The Gate of Ancients loomed before them—tall as a mountain, forged of stardust and timeworn sigils. A relic of the First Era. It did not open with force, nor respond to cultivation. It responded only to destiny.
Wang Chung reached out—but before his hand could touch the surface, the void split apart, and Elder Wu stepped forth.
Gone was the kindly old mentor. In his place stood a vessel cloaked in voidfire, with nine shadow-lotus sigils glowing along his arms and a crown of abyssal jade. His voice thundered like cracked thunder through water.
> "You've walked the path I laid. You've grown on the fertilizer of my lies. And now, you will die at my feet, Wang Chung."
Yu Meilan drew her bow.
Long Tian stepped forward, his soul already burning at the edges.
But Wang Chung raised a hand. "He's mine."
Their duel was a storm across realms. They fought in forgotten ruins of time, in frozen echoes of the past. They clashed above the sea of flame, in the ghost-ridden chambers of the Silent Sovereigns.
And with every strike, Elder Wu tore pieces of Wang Chung's memory away.
The face of his mother faded. The feel of his brother's hand disappeared. Even the scent of plum blossoms in spring—gone.
> "Without memory, you are nothing!" Elder Wu roared. "You are no Sovereign! You are a mistake!"
But Wang Chung smiled—broken, bleeding, and defiant.
> "Then let me be a mistake that defies you."
With a final surge of the Crimson Void Lotus, he shattered Elder Wu's core—but not before the old man whispered a curse: "You've opened the Gate. Now the Sovereign Beyond Time will awaken… and no one will be spared."
As Elder Wu's body dissolved into ash, Long Tian stumbled and collapsed, his skin graying. He had burned part of his lifespan to bend the flow of time, giving Wang Chung a single moment of advantage.
> "Don't… mourn me," he whispered. "I'd do it again… for our brotherhood."
Yu Meilan could not stop the tears as she formed the Moonveil Cocoon to seal Long Tian in a healing slumber.
And Wang Chung, stripped of memory and brotherhood, stepped alone toward the gate.