Yet not all was silent.
Something remained.
A fragment.
A whisper.
Not of the Abyss—but of a deeper truth.
Mount Xinglan — After the Battle
The monks, now awake, wept openly at the base of the mountain. They clutched their robes, their beads, their scrolls—but most clung to one thing above all:
Their names.
At the summit, Li Fan stood alone.
The wind tossed his hair, the memory-fire burning faintly behind his eyes.
His fists were cracked and bloodied—not from the Herald's strikes, but from the weight of every soul he had carried in the battle.
Yue Xian appeared beside him, her hands pressed together in a prayer gesture.
"Your name," she whispered. "It anchors more than you realize."
Li Fan breathed deeply. His cultivation stirred—not a wild surge, but a steady, earth-rooted growth.
He had fused past and present, mortal and immortal, into a new foundation.
Yet something unsettled lingered at the edges of his spirit.
The faint pulse of a second name.
A name he did not yet know—but that knew him.
The Fragment
The sliver left behind by the Herald was not dead.
It was coiling through Mount Xinglan's sacred ground, seeking.
Seeking him.
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As Li Fan reached for it, visions flashed in his mind:
- A crown of broken stars.
- A river of names flowing backward through time.
- A hand offering a flame shaped like a sword.
And then—a voice:
"You who walk Crownless...
Do you wish to know the name that even Heaven feared to speak?"
Li Fan opened his eyes.
His cultivation surged, threatening to tear through the barrier between realms.
He was on the verge of breaking into True Celestial King.
But he held it back.
Power without understanding was just another chain.
He spoke aloud, voice calm as the sea before a storm:
"I will not wear another's crown."
The fragment quivered. Then it entered him—not with violence, but as a memory he had always carried.
Elsewhere — The Thrones of Heaven
In the Heavens far above, ancient beings stirred.
The Celestial Emperors.
The Dao Venerables.
Even the slumbering Spiritual Gods.
All felt the pulse.
The reawakening of the Nameless Throne.
Once, long ago, there had been a ruler above even Heaven.
Not by law.
Not by decree.
But because their very existence made order unnecessary.
When that being vanished, Heaven sealed the memory itself.
Now, that forbidden resonance stirred again.
Because Li Fan had touched it.
And Heaven trembled.
The Decision
Standing atop Mount Xinglan, Yue Xian asked quietly:
"Will you ascend?"
Li Fan looked at his hands—ordinary, calloused, real.
He smiled faintly.
"No," he said. "Not yet."
He turned from the peak, walking downward, into the world of mortals once again.
"If I ascend now, I will only be another tyrant cloaked in light."
"I must build the path first."
"A path for those who have no names."
"A path... beyond Heaven."