The heavens had burned for seven days.
From the mountains of Yue to the temples of the West, fire fell like rain. The divine banners that once gleamed above the clouds now lay torn across mortal soil. Even the stars trembled—dimmed by the wound Li Shen had carved through the sky.
In the Valley of Echoes, he stood alone. The wind was quiet.Only the distant groan of falling heavens broke the silence.
Marshal Yuehan knelt beside a pool of molten glass where her reflection shivered. "The Emperor's voice has vanished from the heavens," she said softly. "The priests call it the Silence of the Ninth Heaven. They blame you."
Li Shen looked up. His eyes were dull, sleepless. "They aren't wrong."
She turned to him. "You destroyed a false god. You gave mortals a chance to choose."
Li Shen smiled faintly. "Choice brings chaos. Heaven's order was cruel, but it was a cage that kept the world from eating itself."
He reached into his robe and drew forth the fragment of the Codex. It pulsed faintly—its light flickering like a dying star.
"Now the cage is gone," he murmured. "And the beasts will wake."
Days later, word spread through the martial lands.
Sect after sect declared independence from the Heavenly Alliance.The Azure Gate Sect raised its own divine idol. The Iron Pagoda Clan claimed they'd found a new prophecy written in the falling starlight.And somewhere beyond the northern seas, a voice began calling itself the True Heaven—promising resurrection for those who bent the knee.
Li Shen walked among these ruins unseen. Wherever he passed, the Codex whispered fragments of fate:
"A city will burn for your name.""A child will be born with your eyes.""The Thirteenth Verse awakens."
Each whisper dug deeper into his soul.
One night, under a storm of falling stars, Yuehan found him again—sitting beside the grave of a fallen soldier.
"Still mourning?" she asked.
He didn't look up. "He was one of yours. Tried to protect a wounded child during the siege. Heaven or Void, mercy dies first in every war."
Yuehan sat beside him, placing her spear across her knees. "The Alliance has fallen apart. They call you the Void Emperor now. Some worship you. Some hunt you. Which one are you?"
Li Shen finally looked at her. "Neither."
"Then what are you?"
He stared at the Codex in his hand. "A question that keeps answering itself."
The wind shifted suddenly. The stars flickered. Then the Codex grew warm—too warm.
Li Shen stood. "Something's wrong."
The air trembled.The ground split, and from beneath the valley rose a colossal structure—a temple of obsidian and bone, etched with the same runes that marked his arm.
A deep voice thundered from within:
"The Codex remembers its Author."
The temple doors burst open. Lightless energy poured out, and from it stepped a tall figure clad in white and gold, eyes like twin suns.
Li Shen froze. "No…"
It was Yan Rui.His brother. His blood.Alive—reborn.
But his aura was wrong. It radiated both divine and void energies, perfectly fused.
Yuehan gasped. "That's… impossible."
Rui smiled faintly. "Brother. The heavens are not dead. They were rewritten."
Li Shen's heart tightened. "By you."
Rui nodded. "Heaven and Void were never meant to be separate. You tore them apart. I brought them back together."
He extended a hand. "Come with me, Li Shen. The new Heaven has no masters, no gods. Only balance."
Li Shen stepped back slowly. "Balance built on what? On lies? On power stolen from the dead?"
Rui's expression darkened. "On truth. The Codex isn't a weapon—it's a reflection. You and I are the final lines. If we fight, the story ends. If we unite, it begins again."
Yuehan gripped her spear. "Don't listen. He's not your brother anymore."
Li Shen's voice was quiet. "No. He's what I could have become."
The Codex floated between them, glowing brighter and brighter—torn between two halves of the same soul.
"The Thirteenth Verse approaches. Choose."
The valley trembled again as the temple's pillars cracked.Rui spread his arms. "Then let the next world judge us both!"
A storm of light erupted. Heaven and Void intertwined in a spiral of gold and black, devouring the horizon.
Li Shen drew his sword. "Then let this verse be written in blood."
The two brothers clashed.Blades screamed. Stars fell.The world forgot to breathe.