mountains sank and clouds fled, unable to bear the weight of his wrath.
Understanding dawned in Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's heart — heavy, absolute, and far too late.
Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable.
The name alone froze his thoughts. Star Constellation's words had confirmed what his soul already knew — the first Immortal Venerable stood before them once more.
Instinct screamed at him to flee, to burn everything and escape. But before even that impulse could take form, the old man spoke.
"Die."
There was no visible attack — no flash of light, no burst of power.
Reality simply decided that Giant Sun would no longer exist.
In the space of a heartbeat, his golden radiance winked out. His body unraveled into motes of dust, his soul shattered into formless silence — not destroyed, but unmade.
Fang Yuan staggered amid the ruin, his body barely more than a vessel of blood and ash. A tremor ran through his will — not from fear, but from understanding.
How?
The question cracked through his mind like a fracture in stone. Venerables stood at the summit of the world, yet before this man they were nothing — children striking a mountain with bare hands.
The difference was not rank. It was essence.
This was the strength of Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable — the first Immortal King of Heaven and Earth.
Through the haze of agony, Fang Yuan felt a cold admiration bloom.
"Well played," Fang Yuan rasped.
Even as his words faded, his will coiled inward — cold, sharp, unyielding. The Spring Autumn Cicada pulsed weakly within him, its rhythm echoing his last, impossible gamble.
But before the detonation could tear reality apart, a voice reached him.
"No. You don't."
The explosion happened—but something was wrong.
Because. His consciousness was frozen, seized by a power so absolute it denied motion itself.
Then he felt it: the current of time itself, halted. The River, once chaotic and alive, now stood still — frozen into a glass labyrinth.
The Spring Autumn Cicada glimmered nearby, trapped in amber light, its wings still mid-beat.
And within that stillness, something stirred.
A shadow too vast for form. From the farthest horizon, two green suns ignited — eyes that saw through eras, gazing down upon him.
The pressure of that gaze crushed the concept of resistance. Even thought bowed before it.
Then came the voice.
"How dare you scheme against my Heavenly Court!"
The River convulsed, and all of time trembled beneath the wrath of Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable.
Just then — a new presence appeared — a huge, blurry human-like shape, its eyes glowing with the dull red of a dying star.
That immense will focused its gaze on Fang Yuan and with a single flick of its finger, the Spring Autumn Cicada — the culmination of his five hundred years of effort — was destroyed.
There was no explosion, no dramatic flash. Just the quiet, complete disintegration of a Rank Nine Gu worm, powerless before a force it could never understand.
The backlash tore Fang Yuan's will from its prison, throwing it forward like a tiny speck into the frozen currents of time.
Far away, in the Gu World, Fang Yuan's consciousness slowly began returning to a body.
...
"Zheng'er, Father will be leaving tomorrow for the clan's mission."
"You mustn't cause trouble while I'm gone, understood?" The deep voice of a middle-aged man echoed in the small room.
Beside him, a gentle woman smiled and placed her hand on another young boy's head.
"Yuan'er, Mother will also be going tomorrow. Take care of your brother, okay?"
Her delicate hand rested upon the head of a young boy — Fang Yuan.
For a moment, Fang Yuan's eyes grew wet. But the emotion faded quickly, replaced by calm coldness. His gaze turned sharp as he looked around.
His father talking to Fang Zheng. His mother, smiling softly at him. His small hands. Fang Zheng's childish face beside him.
His lips moved on their own. "Mother…"
"Yes, Yuan'er?" she replied kindly, not noticing the strange look in his eyes.
Fang Yuan's mind was spinning.
He looked at everything again — the room, the people, the clan mark carved on the lantern.
'Gu Yue Clan…'
Then realization hit him like a wave. This wasn't the day before the awakening ceremony. He had gone even further back.
'This is the day before their deaths…'