The corridor smells of damp stone, cold metal, and something faintly rotten—
The atmosphere is unique to the Divine Puppet Sect.
Chen Zhenhai walks through it with steady, controlled steps.
Once, as Crown Prince, he would never have set foot here.
To nobles, this sect was filled with lunatics—degenerates whose practices were whispered about but never acknowledged.
To ally with them openly was to disgrace the throne.
But now?
He has no throne.
No dignity.
No wife.
No son.
He enters a broad stone chamber.
A voice greets him immediately.
"Crown Prince, when are you going to meet your crown princess?"
He stops.
Yan Li stands against the wall—arms folded, expression lazy but sharp.
An elder of the Divine Puppet Sect, one of the handlers of this underground base.
Chen Zhenhai answers coldly,
"I will. The time hasn't come yet."
Yan Li lifts a brow.
"Then, when will the time come? If you delay much longer, you won't receive the baptism. Without it, you will never become a Heavenly Official of our sect."
Silence settles.
Chen Zhenhai's fists tighten at his sides.
He has tasted the meaning of helplessness.
He has lost his kingdom.
His wife… now lies in another man's bed.
His son… may one day call that man father.
A humiliation sharper than blades.
Strength—he needs strength.
The strength of a Heavenly Official.
Only then can he reclaim everything.
He says slowly,
"I need to figure out how to extract my son from the palace without raising an alarm."
Yan Li shakes his head.
"Impossible. If the boy disappears, your wife will raise the alarm instantly."
Chen Zhenhai's jaw tightens.
"So we must prevent her from doing so. And then compel her to carry out our task—poisoning Kong Wuya."
Yan Li straightens slightly.
"And how do you intend to block her? How do you intend to force obedience?"
Chen Zhenhai inhales, then his features ripple—
bones shift, flesh writhes, and in a breath, he becomes the likeness of a young child.
Yan Li's eyes widen.
"You intend to replace your son."
Chen Zhenhai nods grimly.
Yan Li says,
"You may deceive everyone else… but it's impossible to fool Kong Wuya. And your wife will notice within moments."
Chen Zhenhai's voice hardens.
"I will never go near Kong Wuya. As for my wife, she must know who I am. Only then can she be forced to do my bidding."
Yan Li smiles thinly.
"Then I will wait for your good news."
Chen Zhenhai's face returns to normal.
He takes a step forward, voice cold:
"I will fulfil my task. But tell me—can your poison truly block Kong Wuya's mana? If not, the entire plan will fail because of your incompetence."
Before Yan Li can answer, a soft voice rises behind him:
"Do not worry, Crown Prince. We will be using Dark Moon poison."
Chen Zhenhai turns.
He Yingli steps into the lamplight—
The woman who saved him on the night his kingdom fell.
Her gaze is calm, confident.
Chen Zhenhai murmurs,
"Dark Moon poison…"
Ancient stories surface.
"Is it not said that this very poison once weakened the Day Goddess… allowing the Night God to slay her?"
He Yingli smiles faintly.
"Yes. That same poison. And once administered, Kong Wuya will be unable to move even a thread of mana."
Chen Zhenhai feels triumph bloom like fire in his chest.
"Good. Then I will perfect my transformation technique."
He turns, steps echoing down the stone corridor.
Deeper into the base.
Deeper into darkness.
Deeper into the path of reclaiming everything he lost.
------
Kaelan opens his eyes at last.
A week of uninterrupted deduction, and the blurred lines of the forging hall slowly sharpen into form.
The enormous forge sits before him—silent, waiting—while the blueprint of the flying ship still flickers in the back of his mind, every array, circuit, and structural layer etched into perfect clarity.
A natal weapon that is also a vessel.
A ship that flies.
A ship powered by its own spiritual-energy reservoir.
A ship that can lend him its strength in battle.
Not yet built—but fully conceived.
He rises, joints cracking faintly, and walks out of the chamber.
The moment he steps outside—
A crow swoops down and lands neatly on his shoulder.
It caws urgently.
Across the courtyard, two forgers pause in their work, staring.
One whispers,
"You think Teacher Kong… actually understands what the crow is saying?"
The other snorts softly.
"Most likely. Teacher Kong probably created a spell just for crows. Everything he does is strange anyway."
A pause.
"…But why crows, though?"
Kaelan ignores them.
His attention is on the message carried in the crow's voice—
The faint pattern of sound his spirit translates instantly:
"The other two masters have finished refining the device."
Good.
The communication device—the first step toward linking the thoughts of his three selves—
no longer relying on crows to shuttle fragments of consciousness between Chen and Tang Kingdoms.
Kaelan feeds the crow a wisp of mana.
The little creature shivers with pleasure, feathers puffing, then launches off his shoulder and disappears into the sky.
Kaelan turns and walks toward one of the warehouses.
Moments later, he emerges carrying a one-meter metal sphere, its entire surface carved in interlocking runic channels.
Dense. Heavy. Silent.
The core of his future "satellite."
He bends his knees and—
with a single step—
shoots straight into the sky.
Wind howls past him. Clouds tear apart around him.
He keeps rising until the upper world opens like a silver ocean—
the undersides of the Sky Islands looming far above.
He stops there.
A perfect place.
High enough that no bird or cultivator will collide with it.
Low enough to stay beneath the territories patrolled by the Twilight Clan.
He presses his palm against the sphere.
Mana pours out.
Lines of runes blaze to life across the metal surface, gleaming gold and deep blue.
The sphere lifts from his hand—floating—
Then its surface ripples.
As if swallowed by an unseen veil…
It vanishes.
Completely.
Even Kaelan's spirit sense brushes against nearly nothing—
only the faintest distortion, detectable only because he forged the device himself.
"Good."
He drops into a dive, wind screaming past him.
Clouds break like waves around his body.
Just as he pierces through—
His senses jolt.
A warning.
A tremor in his mana.
A ripple in the air.
Someone is watching him.
Not normally a problem.
But today… after placing the communication device…
No one can be allowed to know.
Kaelan halts mid-air, eyes narrowing.
His spirit unfurls—razor-thin, silent, hunting.
"Who is spying on me?"
He turns slowly through the open sky—
sharp, silent, his spirit stretched thin as wire—
—and begins his search.
A ripple.
A disturbance.
A faint, unnatural buzz of spiritual energy brushes against the edge of his perception.
His gaze snaps toward the source.
"There."
A soft hum vibrates the air—almost too faint to hear.
"You are not going anywhere."
Mana surges from his core.
A giant mana-hand manifests above him, translucent and shimmering like molten glass. It shoots forward, fingers closing around something invisible.
Kaelan feels resistance—small, fast, almost slippery—
but caught.
He pulls back.
Hovering in his mana-palm is an oval metal object, no bigger than his fist, with two pairs of tiny wings folded against its sides. A construct—mechanical, engineered—so stealthy even his spirit sense nearly missed it.
He narrows his eyes and probes it with mana.
Instantly—
The object vibrates.
Buzz—
Then—
BOOM.
A miniature explosion flashes inside his mana-hand.
Shards, dust, and twisted fragments scatter and fall through the air.
Kaelan disperses the mana-palm with a flick.
He searches again—
a full sweep of mana and spirit—
but finds no second device.
Only then does he descend, flying toward the capital with a dark, unreadable expression.
---
Far to the south, in the Ren Kingdom…
Inside the grand cultivation chamber of the Yuan Family Ducal Estate,
Nyxarin's eyes snap open.
The air ripples beside him.
A large metal egg, its body fitted with segmented limbs—two hands, two legs, folded wings—materialises with a faint mechanical hum. It kneels on one knee.
"My lord," it reports in a metallic voice,
"The spy monitoring Chen Kingdom's capital has been destroyed."
Nyxarin's brows tighten.
"Who destroyed it?"
"It transmitted no information before destruction," the construct replies.
"The final signal was lost instantly."
A long silence.
Then—
Nyxarin exhales slowly through his nose.
"…I see."
His gaze grows colder.
"How goes the ruin?"
The metallic being bows its head.
"The plan proceeds well. The ruin's reveal has created a great disturbance across the human world. And during the decade auction of the Silver Treasure House, we succeeded in placing several treasures—each labelled as originating from the ruin."
It continues,
"After the auction, interest will surge further. More humans will converge upon the location."
Nyxarin's voice drops, low and sharp:
"The demons cannot be trusted. To win this war, I need the humans. This plan must succeed—there cannot be any failure."
The construct bows deeper.
"Yes, my lord."
Its form shimmers—
Then vanishes without a sound.
Nyxarin closes his eyes again, drawing in divine power as he resumes nourishing his fractured divinity,
His aura flickered as a moon half-clouded.
The game is moving.
And on the other side of the continent—
Kaelan has just noticed the first shadow.