Far in the north, where no bird flew and no sect dared plant its banners, the blackened winds of the Desolate Wastes began to churn. Beneath the shadow of the Coffin Spiral, a trembling ripple spread through the ground—too faint for the world to feel, but enough to stir the echoes of something buried.
Yan Zhuo opened his eyes.
They were not the eyes of a man waking from slumber, but of one returning from death. Crimson sparks flickered in his pupils like twin suns about to reignite. All around him, darkness howled—an abyss sealed by the Seven-Pointed Brand. But now, the brands had cracked. The chains had cooled. And the seal no longer sang of Heaven's will, but of Heaven's fear.
He inhaled—and the air trembled.
"Three hundred years," he whispered. "You silenced me for three centuries… and called me Tyrant."
With a flex of will, the cracked seal shattered. Not in a scream, but a sigh—as though the realm itself had waited for his return.
At that exact moment, back in the Central Heavens, cultivators across the realm paused mid-breath. Birds cawed and dropped from the sky. Ancient bells rang out warnings of imbalance. Spirit trees withered briefly, then bloomed with red flowers never before seen.
At the Verdant Radiance City, the Imperial Oracle's scrolls burst into flame.
"Impossible," whispered Seer Luo, standing atop the Star Dome. "The Tyrant's aura… has returned?"
In a hidden cavern beneath the Southern Archive Sect, Yue Lian's scroll flickered. The ink she had been writing bled outward, taking the shape of a dragon—then of a man with a flaming crown and tattered robes.
She didn't understand what she saw. But Shuang, her spirit beast, howled mournfully.
"Yan Zhuo… is that your rage?" she whispered.
Lin Huo appeared behind her, panting. "We've delayed long enough. We must leave tonight. The Silver Judge is circling the eastern cliffs. If he finds you—"
She held up the scroll. "He's not the only one rising from shadows."
Back in the Forbidden North, Yan Zhuo stepped forward. His robes, once imperial crimson, now flickered between flame and ash. His spiritual core, fractured and dormant for three centuries, pulsed with rhythm once more. But what grew in his core was not pure qi—it was rage, tempered by sorrow.
He looked to the sky. "You rewrote me as a monster… to hide your sins. Very well. Let them tremble. Let them remember why Heaven needed chains to bind me."
He raised his hand. Flame bloomed—not red, not orange, but a sorrowful blue. It did not burn; it remembered.
The winds shifted. Across the world, the name forgotten was whispered again—Yan Zhuo, the Crimson Tyrant.
But now, not all who spoke it did so with fear. Some whispered it with hope.
And in the dreamscape between life and death, a figure watched: a girl in azure robes with eyes like falling snow.
She smiled. "You've awakened, my brother. Let us finish what they could not."
Her spirit dissolved into butterflies. And the sky cracked.