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In the High Vault of Heaven's Breath — where no mortal sound had ever touched — the Divine Council assembled.
Seven Thrones hovered in a ring of celestial fire, each occupied by an entity cloaked in myth and consequence. They were the inheritors of the old laws. The voices of creation. The watchers of the Mirror.
And now they stirred.
"The Mirror has fractured."
"The boy carries the wound."
"He must not be allowed to awaken the Core."
The one known only as the Unspoken slammed his staff into the void, ripples scattering across the starlight floor. "He touched the fracture without collapsing. The Echo did not consume him."
The Blind Seeress hissed, "Because he is no longer only flesh. He has become... something Else."
The air trembled.
From the far end of the council, an eighth light flickered. A throne unoccupied for eons.
The Throne of the Crimson One.
Empty… Yet pulsing.
---
Back in the mortal realm, Yun Che awoke from meditation.
He stood, eyes closed, and took a breath.
Jasmine sat on a broken column nearby, her arms crossed, her gaze steady. "You felt it too, didn't you?"
Yun Che nodded. "They've stopped watching. Now they're moving."
She stood. Power surged around her — not rage this time, but purpose.
"We need to move first."
---
They traveled to the Forgotten Forge — a place where divine weapons were once born and banished. The stones there whispered old names, and the air reeked of history.
There, Yun Che laid Hong'er across an altar of black obsidian.
"You've tasted reflection. Now taste awakening."
The blade pulsed. Hungered. Sang.
Jasmine added her own blood. Their combined essence soaked into the altar.
And the forge screamed.
From the depths of the altar, fire surged — violet and blue, edged with crimson.
Hong'er changed.
Not longer. Not sharper.
But truer.
A weapon no longer tied to fate. But bound to will.
---
Far beyond, within the sealed depths of the Eternal Spiral, the Evil Infant smiled. She watched as a new thread in the weave of destiny glowed — one not written by the gods.
"The gods have forgotten fear," she whispered. "Let the Betrayer remind them."
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