The main hall of the Verdant Sword Sect smelled of incense, blood, and fear. The wounded had been carried to the infirmary, leaving the vast space empty save for a few. Sunlight streamed through the hole a siege projectile had torn in the ornate roof, illuminating swirling dust.
The Sect Master, Old Man Bai, was on his knees, forehead pressed to the cold stone floor. "This unworthy one thanks the Heavenly Emperor for his divine grace. Our sect lives by your will. Our debt is eternal, we—"
"Stand up."
Liang Chen's voice wasn't loud. It was a simple statement, devoid of warmth or encouragement. It was a command that allowed no other outcome. Old Man Bai flinched, then scrambled upright, head still bowed, hands trembling at his sides.
Liang Chen wasn't looking at him. His gaze was a physical weight on the woman standing to the side of the hall's central dais.
Xiao Ling.
She stood perfectly still, her hands clasped before her, a statue of jade and resolve. She did not bow. She did not kneel. She met his stare with one of her own, a wall of silent, steely discipline.
The silence stretched, thick enough to choke on.
"Master Xiao," Liang Chen began, using the old, formal title. His voice was polite, distant, the way one might inquire about the health of a minor official. "I trust the centuries have treated you with the respect your diligence deserves."
A muscle in her jaw twitched. "They have been… sufficient," she replied, her voice clipped, tight as a drawn bowstring. "The Heavenly Emperor's presence is as overwhelming as the stories claim."
More silence. Old Man Bai looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him.
Liang Chen's eyes flickered to the side. The boy, Liang Jian, had been ushered into the hall by a nervous elder. He stood there, covered in dirt and dried blood, but his back was straight, his eyes burning with a mix of exhaustion and simmering curiosity. He watched the god who had saved them with the analytical focus of a born swordsman.
"This disciple," Liang Chen said, gesturing with a slight tilt of his chin. "He held the line."
Old Man Bai seized the topic like a lifeline. "Yes! Yes, Heavenly Emperor! This is Liang Jian, our most promising inner disciple! His talent is unmatched in a thousand years! He fought like a young dragon today! Liang Jian, come forward, thank our great benefactor!"
Liang Jian stepped forward. He didn't grovel. He executed a perfect, respectful bow from the waist, his eyes never leaving Liang Chen's face. "This junior thanks the senior for his intervention." The words were correct, but the tone was neutral, assessing.
Liang Chen studied him. Up close, it was worse. Or better. The resemblance wasn't just in the sword style. It was in the arch of the eyebrows, the stubborn set of the jaw, the particular shade of twilight gray in the eyes that looked back at him. A strange, hot-cold feeling prickled at the base of Liang Chen's skull—a divine sense screaming something his mind hadn't yet grasped.
"Your foundation is solid," Liang Chen said, his tone still detached. "You modified the Verdant Zenith forms. The pivot from 'Green Willow' to 'Mountain Stands Firm.' Who corrected your footwork?"
Liang Jian blinked, thrown by the return to this technical, absurd detail in the aftermath of salvation. He glanced at Xiao Ling, then back. "The sect manuals, senior. I learned the basics from them. The rest…" He hesitated, then shrugged with the blunt honesty of youth. "I just… knew. It felt wrong the other way. This way felt correct."
To demonstrate, he took a single, smooth step, his body flowing through the transition without a sword. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible shift of weight and angle.
Liang Chen's breath froze in his lungs.
That move. That exact, intuitive correction. It wasn't in any manual. He had invented it during his first true life-or-death battle, in a demon-infested swamp, when the classic stance would have gotten him killed. He had never written it down. He had never taught it to a living soul. It was born of instinct and survival.
And this boy had just known.
Xiao Ling's voice cut through the hall, sharp as a cracked whip. "Enough."
The word rang with finality. She turned her stormy eyes to Liang Jian. "Disciple Liang. You are injured and exhausted. Leave us. Go to the infirmary. Now."
It was the voice of the Master, not a request but an order from the core of her authority. Liang Jian's face flickered with confusion, with a desire to stay and understand, but a lifetime of discipline won. He bowed again, first to Xiao Ling, then, after a pause, to Liang Chen. He turned and walked out, the sound of his boots echoing in the silent hall.
The door closed with a soft, definitive thud.
Now it was just the three of them. Liang Chen, Xiao Ling, and Old Man Bai, who was trying with all his might to become one with the wall.
The polite facade shattered.
Xiao Ling took a step forward, her composure cracking to reveal the raw, furious emotion beneath. "You return," she said, her voice low and vibrating with intensity. "After a thousand years. You descend as a god, in your celestial robes, and the first thing you do is interrogate my disciple about his footwork?"
Liang Chen was taken aback. Her anger was a tangible force, hotter and more real than the siege fire. "His talent is extraordinary," he stated, defensiveness creeping into his tone. "It is… unnatural. It resembles…"
"It resembles yours," she finished for him, spitting the words as if they were poison.
She took another step closer, her eyes blazing into his. All the hurt, the pride, the lonely centuries were in that look. Her voice dropped to a venomous, heartbroken whisper that only he could hear, but which seemed to shake the very foundations of the hall.
"Because he is your son."
Thud.
Liang Chen heard the sound of his own heartbeat.
It was a dull, heavy, mortal sound he hadn't heard in eons. It pulsed in his ears, drowning out all else. The words didn't make sense. They were syllables that refused to form meaning.
He stared at her. The stern face he remembered, now lined with a pain he finally understood. He replayed the boy's face—his eyes, his jaw. He replayed the sword style—his instincts, his survival move.
The world, the universe, all of his perfect, ordered celestial reality, tilted on its axis and fractured.
"What?" The word left his lips, small and utterly human. It was not the voice of a Heavenly Emperor. It was the voice of a man who had just been struck by a truth too vast to comprehend.
In that single, suspended moment, the invincible god was gone. In his place stood a man, shocked, vulnerable, and staring at the mother of his child.