Grief was not meant to touch a celestial—yet it shattered her all the same.
As Xiaozhen's divine body failed, the poison gnawed not only at flesh but at her celestial core. Anger flared first, fierce enough to fracture her meridians. Sorrow followed, cold and endless, weighing upon her spirit like chains forged by Heaven itself. Each stage of grief passed beneath the silent gaze of the Heavenly Dao, unacknowledged and unmerciful.
Before her final breath scattered into starlight, she made a vow.
The man she once bound herself to through heavenly rites had betrayed both oath and law. For ambition, he poisoned a celestial princess. For the throne, he extinguished her life—and the nascent soul forming within her womb, a spirit not yet named.
Death should have returned her to reincarnation.
It did not.
Her resentment anchored her between realms, her divine soul refusing to disperse. Bound by karmic threads soaked in blood, Xiaozhen lingered within the celestial palace, her presence etching itself into the jade walls and immortal arrays. Where she passed, spiritual energy warped. Lantern flames trembled. Even the warding formations whispered her name.
She would not be erased by treachery.
No longer a pawn discarded at will, no longer a silent consort beneath another's shadow, Xiaozhen became a specter of judgment. Her will condensed, her spirit sharpened, her vow echoing through the void like a forbidden incantation.
Heaven had failed her once.
This time, she would carve her justice with her own hands.
And when her voice finally rang through the night—cold, steady, unyielding—it was not the cry of a wronged woman.
It was the declaration of a celestial who refused to fall.