Zhi Xuan caught a fleeting glimpse of Xu Han. Amidst the chaos of the battle, he saw Xu Han performing a series of hand mudras that were incredibly intricate and beautiful—a technique he had never witnessed in any sect across the Nine Plains. The aroma of heavenly flowers that had briefly vanished now surged back, sweeter and more intoxicating than before.

  "Hmph!" Zhi Xuan wasted no time on questions. He stomped his foot, and his intermediate-stage True Domain expanded instantly. "Reincarnation: Eternal Star!"

  The entire room seemed to be sucked into a vortex of reverse absorption. The Bronze Guardian let out a roar—the sound of clashing metal—as the energy driving its body was forcibly pulled away by the laws of Zhi Xuan’s Domain. Xu Han’s silk threads tightened further, emitting white smoke as they seared the surface of the ancient armor.

  With one final movement, Zhi Xuan condensed his sword intent into a single point of gray light at his fingertip, then thrust it directly toward the guardian's chest, where a bronze gem pulsed weakly.

  CRACK!

  The gem shattered. The red light in the guardian's eyes dimmed, and its giant frame instantly stiffened before finally crashing to its knees upon the obsidian floor. The chilling air that had previously gripped the room slowly faded, leaving a silence that once again enveloped the hall.

  Zhi Xuan withdrew his fingers, letting the sharp remnants of sword intent evaporate into the air. He stood tall, his breath remaining steady even though the spiritual essence within his meridians had just undergone a violent upheaval. His sapphire eyes did not immediately turn to the metallic corpse before him; instead, they were fixed on Xu Han, who remained standing with arms crossed over his chest, hiding his secret mudras beneath the folds of his silk.

  "An interesting technique, Brother Xu," Zhi Xuan said, his voice flat yet carrying a sharp edge of scrutiny. "Silk threads capable of locking the frame of a Palace Guardian... I’m beginning to wonder if your friend from the Ancient Clan also taught you how to weave the scent of flowers in the middle of this parched graveyard?"

  Xu Han remained silent for a moment. He slowly lowered his hands, letting the pink threads fade and reabsorb into the pores of his skin. He turned toward Zhi Xuan with a thin, seemingly calm smile, but a mysterious glint lingered behind his clear eyes—a gaze that seemed capable of folding distance and time.

  "This world is filled with thousands of ways to survive, Brother Zhi," Xu Han answered in a voice that had returned to its deep register, though a hint of softness could not be entirely suppressed. "Some use swords, some use laws, and others... well, never mind. This aroma is merely a residue of the breathing technique I use to stabilize my inner state."

  He stepped closer to the corpse of the Bronze Guardian, which had now become a dead statue. Xu Han did not touch it; he only stared at the cracked armor with a gaze full of mystery, as if he were stepping out like this for the first time and seeing such ancient things tangibly before his eyes.

  "Do not let your curiosity become an obstacle, Brother Zhi," Xu Han continued without looking back. "The throne before us is far more honest than anyone standing in this hall."

  Zhi Xuan snorted, but he did not pursue his questions. He realized that in a place like the Collapsed Wilderness, forcibly unveiling someone’s secrets would only trigger unnecessary conflict. He stepped forward, passing the kneeling guardian, toward the far end of the hall where the Bronze Throne stood with a painful majesty.

  The throne was not made of dazzling jewels. It was merely a large chair forged from raw bronze, yet around it, flows of gray energy swirled to form a natural protection. On the back of the throne was a carving of a needle and thread sewing the sun and moon together—the symbol of Great Emperor Zhetian’s ultimate achievement in weaving the laws of the universe.

  Zhi Xuan stood exactly before the first step leading to the throne. He felt every hair on his neck stand up; it was as if thousands of invisible needles were trying to pierce his physical and mental defenses. This was not just the pressure of a powerful practitioner, but the weight of a history too heavy for time to carry.

  "Needle and thread..." Zhi Xuan murmured, his eyes fixed on the carving on the throne's backrest. "An emperor who regarded the universe as her woven fabric. Brother Xu, isn't it ironic? We, who are called great practitioners, spend thousands of seasons dissecting laws, while she... she simply sewed them."

  Xu Han stepped up, standing level with Zhi Xuan but maintaining a distance of three paces. He stared at the throne with deep intensity, as if reading a love letter written in blood and tears.

  "Sewing is the highest form of creation, Brother Zhi," Xu Han replied softly, his voice echoing gently in the silent hall. "Dissecting only destroys, while sewing unites what is separated. Zhetian knew that this Heaven and Earth is a torn cloth, and she spent her life mending it."

  Zhi Xuan turned his head, staring at the profile of Xu Han’s face illuminated by the blue glow of the night pearls. "Then, what lies behind this throne? You didn't bring me here just to admire old furniture, did you?"

  Xu Han gave a mysterious smile, a curve of the lips that appeared remarkably graceful in the dimness. He raised his hand, pointing to a small box hidden beneath the seat of the throne—a simple bronze box that had neither a lock nor a spiritual seal.

  "Inside lies the 'Heavenly Silk Fragment'," Xu Han whispered. "It is said to be Zhetian's final record before she stepped into the Upper Realm without using the path provided by the Gods. It is a map, or perhaps... a key to seeing the curtain that covers the Nine Plains."

  Zhi Xuan took a step back, and Xu Han did the same. As they stepped onto the second stair, their vision suddenly stretched, and their bodies were dragged by the timeline separating them.

  "Brother Zhi, do not lose your focus!" Xu Han shouted, but his voice sounded as if it came from thousands of miles away, separated by twisting laws of space.

  The hall of the Bronze Palace, which had been solid a moment ago, suddenly melted like an ink painting splashed with water. Spatial lines manifested as crisscrossing silver threads, pulling their bodies in opposite directions. Zhi Xuan felt the pressure beneath his feet vanish, replaced by a spatial tug that threatened to tear his meridians apart.

  "Damn it!" Zhi Xuan hissed. He tried to plunge his sword intent into the floor to anchor himself, but the obsidian floor had turned into an expanse of gray nothingness.

  In the midst of the raging dimensional vortex, he saw Xu Han—usually so calm—showing an expression he had never seen before: pure panic. Xu Han’s face turned pale, and with a reflexive, lightning-fast movement, he reached out his slender hand toward Zhi Xuan.

  "Zhi Xuan, take my hand!" Xu Han cried out. His voice broke, losing its manufactured deep tone and turning into a sharp, piercing pitch that sliced through the silence. "Zhi Xuan!"

  Dozens of pink silk threads shot from Xu Han's fingertips, trying to coil around Zhi Xuan’s wrist to pull him back into his protective embrace. However, just before the threads could touch Zhi Xuan’s skin, an explosion of gray energy from the Bronze Throne struck between them.

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  "Don't die! I will wait for you on the other side!" Xu Han screamed, his clear eyes flashing with deep anxiety. He tried to lunge forward through the spatial storm, ignoring the risk of his body being torn apart, but the dimensional rift closed with a boom that deafened the soul.

  Zhi Xuan only managed to see the shadow of Xu Han disappearing into a dim pink light before his consciousness was pulled into an endless black hole.

  "Brother Xu—!"

  Zhi Xuan’s voice was swallowed by the roar of an ancient wind. He felt his body being dropped from a height surpassing the highest mountain peak in the Nine Plains. Tremendous air pressure hit his face, while his mind was forced to endure the weight of thousands of memory fragments flashing by like lightning.

  BOOOOOMM!

  Zhi Xuan’s body slammed into an incredibly hard surface. The impact was so great that his True Domain manifested automatically to dampen the force that could have shattered his bones. White dust billowed high, obscuring his vision as he fell with one knee touching the floor.

  Zhi Xuan coughed, fresh blood seeping from the corners of his lips. He closed his eyes for a moment, suppressing the upheaval of spiritual essence in his chest that felt like it was on fire. "This place..." he murmured hoarsely.

  As the dust slowly thinned, Zhi Xuan looked up. He found himself no longer inside the palace, but atop a giant stone altar so vast it seemed endless. This altar floated in the middle of a silent gray void. However, what was most terrifying was what surrounded it.

  Surrounding the altar stood thousands of massive stone pillars, towering high through the gray clouds above and plunging into the depths of the darkness below. The pillars had no carvings, yet they radiated an ancient aura so heavy it felt as if they were the ones propping up this entire Heaven and Earth to keep it from collapsing into nothingness.

  Zhi Xuan stood up with difficulty, his black-and-white robes tattered from the spatial friction. He stood in the center of the altar, which now felt like a silent stage before those giant pillars.

  "This silence... is heavier than in the Ruined Wilderness," Zhi Xuan whispered. He reached for his storage bag, but he froze as he realized that his mental resonance with Xu Han had been completely severed. "How did he know my name? Didn't he only know me as Zhi?"

  He was alone before the pillars of the world. In front of him, the pillars vibrated subtly. Zhi Xuan looked up, searching for the curtain of heaven Xu Han had mentioned, but he found only endless pillars, sewing the darkness below to the void above.

  WUSH... WUSH...

  From behind him, a weave of incredibly fine threads suddenly appeared. Zhi Xuan turned for a moment and stood paralyzed as the threads passed through him as if he were never there. The threads floated upward, condensing between the pillars. Instantly, they became the silhouette of a Great Emperor’s robe fluttering in the air—a sash so magnificent and majestic it adorned the waist and back of the figure.

  The silhouette manifesting from those threads was not a body of flesh, but a weave of will so pure that the space around the giant pillars began to bend in submission. The ceremonial robe, carved from mist and light, fluttered without wind, spreading an aura that would make even a Weaver Transformation practitioner feel like a grain of dust at the foot of a sacred mountain.

  Zhi Xuan stood frozen. Every strand of thread forming that majestic sash pulsed in sync with the heartbeat of the universe. He felt the lines of Reincarnation within him—the Six Paths Wheel he had just developed—vibrate violently, as if he were facing the original weaver of the fabric of fate he had been trying to dissect.

  "Who is this woman?" Zhi Xuan whispered, his voice hoarse yet full of sharp determination. "Is this... the Great Emperor?"

  The figure merely looked toward the sky, and then the sky before her shattered and tore without a sound. It was as if the majesty of the Great Emperor could not be matched by Heaven and Earth. In the gaping tear of the sky, there were stars shining—a massive spiral that seemed to contain entire worlds.

  The figure moved her hand, and from the movement of her fingers before her chest, a bright light split the sky, piercing through and detonating everything in its path. Every star that melted in that explosion seemed capable of holding thousands of plains, much like the nine plains of the lower realm. Zhi Xuan’s gaze was forced to witness the destruction and creation occurring behind that tear in the sky.

  The bright light detonated by the Great Emperor’s finger was not merely an attack, but an act of purification. The melting stars released pure essence that was then pulled back by the Great Emperor's fine threads, woven into a new robe that was grander, vaster, and more untouchable.

  "The power of a Great Emperor," Zhi Xuan whispered with trembling lips. His face was filled with wonder, like a young man seeing the majesty of a primordial dragon. "Weaving a robe with constellations... one wave, and the entire universe is like an ocean sweeping away sand."

  The sight was so stifling that Zhi Xuan’s mind felt as if it were being pulled out of his body. He could see the shimmer of the vast robe; even if the Nine Plains were woven into it, they would look like beads as small as sand in the middle of a celestial ocean.

  He saw how the vast stars—stars he once admired, wished to reach, and dreamed of one day grasping—were merely one insignificant small knot at the edge of that majestic figure's robe. Before this figure, every achievement of his cultivation, every life-and-death battle he had endured, felt like the dance of an insect beneath a giant's foot.

  SSSHHH...

  The sash fluttered gently, and in an instant, distance and time were devoured, throwing Zhi Xuan backward as if he did not belong in a place permitted to witness the Great Emperor. A blinding white light swallowed his vision, and before he completely lost consciousness, he heard a faint clink—like the sound of a needle falling onto a bronze floor.

  Zhi Xuan gasped, his lungs feeling as if they were forced to inhale freezing air. When he opened his eyes, he was no longer at the altar of giant pillars. He was sprawled on the floor in a room he did not recognize. He scrambled to his feet, though his body felt slightly stiff. His eyes swept the room, searching for Xu Han, but all he found was a stifling silence.

  "Brother Xu..." Zhi Xuan whispered, his voice raw. He remembered Xu Han’s scream when the dimension split. That name. Xu Han had called him by the name Zhi Xuan, not Zhi. "He knows who I am..."

  "Where did he go now?" Zhi Xuan clenched his fists, feeling anger mixed with confusion. "That man, or whatever it was, must come from a major faction in the Nine Plains."

  He touched his chest, feeling his heart still beating irregularly after witnessing the majesty of constellation-weaving by the Great Emperor's silhouette. In his mind, the fragments of that vast robe still danced, shattering every bit of arrogance he had ever held as a genius practitioner.

  He then recalled Xu Han mentioning a companion who was a Holy Maiden of an Ancient Clan. If it were Zhu Qinglan or Ye Xishui, it seemed impossible. Only one thing crossed Zhi Xuan’s mind: Xu Han himself was actually the Holy Maiden, disguising his name and body.

  "Xu Han..." he murmured again, his eyes scanning the room, which now looked more like a hidden ancient meditation chamber. "The aroma of heavenly flowers, the silk thread technique, and such deep knowledge of the Emperor Monument. A Holy Maiden of an Ancient Clan... but from which one?"

  WHUNGG!

  Zhi Xuan saw a bright light like a formation altar, followed by the sound of friction in the air. He immediately faded into a shadow, merging with the darkness within the walls of the room to conceal himself. He didn't hide without reason; it was because of the powerful aroma of heavenly flowers.

  The aroma was no longer thin like it had been in the bronze hall; now, the fragrance exploded with a purity capable of washing bone marrow. Zhi Xuan held his breath, sinking his presence into the deepest crevice of the shadows. His sapphire eyes remained open, staring intently at the formation altar that was now vibrating violently in the center of the room.

  From the center of the glowing formation, a silhouette slowly manifested. The blinding silver light began to fade, revealing the figure standing there. Xu Han—his deep blue robes appeared tattered. He looked around for a moment before stepping out from the altar.

  "Hmph, where is that foolish man?" Xu Han murmured, his voice now shifted to the rustle of a fox. "Has he not found a way out yet? In that case, I will transform here first."

  Zhi Xuan, hiding within the darkness, felt his heart stop for a second. That voice was no longer the manufactured deep tone full of authority, but a clear, sharp silver melody full of an unmistakable elegance.

  Xu Han—or the figure who had been using that identity—took a long breath. She raised her trembling hand, touching a hidden seal at the base of her neck. Instantly, the deep blue aura that had wrapped her body like protective armor began to crack and peel away like a snake shedding its skin.

  "This technique is truly torturous," the figure complained again. "I’ve had a difficult time since moving away from the Clan."

  Zhi Xuan watched with his own eyes a transformation that defied the logic of the flesh. The frame of the sturdy man slowly shrank, the broad shoulders becoming slender and smooth, while the posture shifted into a silhouette that curved beautifully like a willow branch in spring.

  Her black hair, previously tied stiffly, now unraveled and fell to her waist, radiating a heavenly floral scent far more potent than before. A thin pink light enveloped her, wrapping the bare body which made Zhi Xuan hold his breath.