The throne no longer shimmered with divine pressure. Instead, it pulsed with potential—a canvas of will, unburdened by dogma. Lin Sheng leaned back slowly, not in ease but in contemplation. Each heartbeat echoed across the Library of All Possibilities, resonating through its infinite corridors.
Before him, the blank tome continued to write itself with every decision he made.
Fei'er stood beside him, watching the ink twist into philosophy.
"Do you feel it?" she asked quietly.
He nodded. "Not just what I write. But what others might. It's… open."
Jin Rui walked to the center of a spiraling platform made of parchment threads. He gazed skyward, where thought itself arced in lightning-bolt script.
Mira, ever curious, began to scan the endless shelves, and found scrolls rearranging themselves at her touch. They chronicled not the past—but possibilities. Future factions, realms, Ascendant schools—all waiting for approval.
One scroll floated to Lin Sheng.
It read:
Ascension Path Proposal: Emberborn SectFounders: Jin Rui, Mira, Fei'erPhilosophy: Unity through DiversityKey Teaching: Flame is not destruction. It is rebirth.
He signed it with the ink of will.
The Emberborn Sect was born—not from stone or sword, but from collective truth. Across Realms, cultivators suddenly found visions guiding them toward this new path.
Elsewhere, old Sovereigns resisted. Some remained buried. Others awakened.
One, the Sovereign of Bones, stirred deep in the ruined cycle of Rothekar. Its skeletal army crept through forgotten folds, their goal simple—restore a world where life was subjugated to undeath.
Lin Sheng felt the tremor.
"I have to face them," he said.
Mira stepped forward. "Not alone."
Fei'er conjured a portal with music—the first portal ever sung into being.
Jin Rui lifted his warhammer, now renamed Principle.
Together, they entered Rothekar.
What they found was desolation.
Skies without color. Rivers made of ash. Temples shaped like ossuaries. And in the center, the Sovereign of Bones sat upon a throne made of marrow.
"You left the Library open," the Bone Sovereign rasped. "You let free will spread like fire. Fire must be extinguished."
Lin Sheng answered, "Then meet the Emberborn."
They clashed.
Bone against flame. Silence against song. Order against choice.
But this time, it wasn't just Lin Sheng's power.
It was the will of all who had chosen to believe in the new cycle. Mortals and immortals alike. Forgotten gods, wandering cultivators, celestial spirits.
And when the Sovereign of Bones was unmade, the ash did not fall—it rose, shaping the seed of a new realm born from balance.
The Library wrote it as:
Realm 001: AshlightElement: Death in HarmonyCycle Class: Transitional
Back in the Library, the throne flickered.
Lin Sheng realized something profound: he would not need to sit on it forever. The throne could move. It could shift. Others could sit.
He stepped down.
The ink paused.
Fei'er sat next. Then Mira. Then Jin Rui.
And so, the Cycle of Shared Sovereignty began.
The first ever where no one ruled forever.
To be continued in Chapter Twenty-Seven – "Fractures in the Ink"