The Twelve Pillars moved as one, their combined cultivation pressing down on Aethros like the weight of mountains, but they were trying to cage a phoenix that had already decided to burn itself to ashes for the chance of rising again.
Golden flames erupted from Aethros's body, phoenix fire of the purest kind responding to his will one final time, and the flames consumed his flesh while protecting the core of his soul that the Cycle of Phoenix Rebirth was preparing for its journey.
The Grand Hall shook as spatial cracks appeared in the air around him, reality itself unable to withstand the forces being unleashed, and disciples screamed as they scrambled to escape the expanding zone of destruction that threatened to consume everyone present.
Velara's carefully maintained composure finally cracked as she realized what was happening, and terror filled her beautiful face as she understood that Aethros was choosing mutual destruction over accepting the fate they had prepared for him.
"Malveris, we have to get out of here," she shouted while pulling at his arm, but Malveris remained frozen in place as if unable to believe that his perfect plan was collapsing into chaos. "If that technique completes, it will kill everyone in the palace and possibly everyone in the entire city, so we need to evacuate immediately before the explosion reaches critical mass."
Thaddeus moved with the speed that only a Celestial God realm cultivator could achieve, his hands weaving formation patterns in the air that began constructing a containment barrier around Aethros's burning form.
"All disciples, evacuate the Grand Hall immediately," the elder commanded with a voice that carried to every corner of the massive space. "Pillars, assist me in containing this technique before he takes us all with him into oblivion."
The other members of the Twelve Pillars joined their power to Thaddeus's formation, creating a cage of interwoven spiritual energy that strained against the forces Aethros was unleashing, and for a moment it seemed like they might actually succeed in suppressing the Cycle of Phoenix Rebirth before it could complete.
But Aethros had not activated the technique without understanding exactly how much power it would generate and how difficult it would be to contain once initiated.
The containment formation was strong, possibly strong enough to trap an ordinary Celestial God attempting this technique, but Aethros was no ordinary Celestial God and he had spent ten thousand years accumulating power that now fueled his final defiance.
He pushed harder, forcing more of his dissolving cultivation into the technique's hungry maw, and the phoenix flames blazed brighter until they illuminated the entire palace with light that could be seen from miles away.
The containment barrier began to crack, hairline fractures spreading across its surface like ice breaking under too much weight, and Thaddeus's expression shifted from determined concentration to genuine fear as he realized they were going to fail.
"Malveris, take Velara and as many people as you can and get to minimum safe distance," Thaddeus ordered while pouring even more of his cultivation into the failing barrier. "I will hold this as long as possible to buy time for evacuation, but you must preserve yourself because the sect will need leadership after this disaster, and you are the only one with the authority and strength to hold everything together in the aftermath."
Malveris hesitated for only a moment before grabbing Velara and opening a spatial tear that would carry them to safety, and the last thing Aethros saw before his vision dissolved into golden fire was the man who had betrayed him fleeing like a coward while claiming to preserve the sect's future.
The bitter irony would have made him laugh if he still possessed lungs capable of producing sound, but the Cycle of Phoenix Rebirth had progressed beyond the point where his physical body meant anything at all.
His flesh burned away completely, leaving only a core of pure soul essence wrapped in phoenix flames that grew smaller and denser with each passing moment, compressing down into a seed that would be planted in the river of time to sprout in some distant future.
The containment barrier finally shattered completely, and the explosion that followed rewrote the geography of the region for a hundred miles in every direction.
The Grand Hall of the Celestial Phoenix Palace, which had stood for fifty thousand years and survived countless tribulations and wars, vaporized in an instant along with most of the surrounding structures.
Thousands of disciples and servants who had not evacuated quickly enough died without even time to scream, their souls scattered to the winds by forces they never had a chance to understand or resist.
The mountain upon which the palace had been built cracked down its center, and lava from deep within the earth began to flow through the newly created channels while earthquakes rippled outward in concentric circles that would be felt across the entire continent.
In the center of the devastation, where Aethros's physical form had ceased to exist, a single point of golden light hovered in the air for a fraction of a second before shooting upward through the smoke and flames.
The seed of his soul, protected by the last vestiges of his phoenix fire and propelled by the technique's completion, punched through reality itself and entered the river of time where past and future flowed together in currents that mortal minds could not comprehend.
Aethros's consciousness fragmented into a thousand pieces as temporal forces pulled at him from every direction, each moment of history trying to claim him as its own, and he felt himself being stretched across centuries like a rubber band pulled beyond its breaking point.
Images flashed past faster than thought, glimpses of possible futures and forgotten pasts bleeding together into a kaleidoscope of experience that would have driven a weaker soul insane.
Aethros saw empires rising and falling, cultivation sects reaching glory only to collapse into obscurity, heroes being born and villains dying, and through it all he maintained his sense of self through sheer stubborn determination and the conviction that he would survive this journey no matter what it cost him.
The river of time tried to wash away his memories, to smooth his identity into formless essence that could be reused by the universe, but Aethros held tight to everything that made him who he was and refused to surrender even the smallest fragment of his accumulated knowledge and experience.
Time lost all meaning in the river where a thousand years could pass in a heartbeat or a single second could stretch into eternity, and Aethros simply endured while the currents carried him forward into an unknown future.
He thought of Velara's betrayal and Malveris's treachery and Thaddeus's disappointed face, and he transformed his pain into cold fury that would sustain him through whatever trials awaited in his new life.
He thought of the Celestial Phoenix Sect that had been his home and family for ten thousand years, and he vowed that he would rebuild it or destroy those who had corrupted it into something unrecognizable.
He thought of the cultivation techniques he had mastered and the wisdom he had accumulated, and he promised himself that none of it would be wasted on a second chance that he would use to become even stronger than he had been before.
The river of time began to slow as the technique's momentum finally exhausted itself and Aethros's soul seed approached the moment that would become his new beginning.
He felt the pull of a specific time and place growing stronger, drawing him toward a destination that the Cycle of Phoenix Rebirth had selected through mechanisms he did not fully understand and could not control.
Reality solidified around him once more as he crossed back through the barrier between the river of time and normal existence, and consciousness began to fade as the technique completed its work and prepared to plant his essence in new soil.
Aethros's final thought before awareness disappeared entirely was a simple promise to himself and a warning to those who had betrayed him, a vow that echoed through the void as his soul seed found its target and began the process of merging with a new body in a time three thousand years removed from everything he had known.
The Supreme Lord would return, and when he did, the entire cultivation world would tremble before his vengeance and bow before his restored glory, because betrayal might have destroyed Aethros Vorthen once but it would never succeed a second time against an enemy who knew exactly what treachery looked like and who had nothing left to lose except his determination to make the guilty pay for every drop of innocent blood they had spilled.