---
In the moments between breath and war, Yun Che stood beneath a sky that had once condemned him.
The wind here carried no scent. No warmth. Only memory.
Jasmine walked beside him, silent as always, her steps stirring motes of ash that refused to fall.
They had crossed the Weeping Bridge — a place where divine sinners once begged for a second fate.
No one had ever returned.
Yet here they were.
Not to plead.
But to claim.
---
In the Void Beyond Light, the Crimson Throne pulsed again.
The seven Thrones shuddered in its presence — not in fear, but in remembrance.
"The Crimson One was erased," the Unspoken muttered, voice laced with echoes of storms long buried.
The Blind Seeress trembled, vision lost to time. "Erased? No. Rewritten."
The Eighth Throne cracked.
Just once.
A soft sound.
But in that moment, a hundred false prophecies died screaming.
---
At the Forge, Hong'er hovered above Yun Che's palm — no longer a sword, but a living edge of defiance.
Her eyes opened for the first time since rebirth.
"Master… I remember fire."
Yun Che touched her cheek, calm and unyielding. "Good. You'll remember blood next."
Jasmine's aura danced around her like constellations torn from orbit. "They will try to bury you again."
He turned toward her. "Then we'll bury the sky first."
---
From the depths of the Broken Realms, a voice tore across space.
It did not echo.
It erased echo.
"You have awakened the Core."
The sky darkened.
A single line of crimson bled through the clouds.
It wasn't light.
It was reminder.
---
Far away, the Evil Infant stood atop the Spiral's edge, her hair flowing like ink through galaxies.
She looked up, where the Heavens once denied her name.
And smiled.
"Let the moon reign."
---
That night, the Crimson Moon rose.
Not overhead.
But from beneath the world.
Where betrayal once bloomed, it now commanded.
And Heaven, for the first time in ten thousand cycles… kneeled.