The sky tore open.
Where there was once divine decree and heavenly trial law, now fragments of law rained down like burning ash.
Lin Xuan stood at the center of the ruin, flameless, breathless, and still.
Behind him, the mirror-gate to the Celestial Bureaucracy twitched—unstable, flickering, attempting to close itself.
He stepped forward.
The trial world no longer mattered.
Heaven was next.
Chaos in the Trial Realm
Cultivators screamed as the realm destabilized.
The Trial Rings cracked.
Time looped in short bursts.
Spirit rivers reversed flow.
One sect disciple aged a hundred years in seconds.
Even Ji Yunlan fell to one knee, clutching his temples as fate backlash surged through his meridians.
Nie Qing, still standing, spoke softly:
"He's broken narrative cause…"
"This isn't a trial anymore."
"This is a declaration of war."
Transition: Gate of Final Authority
The iris-shaped gate rippled one last time before collapsing inward and reforming into a staircase of translucent scripture.
Lin Xuan ascended.
Each step was made of rewritten history—records of cultivation altered by Heaven to maintain control.
On the third step, a scroll fluttered open beside him:
"Record of the Eighth Origin War: Lin Xuan, Eliminated."
He snapped his fingers.
The scroll burst into reverse-flame.
A new script wrote itself.
"Record of the Eighth Origin War: Lin Xuan, Initiator."
He walked on.
The First Heaven
At the top of the stairs, he entered a vast expanse of stone halls, glowing runes, and whispering ink.
This was not a battlefield.
This was a library of fate.
Scribes in silver robes scattered as Lin Xuan's presence arrived. Their qi cultivation was minimal—but their authority could reshape kingdoms.
Each one was a Storykeeper, tasked with adjusting karmic plots and rewriting records of spiritual evolution.
One of them raised a trembling brush.
"You're not written. You're not—possible."
Lin Xuan raised his hand.
"Correct."
"So start writing."
Technique: Null Flame Codex – Narrative Collapse
Lin Xuan's palm glowed.
He struck the scroll the Storykeeper held.
And all across the hall, the stories began to collapse:
A war that ended with a hero's sacrifice… now never happened.
A divine beast's rampage rewritten into a birth ritual.
A sect's rise vanished—its founder now unborn.
Heavenly decrees fluttered to the ground, the paper rotting mid-air.
One scribe collapsed, screaming:
"He's burning the roots of karma!"
"He's unbinding the plan!"
First Resistance: Heaven's Enforcers
A trio of armoured beings descended from above.
Not cultivators.
Not humans.
These were Constructed Authorities—avatars made of contract and code, bound directly to Heaven's Will.
One wielded the Axe of Record: capable of cleaving cause from consequence.
Another bore the Scroll of Unmaking: capable of erasing a name from time.
The third… had no weapon. Just a voice: it could command truth.
The leader spoke:
"Lin Xuan. You are in violation of the Three Fates Accord. Stand down—"
"Or you will be cast into Unwitnessing."
Lin Xuan answered with silence.
Then stepped forward.
Battle: Lin Xuan vs. Heaven's Constructs
The axe fell.
Too slow.
Lin Xuan raised a single finger.
The axe never arrived—its concept unglued from the present. It returned to its forge in the past.
The Scroll of Unmaking unfurled.
Lin Xuan's name appeared… then vanished.
He stared at the enforcer.
"You need a name to erase a person."
"I abandoned mine the day I walked the Ashen Path."
The third construct opened its mouth:
"LIN XUAN IS—"
Lin Xuan raised his hand again.
And whispered a single word.
"No."
The enforcer collapsed, its laws invalidated by a concept it could not process: refusal.
Heaven's Law Breach Confirmed
Above, the celestial sky flared.
A new decree, malformed and frantic, burned across the realm:
"—BREAK—""UNSTABLE — NARRATIVE FAULT — ERROR IN AUTHORSHIP —"
And then—
The sky split open entirely.
Lin Xuan Enters the Second Heaven
What he found was not a battlefield.
But a courtroom.
Lined with infinite thrones.
Each one empty—except one.
A figure sat in it, shrouded in divine light. A brush in one hand. A chain of golden scripts in the other.
The Overseer.
The one who wrote the fate of every Void Cultivator.
"So you've come," the Overseer said.
"To be rewritten."
Lin Xuan stepped forward.
His voice was soft.
But each word fell with the weight of erasure.
"No."
"I've come to write myself."