Inside the throne room of Tiangong Palace.
The great marble floor lies fractured, golden inlays cracked open by battle. Shattered glass glitters under the cold starlight that filters through broken windows. The war has ended, but the air still holds its breath.
At the center, Ling Huai's soul fragments flicker midair, dim and unstable. The pieces drift and pull, pulsing weakly like embers fighting the wind. They're slipping, fading.
Dijun pushes himself up from the bloodied floor. His robes hang in tatters, stained and scorched. He lifts his eyes toward the broken soul above. "He won't last."
Behind him, Zhao Yan steps forward, her voice brittle. "Then what are you waiting for? Fix him."
"I already have." Dijun's voice is hoarse. "I've held the cracks together. That's all I could do. Any longer and his essence will scatter."
Meihua moves closer, eyes sharp. "You know what must be done next. And what it will cost."
"There's no other way," Dijun replies. "Rebirth. Three lifetimes. If he can endure them, if he can survive... he'll return whole."
Meihua's brow furrows. "You're talking about bending the heavenly order. That's not a healing—it's interference. A soul shouldn't be tampered with like this."
Xuanyan, quiet until now, speaks. "You'll face judgment for this. Rebirth across lifetimes requires the weaving of fate. You're not just saving him, you're reshaping the future. The balance will tip."
"I know," Dijun says.
"You'll be marked," Xuanyan continues. "Heaven doesn't forget."
Dijun turns to them, calm but unflinching. "Then let it remember. I won't let him vanish."
Zhao Yan steps beside him. Her voice is low, steady. "Neither will I."
Silence falls. Even Meihua doesn't speak. She looks at Ling Huai's soul, at the cracks growing thinner with each second.
Dijun lifts his hand. His fingers glow faint gold, the light trembling like flame in wind. "The debt of sacrifice must be repaid by sacrifice."
Zhao Yan lifts hers beside his. "We bear it now. All of it."
The power begins to stir around them. Ancient. Relentless. The fragments pulse once, hard, as if sensing the call.
Dijun's voice rises, quiet but firm. "He shall live again—through a tribulation of three lifetimes."
As the air bends and the ritual begins to bind, Xuanyan steps back and speaks one final time.
Xuanyan shook his head and gave a last warning, "He may return, Dijun. But none of you will be the same when he does. The Heavens always takes what it's owed."
The hall had grown quiet, but Heaven itself had not.
Beyond the broken pillars of Tiangong Palace, the edge of the celestial platform hovered above the vast mortal wheel. From here, the cycle of rebirth spun slow and massive, pulling the threads of every soul into its endless rhythm.
Dijun walked toward it.
His steps were steady. Too steady. His robes, still scorched and bloodstained, brushed against the stone like ash. Behind him, the air rippled. Power built in his wake.
He stopped just before the edge. The wheel turned below, ancient and patient. His voice broke the stillness.
"If someone must suffer alongside him, let it be me."
A jolt swept through the chamber. The sky flickered. The Wheel shifted as if startled.
Meihua's head snapped up. Xuanyan's breath caught.
Xuanyan spoke first, sharp. "You cannot. You know what that would mean."
Dijun didn't move. "He won't make it through three lifetimes alone."
Meihua stepped forward. "You don't get to decide that. No one does. That's why it's a tribulation."
"He was broken saving me," Dijun said, his tone cold and tight. "You would have me watch him fall again and again?"
Xuanyan's expression darkened. "This isn't grief speaking. This is guilt."
"He trusted me," Dijun said. "And I failed him."
"You're not a mortal to make penance with flesh and blood," Meihua snapped. "You are the axis. You hold the seasons, Dijun. You descend, and balance collapses."
Dijun's hand twitched at his side. Light began to ripple around him, faint and unstable. "Then let it collapse."
Xuanyan stepped in front of him, palm raised. "You think suffering beside him will help him? If you fracture the cycle, you doom more than his soul. You tip the scales. You destroy the order you swore to protect."
Meihua raised her ribbon and sent it lashing forward. It wrapped around Dijun's chest, glowing and taut, stopping him an arm's length from the edge.
"You want to join him?" Meihua said. "Then kill what's left of Heaven first."
Dijun didn't fight the binding. Not yet. He stood there, eyes locked on the spinning wheel below, as if it might open and swallow him whole if he willed it hard enough.
Zhao Yan hadn't moved from where she stood at the back of the hall. She hadn't spoken once. Her gaze was fixed on Dijun. Her hands were clenched at her sides.
She was listening. Waiting.
The floor trembled under them. The Wheel pulsed, sensing the weight of a choice not yet made.
Silence returned. But it wasn't peace.
It was pressure.
Something would have to give.
The hall is quiet. No one dares speak. No one dares move.
She walks into the center. Her steps are even, her armor still stained from battle. The blood is not hers, but it clings to her all the same.
Her eyes never leave Ling Huai. His soul floats in silence, the fragments suspended in soft light, fragile and barely holding together. His presence is faint, but enough. Enough to anchor her.
She stops in front of him. The others wait for her to speak.
She does.
"Then send me."
Her voice is soft, but it lands with finality. It is not a request. It is not desperation. It is a decision.
Dijun turns slowly. He looks at her as if he might have misheard.
"Zhao Yan..." His voice is thick. The words stop there.
She takes another step forward. Then lowers herself to the floor. She kneels in front of Dijun, but not out of duty. She does not bow her head. Her spine remains straight. This is not submission.
This is offering.
"No matter where his soul is cast," she says, "I will follow."
Her voice is steady. Her eyes are not cold anymore. They are tired. Open. Human.
"In war or peace. In memory or forgetting. Let me walk through all of them with him."
No one answers. The silence turns heavy, like the air is watching.
"I am not asking for glory. Or mercy. Or remembrance."
Her voice tightens.
"I'm asking for the right to stay by his side."
She pauses, then says it slower. Clearer.
"Even if he is bound to never know me. Even if I must watch him fall in love with someone else. Even if I am nothing more than a stranger in every life."
A small crack forms in her voice, but she pushes through.
"If he wanders in darkness, I will be light. If he stands in the light, I will be shadow. Let me bear the weight he cannot. Let me walk the path no one else will."
She swallows once. It's the only sound she makes for several seconds.
"I don't want another war. I don't want another title. I don't want anyone to remember me as the God of War."
She finally looks away from Ling Huai. Her gaze shifts to Dijun. Clear. Unshaken.
"I just want this one thing. Let me choose him. Let me stay."
She breathes out, a breath that sounds more like a release than anything else.
"Let our fates be bound."
Her chin lifts.
And in that moment, everything that held her together begins to loosen. The steel behind her eyes. The coldness in her voice. The distance she always kept.
They see her for who she really is.
Not the blade. Not the symbol.
Just Zhao Yan.
A woman choosing love. Not as a reward, but as a vow.
And for once, she doesn't hide from it.
Dijun stands still, watching her. His brows are furrowed, not in anger, but something quieter. He's been quiet for too long.
"You've made up your mind," he says.
Zhao Yan nods. "There's no other way."
"You will lose yourself." His tone is even, but the pain underneath it is not.
"I've already lost enough," she answers. "Let me choose how I end it."
He steps closer. "Zhao Yan, this is not your burden. I was the one Ling Huai saved. I should be the one—"
"No," she cuts in. "He didn't die for you. He died because I was too late. I owe him more than memory. I owe him a soul."
Dijun's lips part, then close again. He doesn't argue further. His silence is consent.
Zhao Yan gives him a small, tired nod.
Then Meihua steps forward. Her expression is unreadable, but her eyes are red.
"You're really doing this?" Her voice is low, rough.
Zhao Yan looks at her. "You know I have to."
"No, you don't," Meihua snaps. "You always think it's your duty to fix everything."
"It's not about duty anymore," Zhao Yan says. "It's the only thing that makes sense."
Meihua shakes her head. "You're going to burn three lives trying to fix something that broke once. What if he doesn't love you in any of them? What if you suffer for nothing?"
"Then I'll suffer," Zhao Yan says quietly.
Meihua steps closer. "You're my sister. If you go down there and lose yourself, I won't be able to follow."
"You were never meant to," Zhao Yan answers. Her voice stays steady, but her hands tremble. "You have your place here. Guard it for me."
Meihua's voice breaks. "Don't ask me to be the one to tie the thread. Don't ask me to send you away."
"I'm not asking," Zhao Yan says. "I'm trusting you."
Meihua stares at her. Long. Hard.
Then, slowly, she summons the loom.
It hangs suspended in the open sky, a quiet thing made of silver frame and drifting red thread. The air around it crackles faintly, like something old has just awakened.
Meihua steps forward, movements stiff, as if her limbs resist every inch.
Her voice is flat now.
"Three lifetimes. Three trials. Three chances to restore what was shattered."
Her fingers hover over the threadwork. She does not look at Zhao Yan again.
She picks up one glowing string.
"One thread for Ling Huai."
She picks up another.
"One thread for Zhao Yan."
Then the red cord, thicker than the rest, warm beneath her fingers.
"Bound together by crimson. A thread knotted tight by sacrifice."
The loom responds. The threads begin to pulse, weaving themselves into motion, wrapping tightly around a glowing core. The pattern is irreversible.
Meihua does not move. Her face is wet, but she makes no sound.
She finishes the chant, voice brittle but clear.
"Bound by thread. Tied by trial. Let none escape until the final vow is fulfilled."
The light swallows the loom.
Meihua breathing quietly, shoulders still.
Behind her, Dijun closes his eyes.
The sky feels thinner now. Time seems to slow.
Xuanyan steps forward, his usual calm replaced by a sharp, unspoken urgency. His hands move in precise patterns, each gesture steady and controlled. Light begins to gather at his fingertips, forming the outline of a sigil.
Gold threads circle his palm, then break apart into spinning fragments. They twist into a shape too complex for mortal minds to follow. It floats above his hand, pulsing softly, then expands into the open air.
It is the Heavenly Soul Seal.
The wind stills as the formation opens wide. Across the sky, glowing symbols align in a circle, surrounding the fragmented soul of Ling Huai. The pieces hover close, but never quite touching, as if afraid to break further.
Xuanyan speaks, low and focused. "This seal will hold the soul together. It will protect him from erosion in the mortal realm."
He glances at Zhao Yan, measuring the depth of her silence.
"He won't remember anything. But he'll live."
Zhao Yan doesn't flinch. She already knew.
She steps forward as Dijun raises his hand. In his grasp is the faint outline of Ling Huai's soul—cracked, incomplete, but still glowing. It floats just above his palm, flickering like a fragile flame on the verge of dying.
He holds it out to her.
Zhao Yan takes it with both hands. Her grip is firm, but gentle. Like she's afraid it will vanish if she blinks.
Xuanyan watches her, then turns back to the seal. The moment the soul touches the center of the formation, the light locks in place. The fragments stop shifting. They float quietly, suspended inside the golden core.
The seal tightens. It settles into a steady hum.
"It's done," Xuanyan says.
Zhao Yan looks down at the sealed soul. Her expression doesn't change, but her shoulders drop slightly. She knows what comes next.
Behind them, Meihua stands apart from the others. She hasn't spoken since the loom.
Her face is streaked with tears. She covers her mouth with one hand, trying to hold in the sound. But the grief pushes through.
A broken sob escapes her throat.
She turns away, but the sound lingers.
None of them move.
Zhao Yan keeps her eyes forward. Her hands don't tremble. But she hears Meihua. Every cry sinks deeper than any wound.
And still, she does not let go of the soul.
Because she knows this is only the beginning.
Zhao Yan calls her weapon.
Mingxie appears in a flare of silver and flame, its edge humming with quiet defiance. The spear floats beside her, loyal and restless, the air around it pulsing with heat.
She doesn't speak at first. Just looks at it—really looks. The weapon that had followed her through every battlefield, through fire and blood, through victories she never wanted.
She reaches out, fingers brushing the shaft. The spear calms instantly.
Then she turns to Dijun.
Her voice is steady. "Keep her safe. Until I return."
Dijun doesn't answer. He only nods.
She places the spear in his hands. Mingxie shifts, alive with power. Normally, it would have rejected any other hand. But now, it remains still.
Dijun tightens his grip, feeling the weight of the weapon and the trust behind it.
Zhao Yan steps back.
She faces the edge of the celestial plane. Below, the Wheel of Mortality spins to life. The stars pull back like a curtain, revealing the current of fate. It yawns wide—dark, endless, full of forgotten names.
Wind rises across the divine platform. Cold, sharp, final.
Her armor begins to peel away. First the breastplate, then the shoulder guards, then the heavy cloak of rank. They dissolve into light. Her divine mark fades from her forehead, leaving bare skin behind.
The glow around her flickers once, then dies out.
Her power doesn't resist. It surrenders.
She doesn't cry. She doesn't speak. She just breathes—and lets go.
All that remains is her. No longer the God of War. No longer divine.
Just Zhao Yan. A girl carrying a soul that doesn't know her.
Zhao Yan stands still at the edge.
The Wheel begins to stir beneath her. Light fractures in the air. Time bends, slow and heavy.
She doesn't move yet.
Her head turns. Just once.
She looks back—at the sky, at the world she's known since before memory. At Dijun, who carries her weapon now. At Xuanyan, hands still pulsing faintly from the soul seal. At Meihua, whose face is streaked with silent tears.
None of them speak.
Her eyes linger on each of them. The weight of goodbye hangs between them, sharp and thick like smoke.
Then she looks down at the cracked soul floating in front of her. Ling Huai's light flickers, dim but intact.
Her voice is quiet. Meant for no one else but him.
"In every world, I will find you."
She steps forward.
The Wheel takes her.
The red thread stirs in the wind. It trails after her slowly, pulled down by gravity, by promise. It vanishes into the spinning current below.
No one moves.
The skies are still. The gods say nothing.
And above the silent realm of Heaven, the stars begin to dim—one by one.