When Li Fan stepped out of the Deep Gate, it was as though time itself took a breath.

  The first thing he noticed was the sky—it wasn’t the same as it had been. The clouds no longer moved in predictable patterns. The wind whispered ancient secrets, and the sun rose in a different angle, casting shadows where none should have been.

  Beside him, Yue Xian stirred, her body still fragile from the strain of their journey, but her spirit stronger than ever. She gazed up at the sky, confused yet somehow freer than before.

  “Is this… our world?” she whispered, her voice tinged with awe.

  Li Fan didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stood there, feeling the pull of something deeper.

  The land before them was the same—Jadeveil Plains stretched out into the horizon—but everything felt different, as if the land itself had been reset. The boundaries of fate had been torn down by his presence.

  “It is,” he said, his voice low and thoughtful.

  “But not in the way it was.”

  And with that, the first wave of change began.

  The land around them trembled. A crack appeared in the earth—one that wasn’t there before, a scar twisting through the world. Slowly, that scar began to bleed light, and from it, life began to emerge.

  First came the trees—thick, green, and radiant, unlike any Li Fan had seen before. Then came the flowers—vibrant, their petals flickering like tiny stars. And with them came creatures—beasts of pure light, animals whose forms flickered between the visible and the unseen.

  Yue Xian stood, her eyes wide.

  “The world is… awakening.”

  And awakening it was. As though something that had been locked away for eons was now being set free.

  “Not just the world,” Li Fan said, his voice gaining strength.

  “Everything is changing. Everything we know is being remade.”

  The stars in the sky flickered, shifting constellations, and the wind whispered of long-forgotten realms. The earth, once bound by laws, now bent in strange ways. Paths were twisting and shifting on their own, like threads of fate being woven anew.

  Suddenly, a pulse of light tore through the air. It wasn’t a sound—it was a feeling, one that rippled through the very fabric of existence.

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  Li Fan’s body tensed. His flame rose instinctively, protecting him, as he felt a presence—one that existed beyond gods.

  Then, from the center of the pulse, a voice spoke. It was not heard by ears—but felt in the soul.

  “The First Godslayer’s heir has returned.”

  “The world cannot remain as it was. Everything must be reborn.”

  The voice was neither male nor female—it was ancient, layered with the voices of countless beings.

  “Your flame has set the world ablaze. What happens next is not yours to decide alone.”

  The pulse began to fade, but the message lingered in Li Fan’s chest, settling like a stone. It unsettled him—because it wasn’t a warning. It was a call.

  Li Fan turned to Yue Xian, who was still absorbing the scene around her. She caught his gaze, sensing the weight of the moment.

  “What do we do now?” she asked, her voice uncertain but determined.

  Li Fan’s hand reached for the shard of the Godslayer that still burned in his chest—a piece of divinity that had become part of his very soul.

  “We walk forward,” he said, his voice steady.

  And with that, the flames of his soul ignited once more. He felt the world shifting beneath him as though he was the very center of all things. Paths opened before him, roads that led to realms and destinies unknown.

  And yet, there was one path he could not ignore.

  The world was in flux, and he would need to walk it, knowing there was no return to what had been.

  Far above, in the heavens, the Celestial Tribunal—the very beings that had tried to stop him—shuddered.

  They had felt it.

  The gods had been locked in their thrones, thinking themselves above the mortal world, above the true power of creation. But Li Fan had burned their dominion. And now… they could feel the world slipping.

  A figure stood in the midst of the tribunal, a being cloaked in shadow, whose eyes burned like molten gold.

  “The crownless flame has kindled its own kingdom,” the figure whispered.

  “And no god can extinguish it now.”

  A deep silence settled over the gods.

  “We must end this. Before the flame consumes everything.”

  But it was already too late.

  Li Fan had broken the chains.

  Li Fan and Yue Xian stood at the edge of the reborn land, the air thick with new possibilities. The path ahead was unclear—there were no signs, no maps. The world itself was changing, shifting with every breath they took.

  But Li Fan wasn’t afraid.

  For the first time in his life, he felt the truth of his own destiny.

  “We don’t need to know what comes next,” he said softly.

  “We just need to keep moving forward.”

  And so, hand in hand, they stepped into the unknown.