Chapter 77 – Echoes Beyond the Veil
The cold of the night blew fiercely through the slopes of the Sacred Bones Mountain Range, but Han Feng remained motionless, his eyes fixed on the two stars shining in the sky: one red, pulsating like an open wound in the firmament; the other, purple, silent as death. The Gu of the Blue Star Flame still vibrated slightly in his palm, as if responding to the call of the stars.
He couldn't explain it, but an invisible connection seemed to link him to those distant lights. His heart beat in unison with the celestial pulses. It was as if something — or someone — were about to cross the barriers between worlds.
— The veil between the heavens... is becoming thin — he murmured.
That same night, as Han Feng moved away from the mountain range, traveling towards the ruins of an ancient cultivator city, an invisible wave swept across the entire continent. Some felt it as a chill, others as a sudden burst of inspiration. But for the more sensitive, it was terrifying: the spiritual veins changed course, and the primordial essence oscillated in unpredictable cycles.
In the depths of the Celestial Corpse Sect...
The hollow-eyed elder, now meditating over a putrid lake, suddenly opened his eyes.
— The abyss... is whispering again.
Behind him, the headless body of the young master killed by Han Feng floated in a blood capsule, surrounded by funeral runes. An ancient ritual was underway — not to revive, but to extract his last intact memory.
— Show me... the face of the one who challenged our legacy...
The waters trembled, and a distorted image appeared: Han Feng before a jade altar, playing the Gu of the Blue Star Flame.
— This flame... does not belong to this world...
In the ancient battlefield of the Forgotten City
Han Feng stepped on the cracked ground of a lost city. Its crumbling walls bore marks of explosions, beast claws, and ancient inscriptions. There, centuries ago, cultivators from both sides of a forgotten war had perished. Only ghosts and secrets remained.
He was searching for an ancient Gu that, according to a map stolen from the Dark Butterfly Sect, resided in the ruins of the central tower: the Gu of Entangled Memory, capable of revealing information forgotten by the mind and even visions of alternative timelines.
While exploring, he once again felt the oscillation of space. A wave of spiritual energy made him stagger. Pieces of the night sky seemed to shatter like glass before his eyes — an illusion? Or a glimpse of the other side?
— This is getting worse...
Finally, he found the tower. At the top of the ruin, wrapped in dead vines and ancestral dust, there was a small silver chrysalis. Upon touching it, visions struck him with fury:
A man with golden eyes fighting against a beast with ten tails. A woman with silver hair sealing a sky that was falling in flames. And, finally... himself, before Wang Lin, their eyes meeting, as if they recognized each other.
Han Feng recoiled, gasping. The Gu of Entangled Memory merges with his sea of consciousness, granting him fragments of a future yet to be lived.
— Wang Lin... that name...
Something deep within her soul reacted. As if fate were trying to force encounters that shouldn't happen yet.
Meanwhile, in Wang Lin's world...
At the edges of a spiritual planet, Wang Lin interrupted his meditation. His eyes narrowed, and he looked up at the sky.
— A ripple? But this... is not from this universe.
The fusion was beginning. Still faint, still distant... but inevitable.
Back to the Forgotten City
Han Feng got up. The sky was beginning to brighten, but the strange stars remained visible, defying natural logic. The spiritual energy around them oscillated more and more violently. The laws of reality were being tested.
He looked at the horizon, where a purple storm was forming. A storm that didn't exist in the forecast of any cultivator or ancient text.
He clenched his fists.
— There's no turning back now.
And with firm steps, Han Feng disappeared among the wreckage, heading towards the heart of the storm — where perhaps, for the first time, he would catch a glimpse of what was truly to come.
The countdown to the collapse of the veils had already begun.