The battlefield was still trembling when the void quieted.
Lucien's clone hung there—aloof, victorious, and faintly curious. Below him, the Son of Heaven, Kaien Asahiro, had vanished into divine light, his essence returning to the current of the Styks River.
The clone's violet gaze turned toward that same river now flowing across the sky—a luminous arc of liquid divinity. It wasn't a river of water, but of meaning: every droplet a crystallized piece of divine law, a fragment of the very narrative that dictated who could ascend and who could fall.
It was forbidden to touch.
Even gods who drank from it risked being unmade—consumed by the weight of their own rewritten existence.
But Lucien's clone wasn't a god.
He was an exception.
He raised his hand. The currents trembled, the heavens stirred, and a tendril of the Styks' light curved down like a curious serpent, wrapping around his arm. The moment the first droplet touched his skin, the laws screamed.
"When void meets heaven," he murmured. "Let us see who rewrites whom."
He lifted the divine river to his lips—and drank.
The universe convulsed.
Every particle of matter, every luminous pulse within a thousand light-years, halted in silent awe. The moment the Styks entered him, the metaphysical and divine frameworks collided. Heaven's authority met the void's unbounded existence—two opposite infinities attempting to occupy the same definition of reality.
Light devoured darkness. Darkness devoured light.
Then came a third phenomenon—integration.
His body dissolved into fractal geometries of violet and gold, his veins becoming conduits of radiant black fire. Around him, the heavens turned transparent, folding like pages of a book as if creation itself was flipping through his existence to understand what he was.
When the transformation stabilized, he hovered over the glowing river, his form both divine and abyssal, every heartbeat pulsing with echoes of creation and dissolution.
He exhaled—and the breath carried galaxies.
"I see," he whispered. "Heaven writes the rules… but the void reads between them."
Tian Quan Technique-
While his body pulsed with the dual essence of void and heaven, the clone finally understood what had birthed the technique.
Tian Quan wasn't a mere martial art—it was a dialogue between infinity and limitation.
Where most styles followed law, Tian Quan questioned it.
Each movement rejected the notion of permanence; every strike asked reality if it truly existed.
Its forms had no fixed order.
Its logic had no foundation.
It was born from the simple truth that Heaven's perfection could not survive under the scrutiny of nothingness.
And now, with the Styks inside him, that paradox had evolved. The void's disobedience had learned to sing in harmony with Heaven's order.
The first form, Collapse of the Firmament, now radiated divine judgment.
The second form, Heaven's Breath Returns to Silence, could restore what it destroyed—an endless loop of creation and erasure, balance maintained by his will.
A third form lingered in potential, untold and unseen.
He closed his hand; the entire Styks River pulsed once, as though acknowledging its new master.
"Beautiful," he murmured. "The marriage of defiance and sanctity."
He turned then, his senses stretching outward, beyond the shattered battleground of Eryndoril. The void called to him again—whispering coordinates, memories, whispers of a nearby world steeped in cultivation and mystic evolution.
The planet appeared before him, a sapphire marble floating in a ring of glittering dust. Its surface shimmered with oceans the color of liquid crystal, and towering above its continents were ethereal mountains that touched the sky.
Azure Blue.
The world had once been a divine garden seeded by the Ancient Architect Avelir, a deity who shaped planets as experiments in life's persistence. Azure Blue was his masterpiece—a realm where mortals cultivated not by will or inheritance, but by resonance.
Here, mountains breathed spiritual energy. Rivers carried songs instead of water. The sun itself pulsed like a living heart. The cultivators who walked its surface were called the Resonants, and they drew power from harmony rather than conquest.
Legends whispered that every few million years, Azure Blue would sing—a planetary hum so deep and divine it aligned all its life with the stars. Those who heard the Song of Azure would ascend, their spirits merging with the very melody of creation.
Lucien's clone descended through the upper atmosphere, violet light rippling behind him like a cloak of infinite dusk. He landed on the peak of a floating island wreathed in clouds—Auralis Peak—and inhaled deeply. The energy here was soft, serene… yet layered with hidden potency.
"Interesting," he mused. "A world that cultivates through peace. Perhaps Heaven left this untouched for a reason."
Below, cities of jade shimmered. Floating pagodas drifted across skies filled with luminous birds. Disciples meditated on crystalline lakes, their spirits harmonizing with the ambient hum of the planet.
A few noticed the sudden ripple of his descent—none could comprehend it. To them, it was as if a god had exhaled somewhere beyond their comprehension.
Lucien's clone crouched at the edge of the peak, trailing his hand through the spiritual mist. The Styks' essence within him resonated faintly with the planet's song, and for a moment, he smiled.
"This world," he murmured, "exists in balance. Heaven's hand built it, the void never touched it. Perhaps it's time that changed."
He raised a finger, and the air around him rippled like molten glass. The void and Styks energies swirled into one—a spiraling symbol that pulsed with the rhythm of existence itself.
And as he pressed it against the surface of the mountain, Azure Blue sang.
Its resonance deepened, shifting into something darker, richer, infinite. For the first time since its creation, the planet's harmony learned to breathe both light and shadow.
The clone's eyes glowed faintly gold and violet.
"Let's see how your cultivators evolve… when they touch the other side."
High above the metaphysical layers, in the true Primordial Throne, Lucien opened his eyes once more. His clone's actions danced like ripples in his omniscient perception.
He smiled faintly, fingers tapping the armrest of his throne.
"Drinking Heaven's river, rewriting its current, teaching balance to purity…"
He chuckled softly.
"Yes, that one's growing well."
And across the void, the Styks River itself bent slightly toward the dark—its divine hum now carrying the faint echo of laughter.