The night wind carried the scent of dew and pine.
Deep within the forest beyond Azure Cloud City, moonlight shimmered on the still surface of a lonely spring.
A white-haired youth sat beside it, cross-legged, his pale reflection staring back with eyes that faintly glowed gold.
Lin Xian closed his eyes and inhaled slowly.
The body he now occupied was frail—meridians cracked, dantian sluggish, veins clogged with impurities.
But his soul… it was the soul of the Monarch Assassin of Nirvana, whose name once made immortals tremble.
"No technique of this realm can bear my will," he whispered. "Then I shall reshape the heavens again."
He pressed his right hand against his heart. A faint mark—a circle fractured into three rings—gleamed upon his chest.
That was the seal of his supreme technique:
"Cycle of the Broken Heaven" — The Heaven Slaughter Nirvana Scripture
The Lost Scripture of Nirvana
Long ago, it was said that before Lin Xian became Monarch Assassin, he was a mere nameless wanderer who died nine times and lived ten.
From his deaths, he forged this scripture—a cultivation method that did not absorb the world, but devoured its own limitations.
It contained seven verses, each corresponding to one truth of existence, each harder to comprehend than the last.
First Verse — Shatter the Flesh.
Break the vessel of weakness. Reforge the mortal shell to bear immortal intent.
Second Verse — Burn the Soul.
Let essence be consumed so that will remains eternal.
"Seven verses in total—each a death, each a rebirth.
He had mastered six.
The seventh still waited… beyond even his reach."
He had reached only the Sixth Verse before his battle against the Voidborn, where he shattered the heavens and sacrificed himself to seal the invading realm.
Now, reborn in this fragile body, he would begin again—from the First Verse.
The spring quivered.
Threads of golden qi spiraled into him—then shattered mid-air, fragmenting into pure essence.
His blood boiled.
Meridians screamed.
Faint lines of bone glowed beneath translucent skin.
"Cycle of the Broken Heaven—First Verse, Shatter the Flesh!"
Crimson-gold light erupted, forming a spiral of destruction and rebirth.
The spring froze mid-ripple.
Mist coiled into a silent cyclone.
Each exhale shattered impurities; each inhale rebuilt—stronger, denser, alive.
The forest fell silent.
Beasts fled.
A single plum petal drifted down and burned into golden ash.
Dawn's first ray pierced the canopy.
The spiral collapsed inward with a soundless implosion.
The frozen spring shattered into suspended shards that orbited him like a crown—then fell, chiming like temple bells.
Lin Xian opened his eyes.
The weakness was gone.
His dantian pulsed with molten-gold qi.
"Mortal Origin Realm — Initial Minor Stage," he murmured.
"So fragile, yet…."
He flexed his fingers.
The air rippled with faint spatial waves.
"The broken heaven yields easily," he said with a faint smile. "Perhaps this rebirth won't be so dull after all."
---
The Injured Maiden
After several days of quiet meditation, Lin Xian finally rose from the spring. The air was cool, the scent of pine sharp against dawn mist. His veins pulsed with molten vitality — reborn, yet still restrained.
He walked along a narrow forest path, tracing the veins of light seeping through the canopy. The world felt unnaturally quiet… until he caught a faint sound.
A breath.
A whimper.
He stopped.
Down by the roots of an ancient cedar, a trail of blood glimmered faintly — and at its end lay a young woman.
Her robes, once snow-white, were torn and soaked scarlet. Long black hair spilled across the moss like ink, and her face — even pale with pain — was heartbreakingly beautiful. Her skin had the faint luster of spirit jade, and a broken jade ornament hung at her waist.
Lin Xian crouched beside her, his expression unreadable.
A light tremor ran through her fingers as she gripped a short dagger.
"Don't… come closer," she whispered, voice trembling but still sharp.
Her eyes — amethyst with a faint golden ring — locked onto his, defiant even at death's edge.
That faint aura — refined yet suppressed — told him she wasn't ordinary. A hidden noble or sect disciple, perhaps.
Lin Xian spoke calmly.
> "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be."
Her breathing hitched. She tried to raise her weapon again, but the motion sent blood spurting from her shoulder. She gasped, collapsing forward.
With a quiet sigh, Lin Xian caught her before she hit the ground.
Her body was light — too light. Her pulse flickered like a candle in storm. A deep black vein pulsed beneath the skin of her left arm, spreading rapidly.
> "Corruption energy again…" he murmured. "But not Voidborn. This one's… refined. Intentional."
He placed his hand just above the wound. She flinched.
> "What… are you doing?"
"Saving you," he said simply.
Golden light bloomed between his fingers.
The air hummed, vibrating with an ancient rhythm. The light wasn't ordinary qi — it was essence itself, drawn from his soul.
The woman's lashes fluttered.
The black veins receded, hissing softly as if burned away by unseen fire.
Golden motes drifted through the mist, illuminating the hollow clearing like stars falling through water.
Then, silence.
Her breathing steadied.
Her face, moments ago ghost-pale, regained a trace of warmth.
Lin Xian withdrew his hand. "You'll live. But move too much and you'll tear the wound open again."
The woman's eyes opened slowly — softer now, uncertain.
"You… you're not from Azure Cloud City, are you?"
He tilted his head.
> "Does it matter?"
She studied him — the long white hair, the pale, flawless skin, and eyes that faintly glowed with divine gold. He wore simple robes of white and faint sky-blue, light as mist yet carrying an effortless elegance. He seemed out of place, too refined, too still — as if the forest itself bent around him.
> "You look…" she hesitated, "like someone who's not meant to exist here."
A faint smile ghosted across his lips.
> "Then perhaps we're the same."
Her lips parted slightly at that — perhaps in surprise, perhaps amusement. But before she could answer, pain twisted her expression again. He reached out instinctively, catching her wrist.
> "Don't force speech," he said. "You've lost too much blood."
> "I… I can't stay here. They're chasing me."
Her voice was barely a whisper. Panic flickered behind her eyes.
> "Who?"
> "Azure Cloud Sect's enforcers…" she breathed. "They— they want what I stole."
Lin Xian's brow rose faintly.
> "And what did you steal?"
> "Something they shouldn't have possessed," she said weakly. From within her blood-soaked robe, she produced a small fragment of silver jade — etched with a faint spiral pattern.
Lin Xian's gaze sharpened.
That symbol.
A fragment of the Heavenly Cycle Seal — one of the lost relics tied to his own Nirvana Scripture.
So fate moves early…
He closed her fingers over it and stood.
> "Keep it hidden. Don't let them touch you until I say so."
She blinked up at him, dazed. "Why… help me?"
He looked down at her — the faintest smile in his golden eyes.
> "Because you still owe me a debt."
> "What debt?"
> "The debt of living."
He turned away as voices echoed faintly through the trees — armored men, shouting orders.
Lin Xian's hand brushed the air.
The world dimmed. Shadows rippled outward like ink spreading through silk, devouring light and sound alike.
When the enforcers entered the clearing moments later, they found nothing but still air and the echo of dripping water.
High above them, two silhouettes moved through the trees —
one white-haired and calm as starlight,
the other faint against his shoulder, wrapped in his cloak, sleeping peacefully.
---
Later — A Lonely Cabin
By nightfall, the forest had quieted again. Lin Xian laid the woman upon a straw bed in an abandoned hunter's hut. A small fire flickered nearby, its glow soft on her sleeping face.
He studied her for a long moment.
The faint golden ring in her eyes. The strange purity of her qi. The jade fragment that pulsed faintly at her chest.
> "Fate really does enjoy its games," he murmured.
As he turned to leave, she stirred.
"Wait…" her voice was hoarse, but her eyes opened again.
"I didn't even tell you my name."
He paused at the doorway.
> "Then tell me."
She hesitated, then whispered,
> "Mu Yanyue."
The name slipped through her lips like a whisper — yet it struck Lin Xian harder than any blade.
His breath stilled. For a moment, the forest's silence deepened until even the fire's crackle seemed distant.
Mu Yanyue.
Envy of Nirvana.
His third disciple — graceful, cunning, and dangerous as poison wrapped in silk.
But she had perished. He remembered it vividly — her final smile as the Voidborn devoured her domain of dreams, her last words echoing in his mind before he tore open the heavens to end it all.
> "Impossible…" he muttered, voice low. "She died in the Upper Realm… in the last war…"
"Looks like it was a success... The Eye of Samsara"
His golden eyes flickered, light trembling within them. A rush of ancient memories surged — the fall of Nirvana, the collapse of the divine battlefield, the moment his God's Eye split heaven itself.
And now, she was here — reborn in the mortal realm, decades… perhaps centuries before her rightful time.
> "If she's here," he whispered, "then what of the others…?"
The fire dimmed, shadows lengthening across the walls. The faint pulse of the jade fragment at her chest seemed to answer — slow, rhythmic, echoing the pulse of fate itself.
Something stirred deep within him — not anger, but a cold certainty.
> "So even death couldn't bind Nirvana's sins…" he said quietly. "Then… what truly happened after I fell?"
He looked at her again — fragile, asleep, unaware.
For the first time since his rebirth, Lin Xian's calm façade wavered.
If fate had returned her…
Then the heavens were already moving their pieces again.
Envy.
So, the wheel turns again.
He said nothing. Only smiled faintly as the moonlight fell across his white hair.
He gazed at Mu Yanyue again, expression unreadable—half sorrow, half resolve.
> "Rest, Yanyue," he whispered. "When you remember who you are… the heavens will tremble once more."
And outside, unseen beyond mortal sight, a single golden eye opened in the heavens —
watching.