CHAPTER 162 — A SHATTERED PHOENIX, A WORLD FORGED
1. A Body Falls from the Rending Sky
The Abyssal Training Ground shook.
Not from battle — but from distortion.
The rift high above the roiling plain spasmed violently, its edges bending inward like a giant inhaling. Guards stationed around the perimeter tensed immediately.
"Spatial turbulence rising!"
"Brace! Something is coming through!"
A shearing sound — like worlds screaming — tore across the sky.
Then she fell.
A girl wrapped in tattered white, stained with ash and blood, plummeted out of the collapsing rift. A trail of silver-black hair whipped behind her as faint embers of phoenix fire flickered weakly from her limbs.
Her body hit the hardened obsidian ground with a soft, broken thud.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
One guard stepped forward. "Alive?"
Another bent to check her aura — flinched — and pulled back.
"Phoenix… essence? But corrupted."
"And her realm signature— it's collapsing. She's from a destroyed world."
"Another survivor… like Sir Lin."
That last whisper drew every gaze toward the direction of the sect.
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2. Rumors Reach Lin Xuan
Lin had just left morning cultivation with Tian when the whispers spread like fire:
"Someone fell from a lower realm."
"She survived a destruction event."
"A phoenix-bodied girl found in the abyss plain!"
Tian's brows shot up. "Phoenix body? Isn't that—"
"Extremely rare," Lin finished quietly.
Saint Shengyuan and Aurora exchanged glances.
"Another," Shengyuan murmured. "A second displaced soul. This realm has begun attracting fate threads from shattered worlds."
Lin felt a tightness in his chest.
He knew too well the helpless terror of watching a world die.
He asked no questions aloud, merely continued toward the sect master's training platform. But inside, something stirred — sympathy… and an instinctive pull he didn't yet understand.
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3. Sect Master Training — The Path Toward Godhood
Xuanyang waited for his two disciples atop the high platform again, suspended above drifting astral currents.
Today he held no spheres, no simple tests.
Instead, a vast constellation diagram floated behind him — shifting runes, interwoven laws, glowing nebula strands.
"Yesterday was foundation," he said. "Today… you begin shaping your futures."
He pointed to Tian.
"You shall walk the Path of the Heavenly Marrow — rewriting your bones into conduits of force. A Titan's true strength starts from within."
Then he turned to Lin.
"And you… must refine the world inside you."
Lin bowed slightly. "How, Master?"
Xuanyang smiled.
"By forging the Laws as a smith tempers metal. You have expanded… now you must make every inch of that expansion sovereign."
He gestured.
The constellation behind him collapsed into a single spear of light, plunging down toward Lin like a falling star—
Lin caught it with both hands.
It felt like grabbing the core of a sun.
"Good," the sect master said. "Now compress it, control it, and redraw its orbit."
Lin's body trembled, his inner universe responding instantly — his twin suns pulsing, planets shifting. Gravity shook.
But he didn't buckle.
Xuanyang's approving nod was faint. "Continue until you can knead a star the way a mortal kneads clay."
Tian exhaled. "Our master is terrifying."
Lin silently agreed.
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4. Yueyin Awakens — A World She Doesn't Recognize
In the Healing Ward…
Xuan Yueyin gasped awake.
Light pierced her vision like needles. She tried to rise — pain lanced through her chest — and she collapsed back onto the bedding.
Soft chanting hummed around her. Arrays glowed faintly, dissolving the Abyss's corruption.
A healer approached. "Do not move. Your qi channels need stabilizing."
"…where… am I?" Yueyin whispered.
"The Astral Forge Sect," the healer replied gently. "You fell from a collapsing rift into our abyss training grounds. You are safe now."
Safe.
The word almost broke her.
Yueyin turned her head slowly, taking in the clean room, the gentle warmth of spiritual lamps, the absence of screams, the lack of void tendrils clawing at her heels.
Her breathing hitched.
"…my realm," she whispered. "Did… any others… escape?"
The healer's expression softened.
"No. You are the only one we found."
Her eyes trembled — but she didn't cry.
She had cried until nothing remained back in the dying fragments of her world.
After a long silence:
"…thank you. For saving me."
"You saved yourself," the healer corrected softly. "You reached a rift and survived the Abyss. That alone is a miracle."
The door opened.
A calm, authoritative cultivator stepped inside — Elder Rowan.
His deep voice filled the room. "Phoenix bloodline. Corrupted, sealed, but salvageable. Girl, you are lucky. Few lower-realm survivors arrive with their minds intact."
Yueyin bowed her head. "I… will do my best to recover."
Rowan nodded. "After your wounds heal, you will undergo lower-realm acclimation training. Strong gravity, dense qi, law thickening. It will be difficult — but necessary."
Yueyin swallowed and nodded again.
She had no realm left.
No home.
No family.
All she could do was endure.
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5. A Fate Intertwines Quietly
Later that evening, as Lin finished training and walked through the sect's inner courtyard…
A faint tug brushed his senses.
Like a distant phoenix cry smothered by snow.
Aurora materialized beside him. "She's awake."
"Yueyin?" Lin asked softly.
Aurora nodded. "Her soul is fragile, but she is strong. Stronger than she realizes."
Lin looked up toward the direction of the Healing Hall.
He didn't know why…
but something in him whispered that their paths were meant to cross.
Not now.
Not yet.
But soon.
Very soon.
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